Now we are rested I can go into further detail of our exploits of day one! To be expected our departure time of 8am was far too ambitious, the last minute packing and organising took a long time. However at around 10 o clock, on a gloriously sunny day, we finally set off on our epic adventure. Getting out of New York and across the Washington Bridge, is far more complicated than one would think. Although NY is very regimented in the way it is set out, it is not the most cycle friendly, however after a lot of 'direction asking' of the locals we got out of New York and headed south to Princeton. It was very interesting how as we went through the different boroughs how the race changes and in some cases completely dominates the area. For example as we rode through Union city, just south of Newark airport, Hispanics dominate the area. We stopped to ask for directions several times, and yet most people we asked barely understood English. Also there were areas completely dominated by the black community.
As we started so late in the day and we had had problems with navigating our way out of NY, we were making slow progress, by 5pm we had only covered about 45 miles of the 75 we needed to reach Princeton. We forged on seeing how far we could get by 7pm, however come 7pm, we still had about 20 miles to go and it was getting dark. We were looking for a place to stay for the night, as Princeton seemed too far off. However as the area we are in is still fairly urban, stealth camping is fairly difficult, and there is a surprising lack of motels. On the cusp of darkness, we quizzed a local to see if it was viable to go all the way to Princeton and he pointed us onto a road that would take us directly there, so we decided to brave cycling in the dark and went for it. At roughly 9pm we arrived at Princeton where we had a bed with two fellow OE's, who were kind to put us up. It was a very long day but we covered a good distance, and all our preparation is finally being put to the test, so all in all a good first day!
Today we will ride to Philadelphia, which is roughly 45 miles, so a more relaxed day today(but it is dark and raining outside as i write this!).
there i was expecting to achieve fame and fortune in the reflected glory of putting you guys up, but all we get for our troubles is "two OE's". shocking. and after pancakes as well...:P
ReplyDeletehope you lads are still going strong, and your groins are still intact..you were looking fairly sexy in those shorts, so i also hope you have not been raped.
much love
James (& Alex. but he's sleeping right now, the lazy git)