What do you eat on a bicycle tour?

June 11, 2017:

The other night I was hanging out with some other bicyclists. One young guy, wanting to try out bicycle touring, asked what you would eat for a long bicycle ride. Do you get special foods like gels? Do you want food you can digest easily?

Someone said, “I know a guy who made it across the country on McDonald’s fries. You’ve got your salt replacement and complex carbs.”

I said, “I just eat whatever I feel like eating. If Rob and I find a place that serves milk shakes, we’ll get a milk shake. If it slows us down, we’ll ride slow.” 

The last time we stopped for milk shakes was when we were passing through a small town in Vermont. Like many Vermont small towns, this one had a few shops, a church, a town green, all on one main street. We sat outside the local cafe savoring our shakes - chocolate for me, strawberry for Rob - and watching the town's goings- on. Occasionally a car drove by; someone came out of the shop across the street, got into a car, and drove away. It was a quiet town.

I looked sadly at the bottom of my glass, slurping with my straw the last few drops of my shake. I was contentedly bloated, not at all eager to get back on my bike. Rob said exactly what I was thinking. "I could use a nap." I looked next door at a grassy expanse in front of a church. It had a gradual slope, just the right angle. I said, "That looks like the perfect spot." 

After paying our bill we laid our bikes on the grass and got down next to them. And just then a town maintenance truck pulled up in front of us. We watched as a couple guys got out with some street signs and began drilling a hole in the cement. "Maybe they'll be quick," I said. They put in one sign, then moved a short ways up the street to do another. No naps for us.

We really do just eat regular food. And for an especially long trip, we’ll eat substantially more of it. When I was on an eight-week solo bike trip back in my youth, I would think nothing of picking up a pint of ice cream and downing the whole thing in one sitting. I had to. I had no one to share it with.

Then there's free food. You never pass up free food when you're bicycling. On that same trip in Vermont, Rob and I had just finished eating our lunch in a school playground on the outskirts of another small town. As we bicycled into town, we noticed lots of cars parked in front of a bank, like there was some event going on, but it was a Friday. What happens on a weekday in small Vermont towns? We stopped to find out. The local state bank was serving free lunches at a different branch throughout the state on Fridays. Everyone was invited, even itinerant bicyclists. That was the summer Rob and I were trying out a vegan diet. But so what? I certainly wasn't going to pass up free food. Chips, bratwurst, ice cream. Nothing remotely healthy about it, but all delicious. And free.

So here’s what Rob and I have been eating on our recent trips. For breakfast, it’s been oatmeal with raisins or fresh fruit and nuts. On our Maine trip in 2015 we were into steel-cut oats. If you put them in boiling water and let them sit overnight then they only need to be heated in the morning. So we’d boil them and then find a place in one of the bathrooms to leave them in the pot overnight, usually on a shelf with a sign, letting folks know they belong to bicyclists in the campground. We always found them – just as we’d left them - the next morning.

We carry bread and peanut butter and jelly for Rob’s lunch. I’ll eat a peanut butter sandwich plain under duress; with jelly, never. My lunch is cheese and crackers, a salami and cheese sandwich, or peanut butter on graham crackers. Actually, what’s really good, if it isn’t too hot and you can pack some Hershey’s chocolate bars, is a graham cracker with a Hershey bar, and peanut butter. Kind of a do-it-yourself Reese’s peanut butter cup for lunch.

We do eat lots of fruit – fresh and dried – and usually carry some fresh vegetables and nuts and other snack foods. We try to have enough food for the next couple days, but don’t want to carry anything too heavy or anything that won’t keep if the temperature is too hot. We’ll carry a couple lightweight dinner options, like Annie’s mac and cheese or Ramen noodles, but it’s always good if we find a grocery store as we close in on our camping destination so we can pick up something more interesting for dinner.

Eat Dessert First.

April 28, 2017

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." I have no idea who said that. I saw it on a T-shirt at the starting line of a race a number of years ago and decided it was a philosophy worth adopting. (My other philosophical tenet is "Avoid left turns whenever possible." That's from the United Parcel Service.)

Last year I celebrated the momentous occasion of turning 60 by recruiting a few friends to join me on a 60-mile bike ride. By that logic, in ten years I should ride 70 miles, and when I get to a hundred I'll have to ride a century. Now that would be something.

Back when I bicycled the backroads of West Virginia with my brother, I'd be pushing my bike up a hill and there'd be a curve up ahead and I'd pray that around that curve would be the top of the hill, but wouldn't you know it, I'd get around that curve and the hill just kept going. It seemed like we never would get to the top. But we always did. We'd get home hot and tired and proud of ourselves for climbing all those hills on our 3-speed English racers, even if we did walk up a lot of them. 

We were always able to take on whatever was around that next curve. But getting older brings with it the knowledge life can be uncertain. My brother lost his life to AIDS over twenty years ago. Rob - my husband and long-time bicycling companion - has a chronic lung disease slowing him down. As I look around at friends and family my age and younger with health problems I appreciate how fortunate I am. Still, I'd better tackle that century while I know I can. 

I invited the same crew as last year, but my good friend Nancy was the only one who came along for the full ride. A couple friends had to cancel at the last minute. Mike Herlihy decided he'd ride the first half only and Rob met us for lunch and the second half.

With so many miles to cover I didn't stop often to take pictures and when we did stop for lunch and a late afternoon snack, I forgot. Following is what I can offer from one hundred miles of bicycling in the seacoast of New Hampshire and southern Maine.

We went as far north as Ogunquit, on the coast of Maine. We stopped at Perkins Cove, just a mile or so south on a little spit of land filled with touristy shops, mostly still closed this time of year. The shops are straight ahead in the picture. 

Mike, above, took the picture of the boats below. He's a much better photographer than I, which is why I had to steal the picture from his Facebook page. 

You can't bicycle to York without stopping at Nubble Lighthouse. We had been bicycling under cloudy skies and, even though the lighthouse is encased in fog in this picture, while we were there the sky began to clear.

After leaving the lighthouse, the strangest thing happened. We were riding down a hill along the shore when insects began pelting us. Mike said maybe they were some sort of sand creatures. They sounded like little hailstones hitting our helmets. I yelled, "Keep your mouth shut!" Mike covered his face with the sleeve of his jacket. As careful as I was, I did end up swallowing one. 

It wasn't too cold for these kids to go for a swim. 

After lunch we continued down the coast of New Hampshire. This is one of our favorite beaches, Wallis Sands State Park. We were surprised to see so many people on the beach until we realized it was the last day of the public school spring break week. That explained all the traffic, too. 

We made it as far south as Hampton Beach, almost to Massachusetts. As you can see from all the hotels, this is tourist mecca. Not a beach we ever go to in the summer, but a great stop on a bike ride in the off-season. After locking up our bikes, Rob and I took off our shoes and walked onto the beach while Nancy went to the bathhouse to change into her bathing suit. We put our feet in the water and, surprisingly, it wasn't too cold. Yup, Nancy's going in for sure.

Nancy is very excited, anticipating her first ocean swim of the year.

Rob and I sat on the beach and watched Nancy having fun. There were some pretty big waves out there. I said, "I hope there isn't a rip tide." There were other people in the water, they weren't really in the water, they were just standing in the water. Rob said, "If there is, we're not going to be able to help her." 

Nancy came out, a big smile on her face, and said, "I had to get out. I couldn't feel my feet."

I said, "Rob and I were a little worried that there was a riptide. We figured that if there was, that's how you'd like to go anyway."

Nancy believes that when death comes, it should be embraced as part of life. She laughed, "You're right."

"Breathe soft, ye winds,
Ye waves in silence rest."
The Lady of the Sea: NH Marine Memorial

We backtracked north up the coast for a few miles then headed east, to Exeter, where we stopped for a snack, and then home. 

A park runs along the Squamscott River just outside Exeter. That's the town in the background. 

The town of Newfields has a church, town office, an art gallery, and this little general store.

If you've ever wanted to ride a century, don't let the idea of it intimidate you. Find a flat route and go for it. Just leave yourself plenty of time. I don't ride fast; I'm that turtle that just keeps going. My average for the day was just under 12 mph. We stopped for lunch, twice for snacks, and once so Nancy could go for a swim. We started at 7 a.m. and finished 12 hours later. My longest training ride was 47 miles.

So now that I've ridden my century, I figure I have a couple choices. I could either decrease the distance by one mile each year, in a sense paying respect to my declining physical capabilities. Or, given how much fun I had this year, maybe I'll just own a century on April 28 every year.

Here's the route. I clocked 102 miles on my bike computer. We added a few miles when we had to ride through York a couple times in order to ride counter-clockwise around the Nubble Lighthouse peninsula. We did that because last summer Rob and I determined that riding it in the clockwise direction is no fun.