Pan Mass Challenge Reimagined: Cape Cod with Team Kinetic Karma

After riding Thursday with Team Kinetic Karma, I was up early again Friday morning to get dropped off for the start of Day Two Reimagined with Team Kinetic Karma. It was foggy and gray. A few raindrops plopped down as we were getting dressed, pumping our tires and getting ready for the ride.

I had failed to check the weather forecast the night before. That turned out to be a mistake. Luckily, I had brought my rain jacket. I failed to bring a fender. The rain started coming down as we headed out.

It was a luke-warm, rainy morning to be on a bike. A tough way to start the day. But the Pan Mass Challenge is not cancelled because of rain. It could have been a lot colder and lot rainier.

The first stop was a quick photo-op at the Nauset Lighthouse. It’s been frequent stop for team’s rides. The team even crashed a wedding photography session at the lighthouse on one of its rides in year’s past.

The highlight of Friday’s ride would be meeting Abel, our Pedal Partner this year. Abel was shy at first, but quickly warmed up to the goofy guys standing around in spandex in the rain.

Team Kinetic Karma partners with a child undergoing cancer treatment. We had a new Pedal Partner this year because Maya, our previous Pedal Partner, had beaten back cancer and gotten successfully through treatment. YEAH!! for Maya’s recovery!! The team visited with her before the ride.

From Abel’s house, we continued North into Barnstable and on to the classic Cape Cod section of the Pan Mass Challenge. As on Wednesday, Barnstable was a stop to refuel. Normally, the Barnstable Court’s parking lot is full of thousands of PMC cyclists wearing a rainbow assortment of team jerseys. Today, it was just a handful of riders from Team Kinetic Karma. At least the rain had stopped.

With the drier air, we pushed forward along the Cape. A deviation was from the PMC route was in our plans. We turned left to Dan G’s house. He put together a fantastic halfway stop for us. Even better, he joined us for the ride to Provincetown.

It was tough trying to make our Pan Mass Challenge traditions work this year. Barnstable was empty. Nickerson was empty. Wellfleet was empty.

We did have our traditional Twizzlers and Red Bull stop thanks to the Lance and his family. They’ve been on the road side of the Pan Mass Challenge in Wellfleet on Ocean View Drive for many years. Riders come off the rail trail, take a right, then take a hard left up climb towards the Wellfleet rest stop. At the top of the climb, the Davis family is there to cheer all PMC riders on. This year it was just Team Kinetic Karma and few stray riders.

With that refuleing, we had 20 miles to go through the rolling dunes at the top of Cape Cod. We deviated from the PMC route by taking a right towards the Highland Lighthouse. We missed the light and never made the stop. Then, rather than coming down Route 6, we stayed west to enter Provincetown on 6A. As we closed on the monument, we took a right and headed north to the dunes.

The dunes rolled and my legs ached. The end was near. There was a lot of glancing at our computers to make sure we would hit that magical 100 mile mark on the ride. We did achieve that mark as we came to Herring Cove Beach.

This is the location of our traditional champagne toast to end the PMC. Usually it’s just water or Gatorade. Thanks to some excellent SAG from Dave and Leslie, we had some real bubbly this year.

It was a great place to end the ride with 100 miles in the saddle for the day with dear friends. We discovered that Herring Cove had outdoor showers , food and beer to help recover from the long ride. If you are curious about the outdoor showers, they were refreshing, but this Facebook Video shows the ugly details.

That brought me up to 644 miles for the week.