I guess the grass is always greener, but man do I miss Baltimore. I'll never tell my wife that though b/c she'll want to move back there and I am not ready to do that just yet.

By the way, ch0mb0, you are da man! Doing that ride in this weather. Major props!!

haveta work at an anime convention and lemme tell you, its nuts.
discovered more of the town last night, it's a little less confusing this year. the nooks and crannies remind me of philly here and there.
but damn, it be hot!

oh ****, you're working that? I know more than a few people that will be attending.

either way, hell yeah on making the trip.

So here's a wrap-up post with a few photos to bring this thread to an end. Sorry for the shaky guncamera
footage, but when you open up those 20mm's very little on your bird stands still...


Around 6am I left Brooklyn Heights one last time and took the NJT over the river. We started riding our bikes southwest through the state, passing through New Brunswick and onwards to Princeton. It was a flat and smooth run - and at 10am it was already close to 90 degrees. We passed through a ghost town part of Trenton and crossed the Delaware river like George Washington did on his fixie when he outskidded the British. Like that we were in Pennsylvania.









The road turned into an isolated highway but eventually we found ourselves in the outer suburbs of Northwest Philly and it was here that I got my first flat: a pinchy, a puncture and a torn sidewall all at once! We drifted through some old neighborhoods and took a break around 1pm. Passing through downtown I saw Dailey on his bike and a few familiar faces chilling at a park on Walnut. After that, we headed Southwest through Darby and eventually into Chester. The area looked f*ckin rough but the people there were friendly. We turned South towards Delaware and the sun proceeded to pound us for the next 5 hours.





The course took us through a massive winding industrial park. The heat from the sun and the machines blasted us and we were taunted by constant headwinds. Wilmington, Delaware is all hill, uphill in every direction and even the hills have hills. That flattened out into an endless strip-mall highway straight to Newark and once there we checked in to a hotel. We had done somewhere between 110-120 miles. I rode with a 70 oz. Camelback and had stopped to fill it up 6 times.

My phone rings at 5am. The boss is telling me that his body is all f*cked up from yesterday's ride. He tells me that he can't go on and that someone is coming to pick him up to drive him all the way back to NYC. I can't believe what I'm hearing.

Sitting at breakfast, he offers to give me a lift back too. I am sympathetic to his condition, but the voice in my head is screaming f*ck no I have to do this There is no.********.way I am going back I'm going through a lot of sh*t right now and I need this ride There's something bad in here's gotta get out! I watched them drive off and continued on my own.



BOING! 15 minutes later a rear spoke pops. I look down and the wheel is way out. I look up and see a bike shop. Even though it's getting hotter with every passing minute I decide to pull over and wait for them to open. They give me one and I throw it on and I'm back on the road again at 10am - still haven't gotten out of Newark. That town fell away and route 273 opened up and the countryside swallowed me whole. At first it is moderate flat but then the bigass hills start to hit, all the way to R1 in Maryland.



There was just the sun and me and the hills for miles with nothing everywhere around. No lie - I had a meltdown out there. Flat #2 happened, and around midday I almost got hit by flying lumber from a passing logging truck. I'm no stranger to long solo rides, been doing them since I was a kid. But this was one of the hardest rides I've ever done. I was thinking I might end up STENDEC for sure and good 'ol chombo's gonna disappear off the radar and some farmer plowing the fields will find his wreckage in 20 years. Bugs in my face, sun beating down serious heat, sweat pouring off me in rivers, there's few true words to describe what that part of the ride really felt like. And the hills just kept on coming for the next 30-40 miles.

Some climbs went on for a half-mile or more. Steep, curving, or long gradual climbs that slow you down to 5 or 10mph, R1 had it all. On the other hand, I hit 37mph on a mile-long descent. And this is the ******** way it was all the way into Baltimore.







Had to stop every 10 miles to pour a bottle of water into the Camelbak and one over my head. Each hill pissed me off just a little bit more but this gave me the fuel. I was flying unstoppable by the time the now-familiar outer ghettos came into view.



I rode into downtown Baltimore with my head up high around 4:30pm. To make the finale perfect, the hotel had no record of my room reservation and though it wasn't the guy's fault I wanted to ******** tear out his throat with my teeth. So I stormed outside, had a cig, came back down and made some calls. Got into the room and collapsed on the floor with relief.

Toughest 70 miles ever.

As mentioned above, Baltimore reminds me of Philly a little. I saw a couple couriers I know from down there as well. As a bonus to all this the trip was extended down to DC - borrowed a ride from Jeff, saw Tiff, Pete and Spud-o-matic too. Met a few new faces. Saw Tink's car but decided not to deface it.







Spud drove me back and the rest of the weekend was spent fending off hordes of wild nerds!



I eventually got a lift back to Good ol NYC, but not before we did this little bit of damage to some guy's car. oops.





Bye Bye Baltimore

That is awesome...and you didn't give in the 2nd day...all in a heat what. You rock

Nice write up, I was thinking about doing a similar trip, only from Princeton to Balitmore.

Pretty lame for your boss to drop you, but not everybody's got it in them...

Pretty fortunate to find a bike shop immediately as you broke a spoke. And on top of that, they actually had the spoke in stock!