I woke up at 6am to get to Bethel for the start of the 6 gaps brevet at 7am. Since I had eaten all my food the day before, there wasn’t much to do other than get dressed and have my bike ready. Today I was going to leave my backpack behind at the hotel so for the first time in over a week I was riding normally. As soon as I was out of the hotel I turned to go down the mountain I had climbed the night before.

If getting to Montréal wasn’t enough, I thought that I had recovered enough to attempt riding back to my non-refunable hotel reservation in Randolph, VT. Renting a car be damned, I had to try and do what I had set out for myself. I started the day by packing my backpack, discarding all of my unnecessary belongings (sorry shoes!), and eating an egg-salad sandwich I had bought the night before from Couche Tard.

The conference Attending ICOSAHOM was a great decision. However, getting there by bike was not. I hadn’t brought shoes with me so after showing up on Monday morning to the plenary session in (still damp) cycling shoes I excused myself to buy some new kicks at the nearest department store as soon as they opened. I was quite pleased with the purchase and did my best to walk with confidence, but I could still only manage to shuffle because my formerly “good” knee was protesting with pain from all of the riding the days before.

I woke up after 7 hours sleep and reviewed my plan for the day. I had a route to go 300km along paths recommended by the adventure cycling association, but the fatigue from the day before and evidence of a big saddle sore persuaded me to consider a more direct route to Montréal along Lake Champlain along a causeway with a bike ferry that a friend had recommended to me.

I slightly regret not having taken photos every day to show the amazing places I was able to ride through so I hope to make my readers see with the mind’s eye. This happened because on my way to Montréal I kept my phone in a plastic bag to protect it from rain. There will be photos with a ride summary at the top of each page, and I did take lots of pictures on my ride home.

In this blog, I explain why I decided to ride my bike from Boston to a conference in Montréal over a weekend as a solo adventure. The idea of it seemed a bit daunting because this was my first bikepacking trip where I would carry my own gear and stay overnight in hotels. While planning it, I avoided thinking about the potential difficulty or the absence of a concrete backup plan and instead trusted my training and preparation to make it happen.