Dehydration or Heat Exhaustion or… ?

What? Really? Nah!

The day started so well. A splinter of Spinners got back to ride together again. 

Scott and I met in Brunswick after my train ride in. The idea was that I would bike to Waldoboro — where I had a reservation at Moody’s Cabins, and Scott would bike with me to Bath or Wiscasset. Great company is always welcome! 

The problem is hubris, counting chickens early, booking every lodging in advance in an elaborate itinerary — it leaves no margin for error, dehydration, or heat exhaustion. 

I’m suffering from something completely debilitating after a hot and humid 23 miles. As an illustration: since February 27, 2025 and this year — up rollers coasters, P.U.D.S. (Pointless Ups and Downs) and 13% quad busters I hadn’t dismounted my bike and walked up a single hill, and today I walked up a few 4-5% short grades. And I could barely manage that!

My body was (is!) completely depleted, enervated, useless at the slightest exertion. I was dizzy often, cold-sweated a few times, nearly threw up, and nearly passed out on a couple of occasions.

The temperature was warm: 84 degrees. The humidity was a manageable 55%. And the dew point was 60 — enough to feel a bit sticky; but none of those numbers are aberrant, or unusually high, and yet I felt like I would keel over various times!

After a mere 23.51 miles my body would render no more. I took shade in a gazebo on the grounds of the Wiscasset Lincoln County Museum — the Historical Old County Jail — around 3pm and didn’t move again until nearly 6:30 pm. All this after being dropped by Uber and Lyft from ride requests three times; calling every shuttle and taxi company from Portland to Nobleboro, ME; and trying to maybe get a shuttle from Moody’s to their property in Waldoboro, ME. Even standing up was thoroughly challenging and enervating. 

I was gassed. I was cooked. I was clearly done biking for the day — maybe for the week. I’m beyond exhausted and spent. 

I found the good folks at Sea Salt Cottages willing to help out an ailing cyclist, and luckily it was a downhill coast to their property — which I was oblivious to for 3.5 hours!

The plan is Pattie will pick me up today, and I’m going to try and see my M.D. I’ll let you know what all this inauspicious physical short-circuit is about as soon as I know.

Oy!

Day 41:
Start: Brunswick, ME
Finish: Wiscasset, ME
Miles: 23.5

I’ve been hospitalized with acute renal failure before, and had two other emergency room visits that required multiple liters of saline IV’s during long distance thru-hikes.

Unfortunately, this feels a lot like those situations. Now I’ve got to find out what it is.

What I’m Reading:

Heat lingers where nature is absent—cooling the city begins not with technology, but with restoring the living systems that once regulated its climate. 

— IMM Design Lab / Facebook post

Something Dreamed Up

This is what the last 5 days on the East Coast Greenaway / Atlantic Coast Route / plus Northern-most Extension bike tour will look like for me. Just to clarify, there is no mapped and set route from Key West, FL to Lubec, ME. The Lubec, ME, and specifically West Quoddy Head Lighthouse was a Spinners conceit, i.e., something dreamed up by Scott and Richard that everyone involved enjoined because it seemed fitting to go from the southern-most point to the northeastern-most point of the US in one route — and with the aid of good weather, two very scenic and photogenic terminal points, it’s what I intend to finish.

Here is the itinerary for the last leg:

Today: after I arrive in Brunswick, ME at 12:10, I’ll bike 44.2 miles to Waldoboro, ME.

Wednesday: I’m biking from Waldoboro to Bucksport, ME.

Thursday: The longest and most elevation gain on the last leg of the tour, biking from Bucksport to Milbridge, ME.

Friday: The reason I’m breaking up the last 53 miles up into a 2 day ride is twofold: 1. I really wanted to stay at the Inn at Schoppee Farm in Machias, ME, again. 

AND, 2. It wasn’t available on any good night this week where I could double it up with a stay by the lighthouse in Lubec, ME. 

So I worked the schedule backwards from West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, hence the short last 2 days.

Saturday: I drove to Lubec, ME this past March and went in to Canada, but never visited West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. As the northeastern-most point in the US it became de riguer that I finish the ride here. 

One literally runs out of land to the northeast.

And after researching the area, staying at the West Quoddy Station also became obligatory. Regardless of weather it’s a dramatic and photogenic place to spend the last night of the bike tour.

That’s the itinerary for the last 5 days of the tour. I’m hoping for good weather, but I’ll take whatever I get.

What I’m Reading:

Out on the bluff, the sky a gaping maw.

Crossing the gorge, a woman looks back

No man can grasp her drum-shaped pain.

— Kiềm Cổ / “Drum Gorge”

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”