NEW ENGLAND – Cycling USA 2 (Ep1) – Bicycle Touring Documentary – The start of a new summer.

The start of season 2 of the Cycling USA series starts from Boston, Massachusetts. On the first day I ride 65 miles to New Boston, New Hampshire and visit with friends. The next day I end up in the city of Keene meeting a cool crew from Norm’s bike shop and get bailed out by Eric and Debbie, a bicycle touring couple who hosted me thru the Warmshowers community system. After a storm cell the next morning I make my way towards the hills of Vermont where I get my butt handed to me. Luckily I end up catching a break and stay the night at Colonel Williams Inn for a fair price. I continue on the next day and start what will no doubt be a difficult climb up Hogback Mountain.
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Come along for the ride and see what kind of adventures are around every turn of the road while bicycle touring. This opportunity is for all of us to have and I hope that my passion for bicycle touring and creating this type of content will drive some of you to go give it a try someday, if you are not already. There is so much to see and Im psyched to go at it.
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I start my day riding northwest on the city of boston’s bicycle-friendly roads until reaching the northern end of the city of cambridge where i started a 10-mile minuteman commuter bikeway at elf white station the southern end of the bike path once i reach the end of the minutemen commuter bikeway at its northern

Terminus in the town of bedford i hop over onto narrow gauge rail trail where i eventually find myself heading away from my intended route but luckily find the blue blaze mountain bike trail that leads me to north road and back on track so so on this first day i ride this 65 miles

To new boston new hampshire where i visited with my friends patrick and connie and their beautiful family as usual they treated me like one of their own and shared many memorable days together back on the road after eight months since finishing my first crossing of the united states and once again i’m heading

West my starting point this summer is from downtown boston where i assemble my bike after boxing it for the flight north from my hometown state of florida even though with some jitters i’m totally psyched to be back on the bike and ready to start creating amazing memories in the months to come

So much to see learn and absorb from this wonderful country and its people on my second day i ride 45 miles across hilly new hampshire and end up in the city of keene where i met some wonderful people just had the best time i was like lost

Down this trail that i couldn’t find i turn around i come back i see norm’s bike shop here ski and bike shop i don’t have a hotel a motel campground this whole place is like impossible to find anything available but i happen to call the warm shower like or a guy

Four guys on the warm showers two 204 like got back with me and the one that like seemed really cool eventually while i was in here trying to figure out how to get to this campground that’s way to the south like another 20 miles and i’m really tired i wanted to stop

The guy calls me and he’s like the nicest guy he came over here he told me his wife’s at home just knock on the door and let her know that to just swing over there it’s only five miles away but in the meantime i had a little creaking noise on my

Bottom bracket and the mechanic in there took a look at it and he cleaned it because i don’t have the tool to take it off so he had to do it he took the bottom bracket out he said it looks good even though it’s got like

Close to 4500 miles on it he cleaned it put it back together had a little bend on my disc brake on the front he bent it back it was just light one but enough for me to do it and then i met the owner and all the workers and

We took the bikes in they just closed shop and not a pretty cool experience meeting these people anyways it’s uh norm’s ski and bike shop now i’m going to go to the warm shower place this guy’s house and get some rest i’m pretty tired from all the little hills

The little steep hills of new hampshire i think he might like to ride more than i do after hanging a while with normski and bike shops crew i ride the five miles to the western end of the city of keene where i will be staying in the backyard

Garden of eric and debbie’s home a warm showers host family warm showers is the free worldwide hospitality exchange for the bicycle touring community being the second time i have ever tried warm showers i was a bit nervous about what i might be getting myself into but as soon as i arrived

I realized i was in good hands debbie had left me a kind node making me feel welcomed and offering their guest bathroom for a quick shower i pitched my tent in their backyard and later met eric who brought me an unexpected dinner plate that was superb

Had a pretty good night’s sleep here in my tent and uh for the first time in a long time was so nice and the rain made me sleep in a little bit it’s 9 30 right now but either way there’s a big cell coming so

I’m going to try to pack it up before it gets here and figure out my next move i might just go into town here and like get something to eat and wait in a place for the cell to go by and then try to keep going i’m trying to get to dover

Today but it’s like 4 000 feet of climbing my legs are not ready for that unless it’s not very steep if it’s not very steep i can do it but the way it’s been around here it’s going to be difficult so i have other options in between

And we’ll see what happens i have no idea where i’ll end up tonight i’m gonna break down the tent wet and dry it out later it’ll add some extra weight to my bike but it’s okay eric followed up with his kindness this morning making coffee and a delicious

Breakfast which we ate together while exchanging stories and know-hows about bicycle touring he had much information to share with me which i gladly took in and saved in my memory bank for later i feel as if i made a friend in him and hoped someday to ride some miles

Together with him and his bicycle touring family once this morning’s rain stops and eric and i share goodbyes i anxiously get on the road towards vermont’s hulkback mountain so i’m here with eric he uh hosted me through warm showers it’s really my first warm shower so even

Though it’s the second one the first one i was never a member for this is the first time that i’ve subscribed to the free economy system and he gave me three tips this morning about it because i didn’t really know much and the first one was that i should give more heads

Up because i called him yesterday and uh it was kind of like a last minute i couldn’t find a hotel and stuff and i’m kind of nervous about using it for the first time but it was amazing like i’ll tell you guys about it later in a minute but

The second one was to uh never leave any money that’s like what he said and then uh the third one was to what was the third one eric uh well you can show your appreciation you know certainly that as you’re there you know if you pick up some kind of small little gift

Or something in advance or as a thank you later but just make sure that you you work on building your profile uh with the profile too right on the the warm shower site so leave a review both ends like you leave a review for me and i leave a review for you

That’s right that’s right because then it helps people it helps with the system of trust because you are going into someone’s house and they’re welcoming someone that they’ve never met before and often you end up after that time best friends for life it’s like we haven’t seen each other in

Years but you used as an example like leaving a jar of jelly that you might pick up beforehand in case you stay at some warm showers yeah if you’re just picking up something you know you’re always gonna in cycling run across farm stands you know whether it’s some fresh fruit you know

Nothing big just something small small little trinket this was an amazing experience for me eric and his wife and their 11 year old uh son tyler right they rode from boston all the way to seattle 10 years ago yep tyler turned 12 on the

Trip and it was a trip of a lifetime at the end of the trip he said if i could do this i could do anything that’s pretty cool yeah most times people think that a bicycle touring since it’s coming from me it’s like some guy crazy guy going like but it’s not it’s

Like i try to tell people as couples and then you you hear about like couples with children and they’re like having a life experience like no other it’s pretty cool it’s great to have met you thank you it’s great to meet you too same here

All right i’m off i gotta get on the road back on the road let’s go this late morning start sets me up for a tough day ahead as i’m mistakingly planning to climb almost 3 000 steep feet in elevation and 42 miles to reach molly’s stark state park

I take arch street and chesterfield road to reach franklin piers highway where i get into a faster paced traffic and entertaining hills for several miles i ride up and down these hills and join the drops immensely but once again i find myself in this often scenario

Where i’m unwilling to look ahead at the task at hand i believe i do this unconsciously so as to find adventure by not letting myself know what exactly to expect these hills are awesome i feel like i’m on a boat in the ocean just going up and down waves

Softly graded hills were over after reaching the southern vermont town of battleboro having climbed close to 1 000 feet so far today i now face hulkback mountain and over 2 000 more feet to go to get to molly’s stark state park well the plan didn’t work out after

Climbing 1300 feet in 10 miles reaching the town of mariboro the time crunch and my unconditioned body gave way i’m telling myself that without climbing there’s no dropping that was a legit climb right there my my first big one coming into the hog back mountain i’m officially getting my butt kicked

It’s steep and long and it just keeps going and the traffic is heavy so it adds and compounds to the whole experience i got another seven miles pretty much uphill so i gotta get on it that is kind of eating itself away i was like done climbing it’s

It’s five o’clock right now but i have six and a half more miles to get to the state park i wanted to camp at tonight and almost a thousand feet more of climbing and i’m pooped i would i just i think i did uh over 2500 feet of climbing on my third day

Back on the bike i mean i was cranking them but i’m also like running out of time and i don’t want to be riding on that road with all the traffic it’s like no shoulder a lot of real tight curves and uh didn’t feel like

Not that i wasn’t like willing to do it because i don’t mind like being in the traffic and you know taking control of my lane but i uh i saw these two guys coming out of this inn it says it’s a colonel williams in i walked in here and asked the lady if

She had a room and she goes yeah and i said and she i she i said how much is it and she’s like how much money do you have so she cut me a deal and it’s like it’s like the most beautiful place i’m leaving uh colonel williams and

Owner victoria was super sweet she made me an awesome breakfast and insane muffins man with like this maple butter i ate everything and fruit and a lot of coffee but uh a lot of climbing i had like 2500 feet of climbing and about if i can do it 78 miles

I think i might be able to because i’m getting a little earlier start and there’s a lot of downhilling after 2500 feet of climbing so it could be just a beautiful evening downhill into troy we’ll see what happens this next day proved to be one of the

Most memorable of my early days of this summer ahead of me are 3 000 more feet of steep climbing and 2 000 feet of downhill to finish my day only riding 33 miles to get to the town of bennington the state of vermont proved to be a

Force to reckon with on two wheels this state has all that any hardcore cyclist would ever want scenery low traffic well paved clean roads and serious steep greats all over one hill at a time right off the bat this morning sorry climbing i keep looking down my

Cassette looking for for more gears i don’t have any more gears what do i do i know why i’ll show you in a little bit you