Starting Point: Farmington, ME
Ending Point: Waterville, ME
Via: Fairbanks, New Vineyard, New Portland, East New Portland, North Anson, Anson, Madison, Norridgewock and Oakland.
Mileage: 55.8
Time: 4:35
Mph: 12.2
Terrain: hills, hills and more hills; some long, some short
Temperature High: 84
Temperature Low: 55
Lunch: fluffernutter sandwich, Trek Across Maine famous pizza and ice cream
Dinner: rice, salmon,broccoli and tater tots, creamsicle
Weather: sunny, dry
Lodging: Colby College dormitory
Cumulative Mileage: 1,624
Miles to Go: about 118
Projected Distance: 1,742
Percent Completed: 93%
Writer’s/Rider’s Note: The last 3 days of the ride are being reflected upon on the Tuesday following the actual end of the ride. This is due to several factors: surprisingly no easy Internet access at Colby, exhaustion Sunday and Monday evenings from distance, hills and riding in the rain, and the collegial atmosphere of the Trek “crowd” which was a great pleasure to take part in. In other words, the conflict between participating and reflecting arose and participating won out. Not to worry…every rain drop is still fresh in my mind.
The atmosphere of the Trek is such an absolute turn-around from the solitary first 32 days of this ride. There are over 1,800 riders, hundreds of volunteers at rest stops and on the route, and there are often spectators cheering as we ride by. In general there is a very fine camaraderie among the riders. A cyclist can ride along and end up having a fine conversation with a variety of people (except the speed merchants) over the entire distance of a day. It often happens that the miles pass without one’s notice; I found myself wondering, “where did those last 15 miles go?!”
Every 20 miles or so is a rest stop that has volunteers at the entrance cheering as riders enter. It is truly an exciting and uplifting wave of spirit. I find the entire ride such a mixture of excitement and satisfaction. The Trek is the culmination of my fund-raising year and I can’t conjure up a better way to end it.
The Trek has stated rules about how people should and shouldn’t ride. At the top of the list is the ban on riding in pace lines which is how cyclists should ride in bicycle races. There are nearly 2,000 cyclists all biking for the same cause but at different rates of speed, skill level and safety awareness.
The majority of people do ride safely, but there is still a large group of people who ride as though they were in a race. This makes safety sometimes difficult to ensure. The Trek staff, however, continues to make inroads into this problem and it seemed that this year there were fewer unsafe riders than I remember from 3 years ago. I was glad about that.
Another stark change from the tour prior to the Trek and the Trek itself is that a good bit of my attention went from the surrounding countryside and meeting people who weren’t riding to talking with fellow Trekkers. Not that this is such a bad thing, not at all. It’s just that the focus is no longer “talking up” the goals of the Lung Association to observers, but rather enjoying the companionship of all those other people who have also done that with their friends prior to the ride. During the Trek I don’t stop at service stations, stores, restaurants or other businesses to try and drum up sponsors.
In the evening, I spent time with my Friends’ Team-Wheezers and Geezers. We had a team tent which gave us a place to congregate before the team photo. Some teams had special features, such as; the Fiddler’s Green team had an actual fiddler and a guitarist playing music. That’s a tempting attraction.
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