The Shakedown - Akadia National Park

We did our shake down today.  It was a ride through Acadia National Park.  It really is a beautiful park.  It is located on the same island that Bar Harbor is located on, Mount Desert Island.  The cliffs and ocean are just gorgeous.  The ride was only 35 miles,, but it was very hilly.  Some of the hills were actually pretty steep.  On the “shakedown”, we had to load everything as though we were traveling and just see if we can carry everything that needs to be carried and that all the equipment works.  It was a good thing.  A few of the riders headed back into Bar Harbor to get new gears on their bike or a trailer to pull their gear etc.  My bike seemed to work pretty well.  I do have a little shifting problem in lower gears.  It seems at one adjustment it will jump on the lowest gears and if I adjust for that it jumps on some higher gears.  I will keep messing with the bike.  One of the riders clocked the amount of climb that we did today and through the day, we climbed about 2,200 feet.  That was a little surprising to me that there are so many hills.

This afternoon, I tried to get a little religion in my day.  I think we will be riding every Sunday that I am on this trip.  I did have a nice study of the New Testament this afternoon.  I studied the “where much is given, much is required” teachings of Christ.

We have a 70% chance of rain tonight and thru the day tomorrow.  That will be really interesting to see how we do things in rain.  I just hope we can get things loaded before the rain comes.  Dave Cox, our tour leader, says that when it rains here, that at least it is still warm. He is from Idaho and knows when it rains in Idaho, it usually is freezing.

Tomorrow we begin the journey.  I am excited to get going.  I think we ride something like 40 miles, so it will be not much different from today.