35.8 mi / 10.7 mph / 1038 ft. climbing
Home: Shawme Crowell State Forest

When I stuck my head outside the tent last night to make sure a critter wasn’t going at my bags (it wasn’t, I was just imagining things), I could see my breath shining in the light of my headlamp. So it wasn’t surprising that we woke to our coldest New England morning so far, 53F, and, our first bit of condensation inside the tent. Still, neither of those things are worth a complaint. In our six days since leaving New Haven, I don’t think the temperature has ever moved outside of the 15-degree range between 53 and 68, and the mornings have been blessedly dry.

For the second morning in a row, we exited the state park via the “back door” along roads/paths/trails that saved us a bunch of miles vs. the main entrance. Unlike yesterday, we didn’t need to walk anywhere, but they were still far from being “roads” like they were named on the park map. This back-door routing is one of the best uses of Strava/RideWithGPS heat maps, because it’s really difficult to find if these trails genuinely exist, and if they don’t end in a 10-foot-high steel barrier. If enough other cyclists to make the line bright travel this way, it’s a pretty clear sign that we can do it too (and add to the line’s brightness ourselves).

We emerged into the town(ship) of Lakeville, which should be named “Pondville” instead, since around here they seem to call every body of water, regardless of size, a “pond”. And Assawompset Pond was definitely what most normal people would call a lake; the northeast wind was stirring up choppy waves on its surface.

We powered through our first 19 miles without a break, partly because that’s where Target, the first on-route grocery store, sat waiting to produce lunch for us. The quiet, narrow, two-lane country-forest road we had been winding along for miles gave no indication that we were within half a mile of a Target, and I admittedly double-checked my maps. Yes, it’s coming right up, though we are entering the giant plaza through the “back side”, which helps. Anyway the chance to live in a cute rural forest cottage, and be able to walk to Target, is certainly the best of both worlds!

We had technically been facing headwinds all day, and when we reached the Cape Cod Canal, we realized how much the trees had been protecting us from its force. Until now I had no idea that there was a canal cutting through the Cape Cod peninsula, technically making it an island. There are bike paths on each side, and three crossings (one railroad, two road), and we’d ride the majority of the canal’s length before crossing over. And the headwind was an unrelenting bitch, but at least on the trail we could just put our heads down and focus on the enemy ahead rather than the ones passing us from behind.

Just as we were starting up the climb that would loop us onto the Sagamore Bridge, we met Stanley and Deb riding their loaded bikes downhill the other way. I believe they’re the first other touring cyclists we’ve seen since leaving Skaneateles six weeks ago, so we were all excited to chat. They had been riding a 9-day loop of the Cape Cod area (similar to what we had hoped to do if the ferries had allowed it), and asked how we’d dealt with the rain. Oh, shit, yes, that rain that had been sitting over eastern Massachusetts for days and days, the rain that we almost-completely avoided by staying 50 miles further west! These two had been getting wet every day, and doing laundry every day to dry out their stuff. It really drove home how lucky we had been to ride under Connecticut’s dryness for those days.

They gave us some good intel on the bridge: 5-foot sidewalk on the east side, no barrier between the sidewalk and the vehicles, and an 8-inch drop from that unguarded edge to the traffic lane. Add in that wind and the big climb required to give 135-foot clearance below the bridge, and it sounded like it would be a nightmare to ride, so we’d likely just walk the bikes most of the way.

Well, it turns out it we made it to the top, riding the whole way, without much difficulty at all. Certainly it required complete focus on the task at hand (not letting anything veer us into the roadway, whether it be wind, debris, or trying so hard to avoid the dropoff on the right that we crash into the left-side fence), but Rett now has the confidence and ability to maintain that necessary focus and control. It helped that we got to know the wind well while riding up the canal, so even though our 90-degree turn made it a crosswind trying to push us directly into traffic, it was a steady, gustless wind, which is one that can be easily compensated for.

We could have gone to a state park on the north side of the canal and saved the crossing for tomorrow, except that one was $74.50 for non-residents, as opposed to the mere $54.50 we’re paying here. Thus, the hill, the steepest and tallest of the day, just to get to our campsite, was quite rude. It felt much worse than the bridge, even if the chances of death were far smaller.

Unlike Connecticut and Rhode Island, Massachusetts State Parks require advance reservations for some reason, despite having manned entrance stations. I had intended to reserve a site two away from the bathrooms (so that we’d be close, but not too close), but apparently chose the one right next door, whoops. But, there was a solid wall of trees (cut through with our personal path), so it turned out perfect. Uh, exactly how I’d planned it.