Scarborough, ME to Danvers, MA - 100 miles - 2600 ft of elevation gain

It was an early morning with a 6am breakfast, and then packing the van with the supplies from the trailer (that was leaving to return to PA). The boys worked together and got the van packed, water coolers filled, ice in the cooler, tires pumped up, and lights turned on. I started the morning with a quote from Mark Cavendish, a Tour du France stage winner record holder, about the joy of riding a bike. After a prayer for our day, we mounted our bikes and rolled on.

I continue to be amazed that it’s possible to jump on a bike and just have the legs get in line and turn the pedals for hours on end. I’ve remarked before that it’s like putting the quarter in the machine and just have it work. For this ride season my longest ride before today was 45 miles, not exactly recommended training, but that was all my days would allow. For many of the boys, they haven’t logged many miles outside of Lifecycles rides, so this is really living up to the motto of “Doing Hard Things.” Sure the legs were feeling the miles, but when you dig deep, you find that you have more in the tank if the mind will just allow you to ignore the physical fatigue.

The route today was mostly on 1A, which took us along the coast for some beautiful scenery and quaint New England towns. I know everyone has a different definition of what a fun ride is, but I really liked the ride (maybe a few less cars trying to get to the beach would have been nice). We knew at the outset that we’d be in 2-3 ride groups because of the size of group. We didn’t anticipate that one group would have 8 flats and one little incident with a trash can that would require them to need the support van to be on duty most of the day. Everyone rallied to get every mile ticked off, despite some disappointing set backs with bikes and tubes.

My group ended up grabbing lunch at a cafe because the van was back with the “tire and tub” crew. We kpet moving because we didn’t want our leg muscles to go cold and then not want to move again. By the final stop, the boys with us were really feeling their legs, so after some ice cream we kept rolling to the hotel. Once at the hotel, we circled the parking lot so we could get our dial up to 100 miles exactly (just .5 miles to get over the century mark).

Once everyone made it back to the hotel, we shared stories as we made our way to the house of relatives of two of the boys on the trip. They were kind enough to invite us over for ice cream, so we had pizza delivered to their house and had our devotions with Mike in their backyard. After eating and devoting, some of the boys jumped into their pool to cool off. It’s amazing what food and water do for the soul and for tired bodies! It was so nice to meet some locals.

We got back to the hotel at 9pm, and I know everyone is excited for a solid night’s sleep! It’s another early morning as we have 95 miles on the books for tomorrow. Thanks for following along and praying for our safety on the road!