Day 44: North Conway to Portland

This morning had a bit of a feel of Christmas day as the counting down of days had finally brought us to the ultimate ride of the trip.  We set off in misty conditions and after 10 miles riding we left New Hampshire and entered the 17th and final state of the trip, Maine.  As we rode through pine tree lined roads, a nip in the air and the imminent reuniting with friends and family added to the strange festive sense.  Blue skies and sunshine made a welcome reappearance after a few day's absence and 60 miles in we arrived at a restaurant in Portland where riders' supporters were waiting to photograph our final pedal strokes.  After a leisurely lunch we rode a couple of miles to the beach, on the way we took a bike path past a sewage treatment plant where the stench and graffitied walls didn't quite match the romantic finale to the ride I had envisaged. That was a temporary blip though and we were soon at the sand to dip our bikes in the Atlantic and bookend our 3,750 mile ride across America.  Andy said that yesterday he had past the one million pedal revolutions mark, it is worth saying that he does ride with a high cadence compared to myself so I probably did around three quarters of that but it gives some sense of magnitude.  On the stats front, in the Strava September Distance Challenge I ended up placed 18th out of 236,404 participants.  There was much merriment and photos at the beach before a short ride to the hotel where we parked our steeds for the final time.

And that was the end of all that.

Ride Details

With all the exercise and Muscle Milk
over the past few weeks,
I have grown quite a bit

Lunch was a different affair today

th'Atlantic

Photo mayhem

Team ABC (Andy, Ben, Charlene)

USA, USA!

Great guides

Not only the bikes took a dip

Final dinner

Celebrations over, look what we face tomorrow