Saturday 25 August: Cycling along north and south shores of Nantucket.
Glorious weather again this morning, and we are looking forward to go out on the bikes again. But before that, we have to try to repair the gear switch. We dinghy ashore with Glen’s bike only and head for the bike rental stores next to the ferry terminal. Luckily, one of the shops has a service workshop, and not only they have the right tool to take off the pedal arms, but also this tool is available for sale. Which of course we purchase one.
Back on Cloudy Bay, Glen starts taking apart the GoCycle, which keeps him busy a fair bit of time. No firm positive result though. As in nothing obviously wrong, but the issue is still not fixed. Maybe buying electronically operated bikes was not the best idea we ever had! When you find integrated circuit boards right next to the chain, all open to the elements, you just knows it’s only a matter of time…
By midday we are ready to start our cycling tour, with Glen’s bike stuck in 2nd gear. At least it’s better than 1st gear yesterday. We start from the Brant Point Lighthouse in the north of Nantucket Harbor. Very pretty view over the harbor’s entrance, and looks even prettier to our eyes as we are looking straight to Cloudy Bay, which is anchored a few hundred metres off the lighthouse.
We then carry on through the residential areas, with short stops at Jetties Beach and Steps Beach, then along the Cliff Road cycle path to Dionis Beach. The properties along Nantucket Sound shoreline are just as pretty and impeccable as the ones we saw yesterday on the south-east side of the island. We could stare at their perfect gardens with vivid green lawns for hours.
From Dionis we take Madaket Rd and Hummock Pond Rd, which is probably the nicest section of the bike paths, because is lined with pine trees and the smell is intoxicating (in a good way!).
After cycling in the sun for so long, we are definitely ready for a cold beer at Cisco Brewers. Not exactly the type of venue we imagined (as in a long bar with people gathered around it and enjoying the tasting menus), but instead is a very crowded outdoors area with a rock band playing. And they even have a cover charge to get in! They certainly know how to milk the holiday-makers on these islands! There are a few tables in the sun, a small bar with no sitting area and certainly no tasting menu (they are too busy for that, we were told), a few food kiosks, and couple of other bars for cocktails and wines. As atmosphere, is probably great for groups of people wanting to hang around and listen to the live bands. After a beer we decided to make a move and make the most of the rest of the afternoon while the sun is shining so nicely.
So we carry on cycling, on the pine trees route (oh, that smell…), and by 6pm we are ready to return to Cloudy Bay for our lunch (or does it count as dinner?). While Oana makes guacamole, Glen washes the bikes which are now covered in dust and sand after two days of intense usage.
Our purchased internet package expires this evening, and we are happy we managed to squeeze quite a bit out of it: 3 videos uploaded, few pics, google search… all the good things we need to do sometimes, even if we don’t really want to! Our YouTube channel has been accepted for monetizing, and we looked at the revenue report (for a laugh!). Looks like we earned US$8 in 8 days. US$1/day, not bad, though only just at the poverty level 🙂
We were planning to go back out to town, in search of a social life. When we poked our heads out in the cockpit, we got instant shivers, feels quite cold this evening. So we quickly vote whether to go out in the chill, or seal ourselves in the warmth of the salon, and we have unanimity to stay in our cozy saloon.
The offending GoCycle is sprawled in the saloon, while Glen reads the manual. That’s right, we have these bikes for 2 years now, but we never bothered to read the manual, or any instructions for that matter. And after watching a video on troubleshooting, he curses “it’s like we have a Mercedes, they talk about service intervals and that we need to go to the nearest service center for pretty much anything!”. I’ve heard more “bloody hells” this evening then any other day spent in the engine room. Finally he has run all the diagnostics and all pass. Pfff, diagnostics eh? So how come the bike has a clean bill of health, yet it still won’t change gear?! Has anyone ever known ANY “diagnostics” find and solve a problem? No, us neither!
Nantucket photo album