My Ride to Falmouth

This weekend, I decided to ride to my friend John’s house on the Cape. It seemed like a perfect idea - 125 miles, mostly downhill (Barre’s at 810 ft, and Falmouth is at sea level), and I haven’t really had the opportunity to do a lot of long distance rides.
My plan was to be on the road by 5 - I only missed that goal by a half hour. It was raining when I started out, but I was excited, so it really didn’t bother me. As it would turn out, that would be the least of my problems.
At 6:10, just past the turn-off for the Rutland State Park, I ran over a nail which penetrated my wheel. Not such a big deal though, because I very nearly always carry a spare tube, as was the case on Saturday. As I finished changing the tube, I pulled the pump off, and listened in horror as all the air rushed to escape…I had pulled off the valve stem!
Cursing and more than damp, I remembered all the fun my coworkers and I had had the night before, poking fun at Beth’s facilitating questions. I asked myself, So, what are my options? I knew that I could not sit in one place - I’d get cold. I could call a friend who is also a cyclist and even uses the same size wheels as me - he’d certainly have spare tubes. However, he’d also been at the party the previous evening, and out even later than I. With two young children, it would be cruel and unusual punishment to call at 6:30 for a rescue. 7:00 seemed a more reasonable time to call him. I resolved to walk for a half hour. That way, perhaps someone would come by and take pity on me…and if that didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be so far away that I couldn’t call for help.

I must have looked pretty pathetic, walking along the road, carrying my bike in one hand and the flat tire in the other. Within ten minutes, a guy in a pickup truck stopped and asked if I needed a ride somewhere. He seemed nice - a middle aged man in a postal worker uniform - so I decided that it was probably pretty safe, tossed my bike in the back, and hopped in the front. As it turned out, he was actually the parent of a student I’d had when I first started teaching.
He kindly dropped me off at a bike shop in Worcester. By this time, it was 7:30, and still raining. The store…OF COURSE…didn’t open up until 10, which would have been too long to wait. I scrolled through the list of people on my phone, and came to Erik’s number. 7:30? Of course Erik would be awake. Oops - I got the morning voice. Once he woke up, he looked around for some tubes of the right size, but couldn’t find anything. Meanwhile, I’d staked out a corner of the hardware store across the street. The manager on duty overheard my plight, and suggested a patch kit from aisle 27. Perfect! I could fix the tube that had originally been on my bike, and then go on my merry way.
I bought the patch kit and did what I needed to do, being more careful of the valve stem. Well, apparently, I wasn’t careful enough, because when I went to tighten the valve, it broke again.
At least at that point, there was still air inside the tire, so I decided to just go for it, and maybe get to the next bike shop. That plan lasted for about a tenth of a mile, because the tire went flat again. OK, so what are my options? I scrolled through the numbers on my phone again, and came to Bob’s number. Perfect! He came out to Worcester to rescue me and my bike, took me to another bike shop to get some tubes, and then drove me an additional 15-20 miles on my route. That put me on the border of Hopedale, which was very kind of him. Despite his claim that hero-status is fleeting, Bob is still my hero-for-the-day.For the most part, the remainder of my ride was long but manageable, and mostly uneventful. I missed a turn in Mansfield, and ended up on what I think may have been limited access on 140, but I managed to get back on track before 140 and 495 joined forces (where it would DEFINITELY have been illegal to ride my bike). I thought that was pretty scary, but it pales in comparison to my Bourne bridge experience.

You see, the Bourne bridge is right after a scary rotary (I’ve determined that rotaries are BAD on bicycles). There’s about 6 inches of shoulder, and two exits, before the highway joins up with Rt. 6. After I got off the rotary, heading uphill towards the Bourne bridge/495 split, I took a second to assess the situation, standing on a patch of grass (well away from the highway). I took a deep breath, looking at the six inches of shoulder, and thought, I could die doing this.
That’s probably the fastest uphill sprint I have ever done in my entire life, with vehicles travelling 65-70 mph less than 3 feet away from me on my bicycle. It wasn’t until I was actually on the bridge that I realized there was a sidewalk that started somewhere down by the rotary (that was after I removed my heart from my throat). I pulled my bike up onto the sidewalk and shakily finished crossing the Bourne bridge…which, I might add, was no easy task. Imagine biking hundreds of feet over a canal, on wet cement, with slick tires, while the wind is blowing. Did I mention those cars and tractor trailers whizzing past (ok, so now they’re more like 8 feet away)?

The rest of the trip was a piece of cake! (including the cake at John’s party)