The Big Ride - Day 6, Coventry, RI to Framingham, MA (66 miles)
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David YangThe rain has stopped and it was glorious today. I wish I could say the same about my legs
From May 21st to May 27th, I would pour obsessively over the forecast: precipitation, wind, wind direction, when, where, how much? Now, looking out the window from my home in South Philly, I see weather as, at worst, an inconvenience.
This trip seemingly took us back in time as we experienced this country before the advent of Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. This is how people used to experience America: slower, one small town after another, many of them now Hispanic – Salvadorans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Brazilians. As a classical musician, this isn’t where my work usually takes me. Sticking to the highway, one bypasses such communities. But while meandering on a bicycle looking for a café, you can wind up in a panadería in Port Chester or a churrascaria in Lowell. It is the diversity of America up close and real.
I return home to a pile of music to learn and an inbox sagging under its own weight. I’m not complaining - I love what I do - but there was a simplicity in our mission last week: get from point A to point B every day, weather be damned. The loss of that clarity has resulted in some melancholia after the adrenalin high that was our journey. That and possibly some leftover fatigue.
Driving home in a rental minivan, we experienced a kind of cognitive dissonance on 495, 84, 91, 287, zipping by exits named for towns we’d biked through wearily days before: Lawrence, Milford, Coventry.What took 7 days of riding, exposed to the elements, we accomplished in 7 hours of driving, AC blasting.
I had no idea there was still so much forest in the northeast. The highlight of the trip came on the 95-mile longest day: an 18-mile delightfully endless downhill gravel run through remote forest on the Hop River trail in Connecticut. We didn’t pass a soul for two hours, accompanied only by the sound of our tires on the dirt and the rain hitting the leaves. It was beautiful. The low point of the trip was next day’s supposedly “easy” 66-mile ride that became a slog in freezing rain. At one point, Mona was shivering so hard she had difficulty holding onto the handlebars.
People were curious and they were kind. There was a diner in Willimantic where we rolled in, caked in mud. They were preparing to close but the waitress welcomed us warmly to a well-earned breakfast and hot coffee. There was the gleaming Yemeni coffee shop in New Haven at the entrance to the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail where they asked about out trip and politely looked past the filthy puddles we were making all over their marble floor. There was the man getting coffee with his wife at a café in Plantsville who wanted to tell us all about his bike.
John and Ted joining us on the last leg in Framingham was really nice. Maryellen hauled our luggage and racks back in her pickup so Mona and I could move unencumbered, and we rode into town in a smooth four-man paceline. Thanks, guys!
In the end, what I think I’ll remember most isn’t the rotten weather, but the sense of accomplishment we felt every day upon arrival. We planned something big and we did it.
When we first hit local roads that I am familiar with near Newburyport, I thought “holy mackerel, I freaking biked up here.” The cheer we heard from the 30-strong greeting party as we came around the corner...I get chills thinking about it, I was so moved. So many of you came out. I didn’t know what to say, how to thank each of you. The NCMF board, of course – Laurel Grassin-Drake, Bronson de Stadler, Steve Hamilton, Jenny Nelson, Paula Quann, Pat Temple. Thank you, Mayor Reardon, for welcoming us in. Thank you to all my friends who read the posts and emailed me with encouraging words.
And finally, a huge thank you to everyone who donated any amount. The original goal was $3,000 and I wasn’t confident I’d even hit that. In the end, with donations through GoFundMe and the NCMF website, we collected $17,000!
I have no words.
Thank you, thank you, everyone.
David Yang, Artistic Director
By
David YangThe rain has stopped and it was glorious today. I wish I could say the same about my legs
By
David YangWe waited to depart at 10 am since it was still pissing rain; we didn’t arrive until 8 at night. You do the math.
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David YangTomorrow starts the Big Ride™. Between you and me, I’ll take rain over cook-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk heat. I hope to be on the road by 7:00 am.
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