Some Unfinished Business...

As you should know, Tyler Buitenwerf was unable to complete the tour last year, due to a fall.

Well, it's summertime again, and Tyler is determined to finish. He put out the call on the seatosea forum quite a while back looking for lodging and maybe cycling buddies, and I had to respond.

Yesterday it was my pleasure to meet Tyler and ride with him into London.

We actually made up a small Peloton. John Vandersteen, Pieter Pereboom, and myself from seatosea08 were in the group. And joining us was Fred Nydam, who rode the day into Grand Rapids, and will be one of the first to sign up when (Not IF) the next sea to sea starts organizing. We are all from London, and we met at downtown just after 9am and headed SW, retracing the seatosea route backwards, heading towards Chatham.

The forecast was 30km/h winds from the SW, and rain starting near noon, with possible thunderstorms. Oh well, couldn't be helped. In reality, the wind was much lighter and from the South, so it was not really much of an impediment until near noon. The rain did not hold off, though, and we started getting sprinkled on soon after we left London. It was never that hard, but the moderate sprinkle kept starting and stopping all the way to Glencoe.

I had told Tyler that Glencoe was as far as I was going, and we arrived there around 11:45 and settled into a cafe to wait and have a bite. Tyler road in about 15 minutes later and we had a nice lunch together.

It was fortunate for Tyler that we had ridden out, because the one road that we followed for 20+km was in the process of being covered with tar+gravel, which was taking it from a nice biking road and turning it into a horrendously awful biking road. So we figured out a much nicer, though marginally busier, route to follow back and headed off to London. The rain had given up on us, and so we had nice dry weather all the way back to London. The wind was a big help now, as it was mostly at our backs. We rejoined the official seatosea route in Mt Brydges, and rolled into downtown London about 3pm.

(We told Tyler that he would have to use his imagination to see all the cheering and encouraging crowds that met us on tour...)

Tyler and I cleaned up our bikes last night, chasing those "chipmunks" out of our chains and had a nice restful evening. I had put in 110 km, which was just about double what I've managed so far this spring in other rides.

This morning John Vandersteen showed up at breakfast as he is escorting Tyler as far as Woodstock. Eritia Smit is doing the same thing today that I did yesterday, and cycling out to meet Tyler and then bringing him home to Hamilton with her. Safe travelling, Tyler, thanks for coming along, and we'll see you again sometime!

Art Mulder,
London, ON

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Stats: 114.8km, Avg 23.3 km/h, Max 48.4km/h, Time: 4:55

Now What? (Wrapping Up)

It seems, from reading other blogs, that several folks are dealing a bit with the "now what", that naturally comes after such a large event in one's life. I was "only" on the tour for 2 weeks, and even so I have felt a bit of "disconnectedness" over the past few days post-tour. I can only imagine how that might feel for some of my fellow adventurers who were on the tour for the full 9 weeks.

Have you ever had a vacation where afterwards you can't believe how fast it went? That did not happen for me this time. Those two weeks were so packed, so full, so strenuous, so exciting... that to me it seems to have been far longer than just two weeks.

My own "now what" will probably take some time to answer, as I see what God has in store. However, in the short term I know that it involves:

1. Starting a new job on Monday (Sep 8).
   
2. Putting together a scrapbook of my adventure. I'm currently looking into using blurb.com to create a photobook/scrapbook from this blog, plus some extra bits. They offer a service of having personal books professionally printed and bound.
   
3. Getting going on a few woodworking projects that have a short deadline. I write woodworking project articles for Canadian Home Workshop magazine a few times per year, which I quite enjoy.

I think that keeping busy should help with the transition back to "normal" life.

And like others, I think that brings me to the end of this blog. It has been fun sharing my journey, but the time has come now to wrap it up.

If any fellow riders ever need to look me up, I suggest either Googling "Art Mulder" -- which currently returns my woodworking web page as the top hit, or leave a comment here, as those will get emailed to me.

blessings
Art Mulder,
London, Ontario

ps: YES, I'd do it again.
(But the kids need to grow up more before I could consider doing an entire 9 week tour.)

Saturday, Aug 30: Sussex, NJ to Liberty State Park

The day started, as most any other tour day, with lots of mayhem around the gear truck. People are sorting things, moving things, getting gear in and out of their shelves, and so on. Last night it rained, so the tent was extra wet as I rolled it up this morning. I wasn't the only one to comment to someone about this being the last time we were going to be rolling up a wet tent. I had a bit of extra time, so I unloaded my two laundry baskets and stuffed all my "shelf stuff" back into my large duffle, and put that on the shelf. I knew it was going to be a packed day later on, so it seemed a good idea to just get this pre-organized for later.

I headed out around 7am. I had considered riding with a group, but I knew that we faced a few big-ish hills during the first third (or so) of the ride. On my hybrid, I tend to fall behind a lot of these folks on their light road bikes when climbing hills. This makes "hill days" tough ones for group riding. So I started out on my own. Every now and then I fell in with some other riders, but we didn't stay together for long. After the hills, I hooked up with John DeVries, Ralph DeBoer, Jim DeGraaf and Rick Dejong for the remainder of the morning. Hmm, I didn't think to ask them how they felt about riding with someone who did not have a "De" surname...

We had a grand mood, and had some great riding. Once again there were some impromptu refreshment stations set up by some local folks along the route and it was fun to stop and chat a bit. We also found ourselves a deli/coffee-shop at one point to take a break, since we were well ahead of schedule. And in reference to my previous post, I will say that I noticed quite a few people along the route dealing with flats. I saw at least 4 different folks, including Eritia (she had 3 that day!), repairing a flat.

Eventually we rolled into the parking lot that was our designated staging grounds and we proceeded to mill about, hang about, talk, eat, and discover the distinct lack of restrooms...

Jen was there soon enough and started checking people in. They needed to verify that all riders were present and accounted for, before our scheduled 1:30 group departure time. At 12:30 they were going to start SAG'ing in anyone more than 10-12 miles away. We needed everyone present for this ride!

While we were waiting, Hans gathered together all the riders with Brooks saddles. Another rider (Sorry, I forget whom) had the idea of getting a photo of all the brooks saddle riders and seeing if they could sell it to the Brooks company. Worth a shot, and fun nonetheless.

And then they started gathering us all on the grassy slope to take a group photo. Jonathan Stoner, one of the media folks who accompanied the tour, did the honors

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure more than a few folks are missing from the shot, as some folks arrived just before the 1:30 deadline. That is really too bad, but this had seemed to be the best time to try to take such a photo.

And then we were off, 200 or so riders, taking over a full lane of traffic, stretching out for hundreds of meters, being lead by a police escort. There were 10 miles of ride still ahead, to the coast.

It was an absolute blast.


It was quite the logistical feat, as we started with the Kearns city police, and then were handed off to the Jersey City police, and finally the Liberty State Park police finished the escort.

There were lots of sirens and speeding cars as the Jersey City police played "leapfrog" with us. They would block off and intersection with two cars, and then we'd ride through, and then a few minutes later you'd hear the siren and a police car would scream past, half in the opposing lane of traffic, and jump into the next intersection and block it off for us. A number of were quite nervous about how close they seemed to come to the other cars. But it all went off smoothly.

Well, almost. Poor Kyle blew a flat when we were in the park, and true to what a number of riders had said, he just rode it in. I saw him later and he said it was an expensive flat, but he thinks the wheel is fixable.

And finally, the Atlantic.

Several folks got rather emotional at this conclusion to the tour. And a few got silly also, as you can see here as Brent DeVries waded right out up to his neck with his bike. I saw him swimming to the pier (in the top/left of the photo) later. I hope he took a good shower later, that water wasn't the cleanest!

And that is about the end of my photos. Heather has a few more I might add later. She met me there with our friends the Streelmans. My bike was loaded onto Pieter's van, and then we made the drive to Eastern Christian School where I retrieved my duffle from the truck. Then it was off to find a shower + change of clothes, and then Heather and the kids and I went to Midland Pk CRC for the celebration dinner and later the service. The meal was great, and we got to say farewell to many new friends. And unfortunately we missed many others as well.

The service was great, but far too long. This was recognized by one of the final speakers, but it bears observing: Many of us got up at 5am, and then we rode a challenging course of 100km, followed by a huge emotional event. Most of us were also pretty much used to going to bed around 9pm over the past weeks. Put all that together, and a 2hr service running from 7:30-9:30pm was, IMHO, not the best idea. I'll freely admit that I remember nothing of the main speaker/preacher, as my head was nodding and my kids were getting tired and fidgety. Unfortunately, my youngest, aged 4-1/2 and over tired, had a meltdown at the end and we had to leave immediately after the service and did not get a chance for more formal goodbyes to many of my fellow riders. That was too bad, but it is part of life.

We then had wonderful restfull weekend at our friend's place, lazed by the pool, ate and slept, and eventually made the drive back home to London, where we now sit.

As we drove in the garage it occurred to me that it was almost a full year ago that we made the decision that started me on this journey, and now it is complete.

We look forward to seeing what new adventure the Lord will lead us to in the days, months, and years ahead.

Blessings,
...art

Final Stats...

I'll blog about yesterday later, and post a few photos, but I thought I'd take a moment here and post the stats for the final day.

Stats: 99.7km, Avg 20.8km/h, Max 54.2km, Time 4:47

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And from the final celebration service, some overall trip stats:

Total Flats Today - the last day of the tour (Aug 30): 36 -- that is a trip record. The funniest of those was poor Kyle, who had his rear tire blow on the boardwalk as we were riding through Liberty State Park. He wasn't stopping, and rode the last 2km on the flat. The saddest was Eritia, who had three!

Total Flats for the whole tour: 819

Number of Seattle-to-Jersey City riders who never, ever, had a flat: 11
(there were many more from the final GR-Jersey leg, but this number covers the entire 9 weeks, which is statistically a lot more interesting, especially in light of the previous number.)

Rider with the most flats overall: Eritia Smit with 28. Poor girl.

Total number of falls over the whole tour: 195

Photos from Friday Aug29 - Dalton, PA to Sussex, NJ

Just a few shots today, I don't know why.

1- early morning shot, sorry a bit blurry. One of the rules of camp is NEVER lean your bike on the gear truck or support vehicles...


2- Evening shot. The famous "sign-in" checklist, taped to the gear truck doors. Always sign in when you get to camp, so they know who is still MIA. 3- I've said it before, where do they get these names??

4- And look, I got a windmill shot also!

ttfn,
...art

Photos: Tuesday Aug 26

Photos from Tuesday, Byron NY to Romulus - Sampson St Park.

1- Coffee shop where we stopped in Avon, in the process of being rapidly overrun by cyclists.


2,3 - first west, and then east on the same road going through NY. I just liked the view. Oh, it's forsale!
4- The delightful luncheon put on for us.

5- looking west/north over Seneca(?) lake in the Finger lakes. Almost at the park.

6- Apparently the Addams family lives here.

Thursday Aug 28 -- Binghamton, NY to Dalton, PA (Lackawanna State Pk)

Stats: 90.3km, Avg 23.4km/h, Max 61.2, Time: 3:50

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Rode w/Pieter the actual entire day today. He wanted to take a slower and easier day. Of course, an "easy" pace for Pieter means that my daily average was 2km/h more than yesterday. Hmmm.....

Left around 7am and arrived around noon. Not a terribly long day, and we had a few stops and sights.

Met up with the "London Express" at the PA border. Actually, it's a good thing we stopped there to chat with them for a moment, as Julie the SAG driver pulled up about 2-3 minutes after we arrived. Had we not paused, we would have missed the first SAG stop.
Rode with some of them into the next small town and ended up having a coffee/hot-choc stop with them for a half hour. It was just a sports bar, really, but it opened in the morning for coffee. The owner went out to a store and actually picked up timbits (not really, but equivalent) for us, and then told us it was all on the house!!!

Pieter and I rode on alone - Cynthia Aukema is not comfortable in large groups of riders since her accident. Passed/Visited Peter Beerda's sag at the half-way point.

Saw a very cool railway bridge in the last 1/4. which is where we ate our sandwiches.

Then Walter's sag for a visit in the town of "Hop Bottom". Were do they pick these names?
Hooked up with Nathan, Josh N, and Eritia at Walter's stop and rode with them for about 10+ km. Got another view of the same style rail bridge, but bigger/taller. It's been abandoned, and is in disrepair. It'd be fun to climb/walk on top of it, but not today...

... or not. Later in the evening (after I wrote the above in my notes for posting) I spoked with another rider who saw a train on the bridge. I was shocked. Over at the first photo stop, the concrete was clearly crumbling and I even saw a small shrub/tree growing out of the top of the bridge! Maybe it really isn't the same line, or maybe a bit of surface crumbling is okay from a structural point of view? I dunno.

Then we hit a crazy monster killer hill. It was like the "old river rd" hill back in London, but 5 times longer. or more. Pieter and I both had to stop twice on the first hill, to let our middle-aged heart rates ease off, and our middle-aged lungs catch up. :-) It was a very good thing were were almost done for the day, as that hill sequence turned my thighs to rubber climbing it. Then a nice fast dip, and then another one, though smaller, on the other side.

We cruised into the Sate park, and sat around. Lots of people were there by now. It was possibly the most relaxing afternoon of the entire trip. This is the sort of day that I think should happen before a stop like we had at Chatham, as we would then have more time to enjoy the hospitality of the city and hosts, as well as still have some unwind time. As it was, some people got rather bored since we had hours to ourselves in the afternoon, and yet were "stuck" way out in nowhere with no beach or pool or nearby town. Lots of folks got out the playing cards later on and I ended up playing some Dutch Blitz with Janelle ("nanny" for the Witvoet kids on tour), Eritia, and Corinne.

I did manage to score on the shower front, though. I noticed that once again there was inadequate shower facilities - only two stalls in the men's washroom!! When the gear truck finally showed up (we beat it by an hour at least) I grabbed my bag as soon as it came off, and half-set up the tent, spread out the fly to dry, and grabbed my shower things and headed off to the facilities. I still was beat by other wise riders, and there soon was 2-3 people behind me. We were quick as can be - 3 minute showers, and get out. Ours were hot. Within an hour, the hot-water-heater had been overwhelmed and it was cold showers for the rest. They even started shuttling people over to some of the other restroom facilities in other areas of the park to accommodate all of us.

One bonus many of us realized was that we now could stop washing our cycling gear in the shower or sink, as most of us have 3 sets and there was only 2 more days to ride... Ahh, small blessings!!

Here is a small chunk of the camp, with the restrooms behind, and the kitchen truck far off - actually invisible beyond the trees. This was a very spread out and sprawling camp area.


Oh, and here is Art, Art, and Hans. All three of us with the same MEC jacket.


ttfn,
...art