Whirling in to Burilngton

Been a busy couple of days!

When last I posted, I was in North Adams, taking a day off of riding.
There I visited the Mass MoCA -- one of the coolest museums I've ever seen. Here's a picture of the building, nestled into a picturesque hillside:

Among other things, I went on a guided tour of their new 3-floor Sol Lewitt gallery. Everything there was reproduced in the actual building specifically for the gallery, and the artist himself personally helped design and layout the structure before his death. The gallery will be on display for the next *20 years*.

Another gallery of interest was the collection of Guy Ben-Ner films and film-inspired work. One piece consisted of a screen rigged onto a stationary bicycle. You had to pedal to watch. Pedaling slow made the DVD run slower, pedaling backwards made it reverse.

The halls of the museum were a much needed escape, and I was glad to spend several hours of my day off inside.



The next day (Saturday) I made my way from North Adams to a hostel several miles east of Bennington, Vermont. The trip would have only been roughly 18 miles, so I took a detour out west into a little corner of New York State before going back into Vermont. This was my first real taste of small country roads and beautiful scenic views. Riding through Massachusetts left me on route 2 most of the time, a main highway with lots of truck traffic -- not nice, meditative riding. I hope that my time riding through New York (which begins tomorrow!) will be as pleasant all the while as it was Saturday.

Sunday morning, I left the remote Greenwood Lodge Hostel (a wonderful place to which I hope I have the good fortune of returning to someday) for Brattleboro and a bus to Burlington. I know this is a bike trip, not a bus trip, but traversing the mountains of Vermont from south to north in entirety is an intense challenge of its own, one that would require extra days and weeks on my part. Also, this way I will be able to arrive in Trumansburg by my Saturday deadline.

According to Greyhound regulations, all bikes must be in a box. Wish they had told me that earlier, rather than charging a (made up, i think) $25 fee and making me wait nearly 5 hours for another bus.

In a lucky turn of chance, I ran into a guy on the bus who shares a mutual acquaintance with my girlfriend, Jean. Its a small world, after all. This UVM student was nice enough to put me up for the night in his Burlington home, wherefrom I currently post.

Today I will dine in downtown Burlington before heading out to Grand Isle (and possibly beyond) to camp for the night.

The next day, I leave Vermont and should get myself a considerable distance into New York State. From there, it'll be a good day or two of riding before I hit Lake Ontario. Then the real moving begins. There are (presumably) perfectly flat road that hug just about every inch of the Lake Ontario coastline, and this means I should be able to cover some real distance in no time at all. Once I hit Sodus Point, I make a break south. As I mentioned earlier, I should be able to hit Trumansburg by Saturday.

I don't know if I'll find a computer again before I arrive, so there is a chance, though no sure thing, that this will be my last post from the road. In any event, I'll retroactively cover my experience if the need be.

Looks like a sunny day in Burlington. I think its time to check out the city.

Checkin' In

Greetings, readers. I am posting from the North Adams Public Library. I rolled into town from my campsite first thing this morning, and this is my first stop.

It's been a few days since I left Boston, so allow me to bring you up to speed.
Day 1 went fairly smoothly. My train arrived in Fitchburg around 10:15, giving me as early a start as I could expect. I made a quick push to get out of town and through Westminster before breaking to stretch and eat. This part of Massachusetts is really a hole, full of industrial decay and uninspired graffiti. I wouldn't recommend it to a tourist.

Beyond this old ghost of economic ruin, towns are quaint and sparse. I lunched in Gardner, the "Chair City" (Were my phone not low on battery, I would have taken a picture of the 40-foot tall wooden chair that greeted me as I came into town...it was a hoot). From there, I managed to lose the road, 2A, that would take me to Athol (I'd hate to be a man with a lisp asking for directions to "Athol"), but I found a connecting road in the next town over and didn't lose too much time.

I rolled into the remote and lovely Erving State Forest around 5 and was, aside from being eaten alive by mosquitoes all evening, no worse for the wear.



Day 2 was met with a rocky start. I overslept by about 4 hours and didn't get on the road until 11. By then the temperature was climbing well into the 80s and the only main road west, Route 2, was filled with traffic. This meant rather miserable riding, as I had to spend more time checking my mirror for passing 18-wheelers than appreciating the scenic beauty of the landscape.

To make matters worse, the route was largely a steady incline, as the rolling hills of Western Massachusetts approached the looming Berkshires.

North Adams, my destination for Day 2, is surrounded on all sides by steep ridges. Entering from the west, the only road is Route 2. Because of winding, climbing roads and a shoulder no wider than 6" at any point, Route 2 is not safely passable on bike at this point. I was able to hitch a ride near Charleton and was dropped safely at the summit before North Adams. I coasted down the ridge and broke to the state park before hitting town. In about an hour I had set up camp and went to work on dinner.

Now I have a day of rest. I'm going to check out the Mass MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) this afternoon and see what North Adams has to offer for lunch and dinner.

As for my next move, I will have to alter my plans slightly. Yesterday's steep climbs and hick downs have dampened my interest in Southern Vermont. I think I'd be better off taking a bus to somewhere a little closer to Lake Champlain-- that's the part of Vermont I'm actually interested in seeing.

For tonight, though, I'm looking forward to going back to the place I slept last night. Off days rule...I'll be able to rest my muscles, eat well and at my leasure, and (best of all) bike around without lugging my heavy equipment and packs full of supplies.

Here are some pictures to leave you with (it's not letting me upload in the traditional way on this computer, so cut&paste links):

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A shot of me near the top of the ridge before North Adams.



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A pan-o-rama of the view from the top. The resolution isn't great, but you get an idea of the breadth of the view.



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Ready to safely descend the hill.



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About to eat myself into oblivion.


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What it's like inside my tent.




This morning I snapped a few shots of North Adams. Nothing of Main St., but I think the residential areas are a little more interesting.

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ON the eve of adventure, or, a humble beginning

Tomorrow I embark on a 2-week, 500+ mile camping trip, armed only with the following invaluable tools:


A bike.
This bike belonged to my late grandfather, Kirk Stadtlander, and holds a special significance for me, which I'll explicate later and hopefully understand more fully in the days to come. I'm borrowing it from its current owner, my uncle Erik. I can't thank him enough for trusting me with the responsibility of keeping this bike out of harm's way. Without him, this trip would not be possible, so I'd like to take this opportunity to give him a special shout-out. Propers.
I've outfitted the bike with as many bags as it can hold, stuffed them with food, tools, rope (you always need rope), duct tape (you always need duct tape), first-aid necessities, soap, toothpaste, lotion, and other essentials, an extra t-shirt and pair of pants, the absolute minimum of socks and underwear for changes, a stove and extra propane tanks, a zippo, 6 backup lighters, three indescrutible metal bottles, a rear-view mirror, an additional spare tube and patch kit, a hammock (to stay off the ground on nights when it is dry), a sleeping bag, a pad, and a tent.
With all of this, I hope to keep myself fed and sheltered for the duration of my journey.


But a bike's no good without someone to ride it, and that's where I come in.

My name is William Stadtlander and, if you're reading this, you already know me. You may know that I've done something like this before -- my good friend Nick and I went 4 days and 300+ miles from Hoboken, NJ to Provincetown, MA. We stayed in hostels and ate in restaurants. It was grueling, but in a way luxurious. We had each other, after all.

This time I do it alone. And I do it without a roof over my head. I'll have to rough it like I've never roughed it before. I'll need to shelter myself, feed myself, expend all my energy on basic survival.

And on top of that, I'll have to cover between 50 and 80 miles a day on my bike. For that I'll need these...

My feet is my only carriage.




I'll keep up this blog as much as I can to track my journey. Updates will come as they can, and will relay route information, successes and failures, and general mental well-being.

I'm catching a 9:50 train to Fitchburg tomorrow morning, and I'll have to spend all afternoon getting to Erving State Forest for my first night. The next day I'll go as far as North Adams, MA and Clarksburg State Park.

My next entry will be from the North Adams Public Library.