Day 6 - Matamoras PA to Bridgewater, NJ

Our longest day may have been the best day. But by day 6 of the ride, everyone is fully trained so an 85-mile day was just right. And once again this week, the weather really cooperated. What was supposed to be a day in the 90's stayed somewhere in the 80's with high cloud cover most of the day. 

Crossing the Delaware from Matamoras to Port Jervis in the morning

We biked through 3 states today, with most of the day in NJ. The biking in northern NJ was beautiful as we biked from Newton to Bridgewater,  Biking on Route 206 is never our favorite part, but it gets the job done.

 We climbed a lot today, 4200 feet in total, and had the single toughest climb of the week. It was a long grind up a quiet road. Some of the descents were pretty gnarly and steep, with pretty uneven and rough pavement. As a mountain biker, I l kinda loved it, but not everyone agreed.

Here's Gabe about to descend a pretty steep section with a nasty hairpin turn that dropped elevation during the turn. We burned up some brake pads today!

One thing that  made today pretty special was that our larger cycling group stayed together for most of the day. Here we are in Hackettstown after a great lunch. I'm going to miss biking with this great bunch of guys!

One interesting story line from the week were the bear sightings along the route. Three cubs and a Mama bear came right out on the rail trail just outside of Adams, MA. Ben was mistakenly identified as the person who saw the bears - it wasn't him but a the son of another rider. But as it turned out, Ben did wind up seeing a bear today as he was racing to catch up to the group this morning after leaving his glasses behind at the hotel.

Bears on the rail trail, er bear trail on Monday

That's Ben approaching the bear. He didn't know there was a bear
sighting and kept riding by

Ben without any bears nearby :)

Some other photos from the day:

DJ and Ken imbibing special nourishment after the ride