Prior to Erik and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in my mind I was being a bit of a wet blanket. Not about the trip or the fun we would have but about the rain. For most of May, the Northeast was pummeled with it. A sunny day seemed about as rare as hen’s teeth (or someone without a smartphone.) And when I kept looking at long term weather forecast the prognosis was not good.
Ted being the more relaxed of the two of us continued to tell me, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Ted is always correct in these areas and I left for our adventure with him last Friday in a better state of mind.
But let’s face it, to believe that you are going to get 9 days of beautiful continuous weather is just down right silly and yesterday the odds finally caught up with us: We caught some rain. More on that when we get to the main post of yesterday’s travels but when we pulled into Cumberland, MD, our hotel (a Fairfield Inn) was a sight for sore eyes as it was located right off the trail and had a bicycle cleaning station: a water hose.
We were both worried about how to get our bikes clean after yesterday’s journeys. Initially we believed that we could just wipe a few bits of caked mud off with a towel but that was not going to be possible given how much stuff we picked up on our ride. And we didn’t know if hotels would be set up for this. But they are.
We started spraying our bikes and rivers of crud started to flow. Our derailleurs were caked with crushed gravel looking more like a chunky piece of equipment than a precision device. Our gears were encased with caked on stuff that took repeated blasts of water to dislodge. The silver rims on my bike were now coated with a black patina requiring a bit of scrubbing to get them clean.
But within a few minutes our bikes became recognizable again, our panniers clean and the mud removed. For a moment I thought that perhaps Ted should turn the hose on me but I thought better of it and decided to wait for the shower.
