Year 1 - Ride Day 6 - Portland ME to Portsmouth NH - Sept 6
It was warmer leaving Portland today than the past several days. Temps were in the upper 60’s. We hugged the coast as we went through the small coastal towns such as Old Orchard Beach, Biddeford, Fortunes Rocks, and Cape Porpoise.
Our route took us right through Kennebunkport. Kennebunkport and Kennebunk were very busy with both vehicles (it’s the only inlet crossing for that area) and pedestrians. The streets are lined with quaint little touristy shops where you can buy soon forgotten trinkets to remember your trip!
We ate a light lunch while viewing the marina. There was a large (large by my landlubber standards) sailboat in the marina directly across from the restaurant. It had two main sail mast poles that looked like PPL power poles! Huge!
We continued along the coastline through little beach towns such as Wells Beach, Moody Beach, Ogunquit, and York Cliffs. The road was sometimes nice and wide with adequate shoulders or bike lanes (mostly along the beaches) to narrow no shoulder windy roads with rolling terrain.
In the area of York Heights, Dan took a spill! I have always maintained that catastrophic events are caused by several factors, which on there own are of no consequence. The factors involved are as follows; fresh pavement that was very dark, almost black; pavement shaded by mature growth trees along the side of the road; Dan was wearing shaded glasses; Dan had just removed his bottle to take a drink; our bikes are loaded and very top heavy; there was a water shutoff box located in the shoulder; the water shutoff was depressed from the normal surface of the roadway by some amount, maybe one half up to possibly one inch.
These factors, each taken by themselves would not have resulted in a spill, but just as Dan was raising his bottle to drink, he hit the unseen (hidden by dark pavement, shade, and sunglasses) depressed water shutoff which threw off his balance. He threw the bottle and grabbed the handlebar in an attempt to make a correction, but with the high center of gravity there was no recovering his bike to prevent himself from going down.
He slid along the pavement, both on the road and sidewalk. His ankle hit the granite curb. As he evaluated himself, we were happy to learn that he did not appear to have any broken bones. There was a significant amount of road rash. We cleaned him up as well as possible with water and his towel and taped on some bandages. He performed a physical check of his bike and then a quick road test and reported that he was ready to proceed!
On we went! After arriving in Portsmouth, Dan called his college roommate Jeff. Jeff had previously told Dan that he and his wife Chris would take us out to dinner. Once we cleaned up, Jeff took us to Rite-Aid so Dan could purchase some bandages, then off to a nice local restaurant for a quaint seafood dinner!
Oh man!
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the pattern with catastrophic events...glad Dan is still upright and rubber side down! Love the views you are seeing of the coastal areas! Stay safe!
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