Oh Little Town Of …

As would be expected, today’s ride began much like yesterday’s ride ended … with steep hills riddled with stop signs at the bottom of most of them. This did not come as a surprise as I knew there would be a little bit of unavoidable backtracking this morning as I resumed my course to Philadelphia. That said, I still hate backtracking.

However, before resuming course for Philadelphia, I figured I should get some breakfast. Fortunately, breakfast was included with the motel. Sort of. The upside to a $40 motel room is, well … it’s $40 – and the room was nice and clean, so I had no complaints. However, the “breakfast” was more than a little lacking. I mean, part of me felt they should just scrap the offer of “breakfast” because, well … there wasn’t much on offer. At all. I mentioned the room was clean though, right?

Today’s destination was to reach the little town of Bethlehem. But for a brief moment last night, I was more than a little concerned that I had made a huge mistake in my routing plans. No, that’s not a negative statement about Scranton. Or Bethlehem. However, when I initially put those two towns into my GPS the result made my stomach churn. Actually, it was a full on flip. 197 km! And THAT’S why I don’t blindly trust the routing “logic” of my Garmin. Or any other device, actually.

After consulting alternate mapping sources, I was able to come up with a route that was a much more manageable 120 km. I honestly don’t know what route Garmin wanted me to take but a 70 km “detour” was entirely out of the question.

Much of today’s ride was on actual roads and/or highways with the first 50 kilometres being essentially uphill. The upside to essentially 50 km of climbing uphill is that much of the subsequent 70 kilometres was essentially downhill. Essentially. As a bonus, the best part of today’s ride was that the steepest hills were of the downhill variety. However, before I could enjoy the day’s biggest descent I had to get through Mt. Pocono. That really wasn’t all that challenging except for the thick fog that was covering Mt. Pocono upon my arrival.

Having not eaten since “breakfast”, I opted to stop for a bit in Mt. Pocono to grab something to eat and to (hopefully) wait for the fog to lift. I’m happy to report that the plan worked perfectly (no, that’s not a typo … it actually worked).

It was shortly after 7:00 AM when I hit the road this morning. I knew I was in for a long hilly ride so I thought I’d try for a more leisurely pace today. As such, when I stopped for “lunch” in Mt. Pocono it was only 10:30 AM so it was actually more like a second breakfast. Of course, given the quality of the first “breakfast”, well … the second was much more enjoyable – even if it was another Whopper (hypothetically speaking).

Departing Mt. Pocono was more than a little fun. Again, that’s not a negative comment about Mt. Pocono but rather a compliment to the 9% descent I was able to enjoy. Of course, had I been travelling northbound I would no doubt have less favourable things to say about that 9% grade.

Oh, and for those paying attention, yes, I’m still riding with a broken spoke and, no, I’m not sure how much the broken spoke is affecting the efficiency of my bike. However, I did manage to get up to 55 km/h today and my bike really didn’t seem to be wobbling noticeably. That said, I did go SLIGHTLY faster yesterday but, either way, it’s much slower than my fastest ever descent (73.75 km/h in Scotland last year).

For reasons that remain unknown, I didn’t stop to take many pictures today. But I did stop frequently to eat and drink. Apparently, those stops weren’t photo worthy. Or I was just lazy. Either way, there is a serious lack of photos from today. Sigh.

The last 20 km or so of today’s ride was SUPPOSED to be on a trail. I say “supposed to” because that’s what Google wanted me to do. But upon arriving at the trailhead to the Bushkill Trail I decided to taking routing into my own hands.

The road on which I was traveling was in good shape had a very good shoulder. The Bushkill Trail appeared to be crushed gravel. While I’m sure it’s a very nice trail for pedestrians, mountain bikes, and even horses, I was less convinced of the goodness of the trail for my bike and I. As such, we stayed on the highway. As far as I can tell it was a good decision as the remainder of the ride to Bethlehem went smoothly.

My destination in Bethlehem was the home of Janice and Edwin. Warm Showers hosts. And they were great. When I arrived they were actually at a neighbourhood party for a couple that have sold their house and are heading out in a mobile home for three years of travel. Sounds fun. Anyway, my hosts left a note on their door which directed me to the party.

The timing of my stay with Janice and Ed was rather fortuitous in that next week they too will be heading out of town. They have a place in New Hampshire where they spend much of the summer. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I actually biked past their New Hampshire place when I cycled the east coast in 2014.

My day ended with a very enjoyable dinner on their front porch during which there were a plethora of interesting and entertaining cycling stories to shared.

If all goes well, tomorrow will see me arriving in Philadelphia. And hopefully all WILL go well.

Today’s totals:
Distance traveled: 125.36 km
Ride time: 6:20:56
Average speed: 19.74 km/h
Maximum speed: 55.59 km/h