Monday, August 19, Montreal, Quebec to Ausable Chasm, NY. A Special Blessing

Claire and I left camp about 6:40.  My bike sounded strange, so I began shifting gears only to discover that my front gears did not shift.  We turned around and I prayed that Harold would still be in camp.  I found him sitting on the curb eating breakfast.  He discovered that the spring on my derailleur was broken.  He removed the derailleur, taped the cable to my bike, placed the gear in the middle ring, and gave the broken derailleur to Phil so that he could try to find the part.  This was a good day to be limited to only one front gear.  There were two big hills at the end of the day, and I was able to make them.  However, tomorrow is a day of hills, so there is no way I could ride tomorrow with only one front gear.  I left praying that Phil would be able to find the part.

Soon after leaving the school we had one mile on an unpaved road.  It was hard packed, so was very passable.  Claire and I were soon joined by the two Bettys, and Harry and Henny.  We had a strong cross wind so we cycled two abreast, changing our position clockwise every mile.  This really helped save our energy.  We again had to bike on unpaved roads, this time for two miles.  This was more difficult.  I am very afraid of falling on gravel and must have been hanging on my handle bars for dear life because later in the day my forearms were sore.  We passed beautiful fields of black dirt with tiny new lettuce plants.  The plants were so green and lined up so perfectly.  It was a relief to turn left to a paved bicycle path for 10 miles.  The path was in the middle of no where - we saw farm land and barns in the distance, but no other evidence of human life.  It was a great ride.  As we rode, we began to see Lake Champlain in the distance.  It seems that almost every day we have some time of cycling near water - always a joy.  

After those two big hills I mentioned earlier, we arrived at Ausable Chasm camp ground.  We walked down to see the very deep chasm and rushing water.  I wish I could include pictures.  Please see other blogs to see the pictures.  

When Phil arrived in camp, I was very relieved and thankful to hear that he had found the part for my bike.  There were two possible bike shops.  The first one had lots of things, but not the right part.  The second shop was much more sparsely supplied. At first, the owner found a  part that also had a broken spring, and then looked through supplies he had from a bike shop he had purchased.  There was a brand new derailleur - exactly the right part.  Harold installed it, and I can look forward to attempting all the hills tomorrow.  

This evening and Sysco truck made it's weekly delivery.  The truck backed up to our kitchen truck and in doing so got stuck in the sand.  Our truck drivers solved the problem by using the kitchen truck cab to pull the Sysco truck out of the sand - a bit of entertainment for all of us.  

75 miles today at an average speed of 14.1