Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Our trial ride

Our bikes all packed up

David and I decided a while ago that we would ride to our friends' Rachel & Steve's wedding in Deerfield, MA over 4th of July weekend. Well when we decided it seemed so far in the future that I didn't need to worry about it and then suddenly it was a week a way and then 4 days a way and then we were all of a sudden leaving the very next day. How did that happen? Because if this trip is coming up it also means that our trip to Hamilton, Ontario is just around the corner.


Our 4th of July weekend ended up being absolutely amazing, filled with adventure, sunshine, friends, happiness, camping, windy nights, camp fires, great food and company!!! We biked 75mi the majority being on Rt 2A on Friday from Littleton, MA where my mom graciously dropped us off, to Deerfield, MA. We decided biking from Lawrence was 1. way to far (~115mi) and 2. not as pretty a ride. It was a perfect day for a ride, we had some rain but only a couple short showers that we just ducked under trees to avoid but the sun felt so good and the breeze was wonderful. And we felt great being able to carry almost everything we needed for the weekend right on our bikes. We didn't carry everything though, we had Maryka, David's sister bring our wedding outfits and gift with her when she drove out on Saturday.



The wedding was also so wonderful. It was quite unique, 1. because despite David and I knowing both Rachel and Steve before they started dating not everyone did as is usual at a wedding. But this fact caused two groups of friends of ours to be invited to the wedding and 3 out of 4 of David's siblings were invited because they are good friends of Steve's or Rachels. This made the dynamic of the wedding really wonderful and there were so many people there that we hadn't seen for quite a while. There were also about 20 boys there, under the age of 8, all with blonde hair and blue eyes, it was quite incredible.

Hanging out during the reception

Tent City ours is the farthest one and the best one of course :-)

The wedding celebrations lasted all weekend, so many friends camped and enjoyed the wonderful weather and the great conference center where the wedding was. Located on top of Woolman Hill. It was beautiful, with tons of fruit trees and fields, fire flies and beautiful birds. There was also a local farmers market where many of us had lunch on Saturday and plenty of relaxing.
Rachel and Steve

Rachel relaxing before the big day

Henry and Uncle David

David and I at the Farmer's Market where we got the best Chipotle Honey Mustard

The bike ride home occured on Sunday and started out successful however I was very nervous because I know the first 25mi consisted of mostly up hill terrain, but we took one hill at a time and we made great time. We are pretty consistently riding at 15mph with gear on our bikes. But at the 25mi mark we stopped to get more water and David found a slash in his tire that hadn't popped the tube yet but was extremely dangerous. So we tried to track down an open bike shop on a holiday weekend and without any luck had to ask my sister to come pick us up in Athol, MA which was a disappointment but we are so glad we found the hole during a break and now going 32mph down some hill when it popped. And thankfully my sister is now able to come rescue us when we are stuck, which was awesome and we are so grateful to her. We promised her a night out on us!!! Hopefully we'll find time soon to hang out with her.


We both are very excited for the big upcoming trip, I just switched out my flat bars on my bike for drops so that is exciting and now we've done our test run and learned that we need to carry extra tires with us and I think we are ready to go :-)

2 comments:

Mary Lundquist said...

Great post, guys. It sounds like you are having a great summer and enjoying life! I'm really jealous of your cycling trips and hope Jesse and I can imitate you some day.

-mary

Unknown said...

woohoo i saved you!