| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-07-11 15:34:34 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Bike ride to Provincetown, July 7-8, 2006
Mike Broderick and Vesna Damljanovic (report by Vesna) This is a trip I wanted to do for a long time, but finally did a truncated version of it without any preparation, on an evening's notice. I was peacefully enjoying a dinner downtown when Mike rang me up and the next thing I knew, I was nodding ecstatically: "Cool, tomorrow at 7am." To make it more spicy, he has persuaded me that although he'll ride his road bike, my mountain bike "will be just fine, we don't need to hurry." As you look at the pics, you might be disappointed that there are not many biking ones. This is because, while on the road, I was mainly trying to stay alive by ducking the bike-hugging trucks and SUVs and whatnots, and catch up with Mike who charged like a maniac on his road bike, while I trundled after him as fast as my mountain bike's highest gear allowed, to no avail. We rode on Sat from Sagamore Beach at the crack of dawn, 10am, just this side of the canal, following the Claire Salstonall Bikeway (Rt-1) to Provincetown, a bit more than 70 miles, and that went well. For such a skinny peninsula, it is surprising that the first time one sees the ocean is more than a half way up the Cape--there are so many trees and houses--all lovely, I'm not complaining--that obscure the view. All I have to say about the route itself is that whoever picked the roads was either a motorcyclist or a masochist. The last stretch of the route wiggles from one meagre-shouldered road to another so often that it makes you dizzy and the only two atributes I can give them are: beautiful and bloody steep. Scaling them on my mountain bike was a workout of the first kind (Type II fun). I want my medal. Aside from manic peddaling, we waded on Point of Rocks Beach in Brewster, famous for its miles of ankle-deep shallows. The day was fun altogether, what with a lunch stop at a nice outdoor restaurant somewhere before Brewster (don't recall the name) and an ice-cream stop at Cobbs Ice Cream Stand on Rt-6A just before Nickerson State Park. We pased numerous villages with all kinds of hoopla going on and enjoyed a great breezy day and inhaled the intoxicating fragrance of the hedge in bloom that reached as far as the beaches. So New England it was indeed. We crowned the day with a sumptuous lobster dinner at Way Downtown restaurant at P-Town, followed by the unavoidable town crawl, rubbing shoulders with an amazing mix of beaus, artisans and hot-dog lovers with kids on the loose, with ice cream and fudge thrown in for good measure. We camped at the Edge of the Dunes Camp: http://www.dunes-edge.com/ It is lovely and clean, just off of Rt.6 and costs only $35 per tent site (25c per 3 mins for a nice hot shower). We got a spot without a problem, but their website said no vacancy for that day. We had only hard ground for sleeping because we didn't bring pads, hoping to "find" a nice secret place in the naturally acomodating dunes, but we ended up having no time for "finding" when we arrived because the issue of dinner appeared to be most pressing. It seems to me that looking around for a spot in the dunes makes sense only if: 1) at least one person has explored the dunes before, 2) no-one is hungry, and 3) you arrived much before dark. Surprisingly, the hard ground didn't prevent either of us from getting a good night's sleep and we woke up ready to tango. We headed back around 10am, after an awesome breakfast at Edvige's, which I strongly recommend. Their fish'n'chips breakfast seems particularly potent, considering the surge of elan it gave Mike on the ride. We stopped by at LeCount Hollow Beach, Wellfleet, where we waded(me)/swam(Mike) in the FRIGID ocean and observed the throng of surfers grapling with the waves. Once the feeling and color returned to our feet, we headed back on a partly different route than the one we took on the way up. We stayed on Rt-6 till the Rail Trail, which was quite fast and comfortable, considering the sizable shoulder and wide car lanes. Just as we got on the Rail Trail the effect of that potent breakfast started to show on Mike: he simply took off, I lost sight of him and at a particularly deceiving turn, I went the wrong way. I overshot the place at which Mike stopped to wait for me by 9 miles--I simply did not remember any of the roads from our ride up, because I had used all of my meager focus ability on keeping him within my eyesight (and most of the time, he was just a dot on the horizon). I knew where I was, but I didn't know where I was supposed to be and where my partner (who knew all the answers) was. Not to mention it being way past the lunch time and me having no food and no water to speak of. A definition of a predicament. I didn't like it and it apparently showed, because several people approached me offering snack bars--Pria, my favorite brand, can you imagine!?-- and advice, all of which I accepted gratefully. In the meantime, Mike took a pragmatic stand and split in two persons, one of which stayed right at the trail waiting for me to reapear out of thin air, while the other went leisurely to a food stand to get his lunch . Once the phones were turned on, we spent some time chasing each other around the Cape and when our paths finally crossed, we engaged in a friendly philosophical discussion on the importance of sticking together. Mike's bewilderment with the event showed through his repeated exclamation: "I have no idea how this happened!" As we discussed the events, the darkness begun to loom and we had to figure out how to ride back on a narrow road in the dark with only one set of lights. We agreed that Mike should race ahead and get the car before it gets pitch dark, while I go a-peddaling in search of an open restaurant (8pm Sun, in a quaint village of Yarmouth 20+ miles from our car) where I could wait for him without freezing. Just as he left, and I rode couple of miles, anxiously thinking of how one could improvise a goose down suit from a jog-bra and a short-sleeve t-shirt, I saw two people in front of a restaurant, fixing a signboard, so I asked them if the place was still open. I must have looked very crestfallen when the woman said they were just about to close, because she asked me if I had got myself in trouble, so I told her of our brilliant plan. She said the plan was idiotic and that the only way to fix it was to have her give me a ride to our car. Just like that. The Big Brother decided I had enough adventure for the day and sent a rescue in the shape of a 19-yr old no-nonsence twice-divorced mother of a 2-months old baby. So I agreed and loaded my bike in her car, messing up her back seat with bike grease like there's no tomorrow. She said not to worry about it because she "ain't no materialist". Few minutes later, we caught up with Mike and the woman spent half an hour trying to persuade him that he won't look like a woosy if she left ME at a pizza place nearby and drove HIM to the car instead, to speed up the operation. She genuinely thought we were crazy to have ever wanted to bike across THE bridge, let alone having it done the day before, considering how crazy the drivers get as soon as they see it in the distance. So Mike went and soon enough he returned with the car to pick me up. We arrived to Boston finally at around 10:30pm, no casualties except for some hurt feelings, colorful sunburn and a minor butt ache. Some advice to the unsuspecting first-timers: 1) road bike is a must (mountain bike is the stupidest thing I've done in a long time--don't join the club!), 2) padded bike shorts is a must 3) sturdy sandals work just fine (I wore my old clunky Keens) 4) bring a sweater. Also, you don't really need a support person, as you can cary everything you need for the trip in the bike bags or strapped on the bike rack. E-mail Mike (broderic@mit.edu) if you need help figuring out which roads to take. |