Cycle Across America – Day 99

Peterborough to Manchester

36miles / 1411ft climb

We have a few deliberately short days planned this week. We want to take our time and just enjoy our last few days of this amazing adventure.

John was particularly keen however, that we should reach Manchester, today’s destination by early afternoon. He had chosen a cafe for brunch en route and a bar for drinks when we arrived at Manchester.

The former has become a regular feature of our morning cycles but we are rarely organised nor inclined to think about the latter until we actually reach our destination. Imagine my surprise when we arrived at Manchester and went straight to the bar to find they were screening the English football. Not only that, they were screening the Newcastle v Liverpool game. By some huge coincidence we arrived just as the game was starting. What are the chances of that?*

The cycling was fun today. Having climbed so much over the last few days, we were rewarded with lots of descents today. I started off a little shaky but once that was under control, I found myself enjoying the undulating roads. There were just enough hills to provide a bit of a challenge but they were not like those monsters of the previous few days. They were on the whole, short and many of them we literally sailed up and down.

In three days we will reach the Atlantic Ocean and dip or wheels in the water. I find it hard to believe this challenge is reaching an end and even harder to believe I will have cycled from the Pacific Coast all the way across America for 4,500 miles to reach the Atlantic Coast.

While I’m so excited to be so close to achieving our goal and a part of me is not ready for the adventure to end.

They Have Done It!

Caroline and Paul, who did most of this challenge alongside us have reached their end goal of Yorktown in Virginia today. They have dipped their front wheels in the Atlantic Ocean to mark their completion. We would love to be celebrating with them, but many months ago we opted to have different final destinations. They were also keen to meet up with their son on his birthday a few days ago and so cycled many more miles each of their last few days than they had originally planned to.

We will meet up later this week with Marianne and Steve who you may remember cycled with us for a few days as we went through Yellowstone. They will cycle our last day in Salem with us. We shall stay with them at their home near Boston and prepare to fly home a couple of days later.

*For those who don’t know John well, he is an ardent Newcastle supporter and I know there was absolutely no chance or coincidence involved in this sequence of events!