To Good Weather!

My right knee has responded well to treatment and time off from fully-packed long distance riding. I have been riding, but with greatly reduced weight on the bike, and substantially lower mileages these last 10 days. But I can’t manage that reduced weight and mileage (exactly) over the last 230 (or so) miles from Brunswick to Lubec, ME, but I can strive for something close to it.

So, I’m keeping daily mileages under 60 miles, and going out with a reduced load. That means a “credit card bike tour” ending to the ride. In bike touring parlance a “credit card tour” means going out without camping, cooking, and sleeping gear. That means staying indoors — usually motels, hotels, Air BnB’s, Warm Showers hosts, etc. Just a light set-up — usually pannier free — in order to cover more ground without so much effort expended on the riding side.

That’s what I’m doing. The last four and a half days of riding are already planned out — all mileages are predetermined and under 55 miles, all reservations for lodging are booked, and I’m going out without a rear rack and panniers; although I’m taking a 14L saddle bag and mini front panniers, as one must take some extra clothing for dryness and warmth, and gear for dealing with mechanical issues and first aid. 

This approach and set-up allows me to shed about 10-12 lbs of weight off the bike and makes it easier to pedal up some of those memorable Maine hills, thereby stressing my right knee less — and hopefully the swelling and flexion problems will not become issues.

Due to the logistics of lining up lodging (read: vacancy issues) and especially because I wanted to line up the Inn at Schoppee Farm in Machias, ME and West Quoddy Station in Lubec, ME as my last two lodgings, I won’t be leaving today as originally planned.

I’ll be headed out tomorrow on the 8:50 Amtrak Downeaster to Brunswick, ME, and should be at West Quoddy Head Lighthouse (the northeastern-most point in the contiguous US) by Saturday morning. All tickets are purchased, and lodgings reserved and confirmed.

I hope this 2,800+ mile journey, that began on February 27, 2025 (which was supposed to be uninterrupted and done in 2 months) comes to the resolution I envision. Like life itself the ride has been unruly and unpredictable — and subject to disruptions and health issues. 

It’s all about the journey — not about when I reached the destination.

Here’s hoping to four and a half good riding days to round out the 3 months spent on this journey over the last 2 years.

To a fitting final 230 miles! And to good weather!

What I’m Reading:

Two realities in one space; now I’m unclear which reality was more real.

— Ben Lerner / Transcription

Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

Aging may change the way we ride, but it doesn’t have to mean giving up on goals or the pursuit of joy and endorphins. In fact, many cyclists who ride into their 50s, 60s, and 70s report that in some ways the experience is better than it was in their younger years. Without the obligation to shuttle kids to sporting events, or after retiring from work, older cyclists have more freedom and time to ride. The 2017 National Household Travel Survey found that cyclists over 50 ride more often for fitness and recreation than their younger counterparts.

— Molly Hurford / “8 Powerful Tips to Ride Strong at 50+ From Senior Cyclists Who Are Crushing Their Goals” / Bicycling

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Inside me, bones inflating,
kites crowding a florid dome.

In answer to a question, the poet said
I write to return opacity to the glassbright world.

— Sarah Ghazal Ali / “Künstlerroman”

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If we lose the stamina for real conversation, if we embrace our narcissism and accept language as a flat surface, then not only do we grant politicians and other advertisers the right to say anything (I think we’re already here, at this extreme form of sophistry where even words underpinned by actions can be taken as somehow not literal), but we risk a slower and total form of alienation. Imperfect though it is, language is our connective tissue. 

— Matt Greene / “On the Rise of ChatGPT and the Industrialization of the Post-Meaning World” / Lithub

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Often one thinks the urn should have more bones
Than skeletons provide for speedy dust,
The urn gets hollow, cobwebs brittle as stones
Weave to the funeral shell a frivolous rust.

— Allen Tate / “Mr. Pope”

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Newly discovered immune cells called ‘ruptoblasts’ explode when triggered, ejecting toxic chemicals that make quick work of surrounding cells. This process, dubbed ruptosis, seems to be a new form of cell death that differs considerably from other known types, say researchers. The team discovered the cell type while studying Schmidtea mediterranea, a species of flatworm with extraordinary regenerative capabilities. In vitro, ruptosis of a single cell killed as many as 70 surrounding cells without discrimination — bacterial, flatworm and human cells all fell victim to the blast.

— Flora Graham / “New immune cells go out with a bang” / Nature

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In heat,
things expand. So do minutes.
Fire swallows trees, entire forests.
At some point, there won’t be anything
left to burn. Fire
has no future. What a relief
for the fire.

— Selma Asotić / “Landscape with footprints in

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The U.S. just had its worst year for international tourism since the pandemic and it wasn’t even close. While the rest of the world broke records in 2025, America was the only country out of 184 to see a drop in foreign visitor spending.

Four million fewer tourists came here and eight billion dollars gone. We were the only major destination in the world moving in the wrong direction.

— Alt National Park Service / Facebook post

What I’m Listening To:

What’s the matter with me?
It ain’t like I can breathe
When the storm clouds
Calm down then
I’m gonna scream

— Poliça / “The Matter”

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in this (my) neighborhood pt. 141 

Day 37:
Start: Brunswick, ME
Finish: Falmouth, ME
Miles: 21.3

Zero day on Sunday. I start north for the last 217 miles from Brunswick to Lubec, ME on Monday.

Vacation Type Things

We tweaked the experiment — the train experiment. In all honesty, spending half the day on trains just to bike 4-5 hours is fairly exhausting. It takes just as much time — or more — to commute to the bike ride terminal points than it does to ride the route.

Then it occured to us — let’s take a weekend in Portland, ME — use Portland as a base and bike in to Portland from points south and north and cover the same mileage while doing vacation type things.

And so we did. I drove us to Wells, then Pattie drove to Portland and spent the day at the Portland Museum of Art — while I spent a few hours biking from Wells to Portland, ME.

This is an estuary near the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge northwest of Wells, ME.

Kennebunkport, ME was also on yesterday’s route.

  Farms in the Kennebunkport, ME area.

Later in Saco I traversed about 10 miles of the 62 mile long the Eastern Trail. Saco, ME.

Here the trail — a “Rail Trail Hall of Fame” inductee — parallels I-295 near the Old Orchard Beach turn off. Saco, ME.

At an Eastern Trail kiosk near Old Orchard Beach, ME.

The Great Scarborough Marsh on the Eastern Trail. Scarborough, ME.

36 miles later the right knee is a little cranky and needs treatment. Portland, ME.

Pattie at the historic Old Waterfront in Portland, ME.

Day 36:
Start: Wells, ME
Finish: Portland, ME
Miles: 36.5

Today is the last day of experimentation / day rides. I’ll be biking from Brunswick, ME (the end of the Amtrak Downeaster line, and where I’ll head north from with my loaded bike on Monday) and riding back to Portland, ME.

The knee appreciates the lower mileages.

What I’m Reading:

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what
America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you
got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear
on the black waters of Lethe?

— Allen Ginsberg / “A Supermarket in California”

Day 35:
Start: Newburyport, MA
Finish: Wells, ME
Miles: 52.3

What I’m Reading:

i never wanted to grow up to be anything horrible
as a man.  my biggest fear  was the hair  they said
would    snake    from  my   chest,   swamp    trees
breathing  as  i  ran.  i prayed for a  different  kind
of  puberty . . .

— Sam Sax / “Bildungsroman”

Happy World Bike Day (Yesterday)

I didn’t take the commuter train out to Newburyport and bike back to Boston yesterday — instead, on a whim I biked out to Newburyport and took the commuter train in to Boston. 

I missed the 8:35 train and so I biked out and took the 3:53 pm train from Newburyport back to Boston. 

My knee tolerated the 47.5 mile day well — not too much swelling (there was some, think small grapefruit-sized, instead of knee sized) of the right knee, and very little pain. So that’s a good start, and proof that this plan can work as long as the knee complies.

I’d already covered a lot of this ground before — at least 3-4 times, but there were new routings within the larger route, and some of the ride was quite novel, and the ornery 12% hills were not on this route — there was one 11.4% hill, and that was enough. 

The weather was perfect high 60’s to start and it touched 80 degrees at Newburyport when I arrived at the station. Sunny day with good canopy cover, and no to light traffic for a good portion of the route.

Elevation was tame, save the 11.4% hill — it was short after all. And the Commuter train back to Boston from Newburyport was uneventful.

Back in Boston I had another 5.4 miles to add to the 47.5 riding out to Newburyport, so it was an excellent way to test out the knee — it did well and didn’t get to swollen or painful. So the train experiment is a go.

Day 34:
Start: Jamaica Plain, MA
Finish: Newburyport, MA, back to Jamaica Plain
Miles: 52.9

Today I’ll take the Commuter train to Newburyport, MA, ride to Wells, ME — Maine the last state on the tour! — and take the Amtrak Downeaster home. Another warm and sunny — great weather day — is forecast.

What I’m Reading:

Loss made me, iron-hot, shaped me.
Without this ember grief, only burnished
light remains. Snowless.

— Muriel Leung / “At the end of the world, you tell me about the bees”

The Plan

Yesterday I did what I’ve wanted to do most — I got on my bike and rode it a few miles.

My knee responded to treatment and time off. I tested it with a short 10.4 mile ride around my neighborhood, and it, again, responded well to treatment afterward.

Today I’ll go out on the commuter train and bike in to Boston from Newburyport, MA — about 48 miles — without panniers or extraneous gear. This allows me the opportunity to cover the mileage and treat the knee at home overnight — and the option to easily seek medical attention if necessary — and to spend the night at home.

If this turns out well, I’ll repeat something like this for a few days using Amtrak’s Downeaster service that runs from Boston to Brunswick, ME — I’ll then end up at home each night.

I’ve plotted out an itinerary in the event all goes well today. At a certain point, probably Freeport, ME, I’ll return to the route with my gear and no longer return home in the evenings. I’m also taking a zero day on Sunday for the sake of the knee. Breaking the remainder of the bike tour into two 4 day blocks.

If this works it’ll be four days of using train service, covering the mileage, and coming back home — followed by an off-day — then four days of biking with a lighter load of gear up to Lubec, ME.

That’s the plan.

What I’m Reading:

Of all of the greenway projects underway in America, the East Coast Greenway is by far the most ambitious. Back in 1991, city planners from Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., came together with the idea of connecting their independent greenways. That vision grew to become the East Coast Greenway, a multi-purpose trail that would connect Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida. The goal: Encourage non-motorized travel for work and recreation. More than three decades in the making, 65 percent of the Greenway is completed or in advanced stages of development. It’s already become one of America’s most visited parks, with an estimated 50 million cyclists and pedestrians using the greenway annually.

— Jen Murphy / “A Bike Trail that Connects Moose to Manatees” / Substack

The Knead to Rest the Knee

No, I didn’t take a complete day off for the sake of the knee. I substantially reduced my biking to errands — biking back home after returning a rental car (3.28 miles), riding home after picking up my bicycle after the tubeless tire conversion (7.39 miles). I also took a short recreational ride to stay in form on Saturday morning (8.55 miles), and I biked Sunday from Worcester to Framingham, MA (24.24 miles) to complete the Worcester to Boston ride I was going to take Wednesday when I came home to ostensibly take a few days off before heading out to finish the bike tour and ride up to Lubec, ME.

Those are not high mileages, nor did those rides involve substantial elevation gains. But my right knee seems to insist on complete rest or it will continue to painfully swell after every ride, no matter how short. So it seems a complete off-day (or two?) is required. Not a light stationary bike ride, or a quick 5 mile jaunt, no! Completely off my feet, icing, and anti-inflammatory treatment.

But first, about the ride from Worcester: short, breezy, and inspiring — except the cantaloupe-sized knee I got in return.

It occurred to me while riding through towns like Westborough, Southborough, Grafton, Ashland, et al., that there are some very cool towns and villages that I’ve never been to in the 28 years we’ve lived in Massachusetts — and I’d like to see more neat town greens, quaint village centers, and homes built in 1719 or 1732.

So if I’m lucky enough to finish this tour with two healthy knees, my next long ride will be through the state of Massachusetts — east, west, north and south. 

After leaving Worcester center I traversed some of the hilly neighborhoods of the Worcester and Grafton Hills.

I was surprised to find that Tufts University had a Veterinary Campus and Hospital in Grafton, MA — set among the of farmlands of central Mass.

And replete with public art and historic structures like Locust Barn above. Grafton, MA.

The town circle in Westborough, MA.

Skirting the Ashland Town Forest. A town forest! How cool is that? Ashland, MA.

As I’ve ridden various routes from Framingham to Boston in the past, I decided — or rather, my right knee decided — to call the Framingham Commuter Rail station the terminal point of today’s ride at 24.2 miles instead of 47.5 miles to Jamaica Plain (Boston).

Now no gaps exist between Worcester and Boston for me on a bicycle. I was experiencing new knee discomfort and reduced flexion, which is alarming, so prudence was necessary for the sake of the longer ride.

 I waited for Pattie to drive over from Natick, MA at the station. I’m trying to sort out how to move ahead and finish this 2,800+ mile ride. If I can’t bend my leg fully and pain free, I can’t pedal. I must stay off my knee for a couple of days.

Day 31:
Start: Worcester, MA
Finish: Framingham, MA
Miles: 24.2

After what is considered very light bicycling mileage the past few days: 3.28 miles, 8.55 miles, 7.54 miles, and 24.24 miles — fractions of what I’d be doing bike touring — my knee is not responding to the usual treatment of icing and anti-inflammatories.

The variable has been that I’ve continued to bike — albeit low mileage — and so I have to adjust the variable and take a complete day (or two) off my knee if I’m to continue to bike to Lubec, ME.

I’m taking (at the least) Monday off in hopes of seeing a substantial reduction in swelling. If the condition of my right knee does not improve it will require medical attention. So here’s to a day of rest, icing, and ibuprofen — and hopes of an improved knee Tuesday morning.

What I’m Reading:

If the past decade of post-truth politics have siloed us in our political subsets by removing the floorboards of a shared reality, then the post-meaning age risks isolating us in silos of one, unable to commune with even those we might see as allies. (Another question is how do we protest effectively and act collectively if we are starved of a collective language?) Isolation and a dependence on AI for any task in which writing (or thought) is required fosters the conditions for further dependence; ultimately it leads to atrophy, to an inability to think for ourselves.

— Matt Greene / “On the Rise of ChatGPT and the Industrialization of the Post-Meaning World” / Lithub

Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

Consciousness is a miracle, truly, and remains the deepest of mysteries, yes, but it is also so very simple that it can fit into a sentence: I open my eyes and a world appears.

— Michael Pollan / A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness

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Our world has been flooded by a deluge of digital platforms, their ceaseless flow submerging our daily lives. From the planetary infrastructures of Amazon, Meta, Google, Apple, WeChat, and Alibaba, to the on-demand labor of Uber, Didi, Upwork, and Deliveroo, we’ve become networked datums in digital portfolios. The infrastructures of capitalism now flow through cables and cloud servers that states have been slow and economically disincentivized to regulate. We are all paying rent in the internet of landlords. This is an evolving machinery in which datafication facilitates dispossession.

— Matthew Cole / “The Digital Economy is Destroying Our Lives and Our Planet—and AI is Only Going to Make It Worse” / lithub.com

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Nowhere is a person free when men cage other men. Nowhere is America. Nowhere. Maybe a gap between a boy’s baby teeth. Maybe a legion of milkless mothers. A lit match. An unbolted cage.

— Jeanann Verlee / “Peril, Ignored”

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Thousands of cities are decoupling economic growth from the burning of fossil fuels. Researchers compared levels of the greenhouse gas nitrogen dioxide (NO2) with information on gross domestic product (GDP) to track the green development trajectories of more than 5,000 of the world’s biggest cities. About 2,000 cities showed improvement in both metrics between 2019 and 2024 — most of them in China.

— Flora Graham / “The cities getting ‘richer and cleaner’” / Nature Brief

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a garland
for the body
forming a garland
for the body . . .

— John Giorno / “Lucky Man”

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All I see in hindsight is the chaos of history repeated, over and over, reenacted, reinterpreted, the world, its fucked-up heart palpitating underneath us, failing, messing up again and again as it winds its way around a sun. And in the middle of it all, tribes, families, people, all beautiful things falling apart, debris, dust, erasure.

— Valeria Luiselli / Lost Children Archives

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I think cycling and my cycling mental state are very closely linked to the mental state that I want to be in for writing … Both require the motivation to practise over and over again, even if you’re struggling with the messy middle or terrible weather.

— Hannah Marais / “The Tandem Qualities of Writing and Cycling” / Cycling

What I’m Listening To:

He says, “Only the strong survive”
You don’t get to decide what strength is
Not today
I’m a daydream unbeliever

— Shearwater / “Daydream Unbeliever”

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The Cycling Front

Today I’ll be riding the gap in from Worcester, MA and closing the gap here in Massachusetts.

I’ll also finalize plans for the final push to Lubec, Maine later this week.

And enjoy the comforts of home, while hopefully being kinder to my cranky right knee.

Read about it here tomorrow.

A Credit Card Tour?

I must admit that spending time off the bike is feeling very good to me.

I achieved the main objective when I set out from Key West last year — to complete a cross country bike ride from Key West, FL to Calais, ME (at the Canadian border). I’d intended to do it all in one go — from one terminus point to another — but true to life, it was messy and unpredictable. It took two seasons as opposed to being one continuous and contiguous ride; and it ended at a strange and unpredicted place in Thompson — Quinebaug, CT. Not the most photogenic of places.

I had an idealized version of how this Key West to Canada ride would unspool in mind, but it never included the particular route I chose overall, nor the Quick Mart & Smoke Inc. as its celebratory terminal point. But I’ll take it and embrace it, as it was the culmination of my dream (despite not being my dream ride). Done!

But that begs the question: what about Lubec, Maine? And why now? — as I’m done and feeling comfortable, and my knee is returning to human dimensions.

Well precisely because the Quick Mart is such an inauspicious place to “finish” a ride. And because when I set out this year from Georgetown, SC I never intended to stop once I merely closed the last gap. I set out to bike to the northeastern most point of the Unites States. And I feel as if I go back out and accomplish that, even though I’ve ridden the entirety of Maine over the last 2 years, I will really finish what I set out to do this year — and Quoddy Head State Park is an infinitely better and more photogenic ending than the Quick Mart and Smoke Inc.

The first bike related chore I did upon returning home was to take my bike in to my local bike shop (Landry’s Bicycles on Commonwealth Ave) and convert over to a tubeless tire set-up. That two hour ordeal, last week in Yonkers, NY, changing the first flat on these new Tracer tires was painfully instructive — and something I don’t wish to repeat anytime soon.

On the ride home I got my first introduction to a sealant shower as the over-pressurized tire seated and a little micro-puncture reopened, but the tire sealed quickly and the tubeless tire set-up  did its job.

Now I’m in planning mode for the upcoming homestretch to Lubec, ME. I’m using Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini (LLM / AI’s) as starting points which I’ll refine with Ride with GPS and Google Maps road view. The reason I’m doing this level of planning is because my knee is still a bit balky and the swelling will now be a chronic thing as long as I’m biking daily. 

I’m going to limit myself to 45-50 mile days — shorter days for the sake of my knee (swelling, flexion, and pain management) and I’m going to plan this out as a set daily itinerary. I normally don’t like to over plan my bike tours like this, but due to the circumstances I think it behooves me to keep mileage low and know that I’ll be able to ice my knee down every night.

Believe me, my knee would rather I do this … 

… but knowing myself, and my “completist / non-gapist” tendencies — I need to ride to Lubec, ME and finish what I set out to do on May 1st.

So I’m taking a few days off, mostly for the knee, but also to tweak some gear and to plan a set itinerary from here to Lubec, ME.

I’m taking some low mileage rides around the neighborhood to keep the knee flexion supple, and to keep form, but not so much mileage as to exacerbate the swelling.

And I love riding my (still new) bike naked (read: unloaded and unencumbered by panniers) and it now only weighs 19 lbs without the tubes. It feels very fast and extremely responsive.

Which begs another question: if I have a set daily itinerary, and reserve lodging in advance, why not leave the tent and cooking gear at home and really lighten my load? What’s called in the bike touring world — “credit card touring.” 

That is, lightening the load — staying at hotel, motels, & Air BNB’s — and leaving the tent, stove, fuel, and food (other than snacks) at home. This would mean I could shave a total of 6 -7 lbs. off the bike because I would also leave the rack and rear panniers behind and take my saddle bag instead.

Much to consider and get done in a few days. I feel confident that the knee will cede to the ice and anti-inflammatories; and that carrying less weight on the bike and shortening the daily miles will be the route to go to Lubec, Maine. 

Days 28 — 30:
Start: Jamaica Plain, MA
Finish: Jamaica Plain, MA
Miles: 0

Once I’ve got the itinerary set, and the knee is ready, I’ll get rolling again — I figure about 3 days, or so, stay tuned.

What I’m Reading:

This trip is best treated as a Boston-to-Portland-to-Brunswick-to-Downeast progression, then a final push to Lubec. The East Coast Greenway Alliance notes Boston-to-Newburyport options with hotel/Airbnb lodging, and the Maine itineraries highlight lots of hotel and camping choices in Freeport and Brunswick, plus route guidance farther east in Maine.

— Perplexity, (via greenway.org) / “Route Structure” / Perplexity app