Part of any bikepacking journey is preparing for the unexpected. But at times no level of preparation is adequate for what mother nature is capable of throwing at you - from pouring rain to brutal heat, this trip had it all. Along with more climbing than we care to remember.
A journey from Middlebury, VT to Portland, ME and back, as captured in a few dozen images:
It started fortuitously - after a long five hour drive from Brooklyn to Middlebury Vermont with my friend Jeff Sereni we pulled into a dark motel parking lot at the same moment as our compatriot Simon Fong who had completed a similarly long drive South from Montreal.
From there it was an early morning of preparing bikes for the task at hand in a very crowded motel bedroom.
A snapshot of my loaded bike - though we never had the chance to use the fishing poles due to the drought conditions preceeding our trip.
Feeling fresh at the start of the ride.
We choose Middlebury in part because Jeff's mom is from Middlebury -- insuring a terrific send-off.
From there Vermont welcomed us with all that is great about the state including empty roads and green as far as the eye can see.
Unfortunately Simon was plagued with mechanical issues throughout the day - requiring a bike shop pitstop along the way.
We got back on the road fairly quickly but were soon greeted by foreboding skies.
And when I say foreboding, I mean really foreboding....
Before long we were forced to pull over to seek shelter - a wise decision because just a few minutes later trees started falling across the road and power lines in both directions.
Thankfully the weather eventually broke and blue skies returned as our journey continued.
When all of the stores in town are closed and you're starving after a long day in the saddle sometimes you just have to resort to ordering pizza.
After a night by the fire it was time to rinse yesterday's road debris from our bikes and hit the road again.
Of course when you discover a random rope swing alongside your route, you just have to go for it.
Mechanical problems continued to plague us.
The original plan was to camp the entire route, but with the weather on day one the trails we planned to take were covered with downed trees - often times every fifty feet.
This forced us onto roads - extending our 80-90 mile days into 100+ mile days with much more climbing than our original route featured.
As a result we made the decision to re-route toward Portland and to crash in motels, allowing us to ditch most of our camping gear thanks to Jeff's Fedex account
Thankfully with less gear we were able to cover the additional ground our re-route required while still staying on schedule.
Temperatures weren't on our side either - reaching the high 90's. After 20+ miles looking for a store on our new route we were rescued by a friendly Vermonter who filled our bottles.
30 or so miles outside of Portland we came across this bridge, which combined with the high temperatures made our course of action obvious.
Once in Portland we spent the day exploring via bike.
Including a ferry ride to Peaks Island...
...where the food was plentiful...
...the water was refreshing...
and good times were had all around...
We lost Simon in Portland since he had to be back at work, but our journey back to Portland kicked off.
The route home was more of the same - high temperatures and lots of climbing.
Which meant when we came across a swimming hole we weren't going to pass up the opportunity for a dip.
No matter how cold the water was.
It was definitely a grind through the White Mountains but we met a gentlemen walking the Appalachian Trail with his dog and hung out in the shade for a while discussing his journey.
After a 97-mile day in the saddle with 5,000+ feet of climbing the rain that seemed to follow us our entire ride was nice enough to hold off until we pulled off into our motel for the evening.
With our hardest day behind us we had some fun on the dirt roads and trails of Vermont
A motel still life of everything we carried with us on the ride.
Of course we decided to ride Lincoln Gap - the steepest paved road in North America which we were not at all equipped to ride with our loaded touring bikes. It was a sobering walk.
From there it was just a long drive back to Brooklyn.
