The official Dancing Deer Baking Company Blog

Recently, I did a training ride on a tandem bicycle to Connecticut. Scott Chamberlain, who works for my ride sponsor, Belmont Wheelworks offered to take me on a training ride to visit my father in Old Lyme. Scott rides about 300 mile a week (year round) and has no car. So a little 200 mile jaunt is his idea of no sweat and an interesting adventure. Dad is failing rapidly and I needed to get down there ASAP but also needed to book some miles and try out some new technology (GPS, Flip Cam, Jawbone, en-route rechargers, etc.).  I figured we’d fly down there in 6 hours total travel.  How could we not?  I arrived at his barn late because I needed to swing by work and celebrate some Deers’ anniversary days.

Very important stuff. Hats, etc.  Fun.  



Scott is Mr. Safety on the road so he’d geared up with fat tires and a cushy, bouncy seat for me.  It all looked great and I thought how amazing it would be to ride 200 miles and not have a sore back side. Turns out I’m not comfortable with extreme comfort. Gerard of Grace Bicycles in Holliston was our hero.  Sweet guy.

Gorgeous sunny brisk day, great riding, lots of remarkable little details.  How lucky were we to find Chuki’s General Store? An unlikely pack of Dancing Deer Maple Oatmeal cookies was sitting there on the counter and Judy (very delightful) behind it. When I introduced myself she nearly fell over because she had just been reading the directions from our Gingerbread House kit and had enjoyed my line about paying no attention to the directions and just improvising because it always works out for me. I bought two lovely handmade soaps for Josie and Joelle (my Dad’s friends/caretakers) and decided, after some deliberation, not to go for any of the hunting gear in the glass display case.

A LOT of business can be done on the back of a tandem while still maintaining pace.  Hands free! Checked in with daughter Eleanna (college student at F&M) and son Dimitri at various points down and back ..



 Also checked in with some cows in a private moment.

Incredible scenic route – even when looking straight down [small video of the feat pedaling and shadows on the road].Turns out there is about 8,000miles of climbing to do on the scenic route (Mt. Washington is only 6,000)



Last couple hours were in the dark with headlights. Almost hit a Deer!!  Couldn’t fly down the hills - too dangerous. God I hate using my brakes.  Happily it wasn’t my job or the Deer population as well as the people population might have gone down a few head that night. Cranking through the dark felt fine but I suspected we had left Kansas.

Flip cam was almost out of batteries by the time we arrived at 8:30 PM for dinner with Dad. Somehow the team had kept him awake and somehow he was able to sing every word of  “Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do, I’m half crazy . . . . .. but you’ll look sweet on a bicycle built for two” even though he wasn’t really able to speak more than a word or two.  The last visit a couple of weeks ago there wasn’t much conversation but when asked, he flowed out the first two lines of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.  Dear, sweet, brilliant wonderful man. Almost gone.  We have agreed to let him go. He misses Mom. Wouldn’t it be so very cool if it worked out that the universe reunites great lovers somewhere out there?

Scott hadn’t complained – not a single word, but on the front of the tandem he’d taken the brunt of the wind and cold and I was so busy with Dad that I missed the fact that Scott had almost shrunk away to nothing on arrival.  He’d gone seriously hypothermic so we wrapped him in warm towels and poured hot tea in him. He came back!  However let it be noted that I couldn’t buy my way on to that front seat. Absolutely no way.  Legend has it that Scott’s never actually ridden on the back seat.

Sister Lid’s house was the Inn. Her husband Lex accompanied us in their hot tub with view of Great Island, the CT River estuary where I spent many happy days as a teenager.  It’s where – god what was his name?? knew him growing up and he was such a hero – anyway that guy who figured out that it was DDT weakening  the Osprey eggs. Save the Osprey!  Stop DDT!  Right there in Old Lyme. Read "State of The New England Environment" here.

Back to Dad and a delightful morning. He was a bit brighter and more able to respond. Hospital bed and wheelchair arrived. DNR bracelet the day before. But still he has his wit. I asked if he understood I’d ridden down from Boston on a bicycle and he answered ”Yes it made my bones creak.”  Wow -  full sentence and charming too. Strange thing.

When Mom was finally losing the battle against colon cancer, having defied gravity (medically speaking) for eight years beyond the best hopes, I was training for what was going to be my fastest and probably last marathon. My knees were pretty much shot.  I’d drive down to be with her and get up early in the AM to do the 18 mile loop over the bridge through Old Saybrook, around past Katherine Hepburn’s house and back.  I was doing amazingly fast intervals but the long runs were tough. I used to ask strangers on the road to pull my leg out for me - something had stopped working in my hips.  Too much pain. But I kept running. I lived on ice and gave myself frost bite a few times.

Nasty.  Mom died the day of the Mystic Marathon.  Just as well I didn’t run it.

Coffee’s Store, once not quite a deli but always a hang out, is now a slick country grocer with in-house bakery and fancy coffee and...Dancing Deer Cookies!  Still in the Coffee’s family and there was third generation Rich Coffee. My apologies to the other lovely person I met who is in the video – I missed getting your name.  I’m such a novice!  Loaded up with paninis (very yummy), fancy juices, expensive dark chocolate bars and batteries!

I was determined to fly home at a faster pace. I had planned on a 6 AM start to get back to pick up Dimitri from school but opted for more time with Dad who can only manage an hour or two of visit at a time. I arranged for a friend to get D from school but I was still looking for shortcuts.  One of my ideas was to take the half mile advantage on my GPS vs. Scott’s.  He did say, politely, that he thought we should stick with the known route but I was all for shaving and exploring. He was the pilot but I was in the commander seat so we went with my brainy notion.  We climbed 1000 feet of additional elevation and traveled through the valley of the 19th century then landed on dirt roads and a rutty, muddy fantastically gorgeous detour through the woods.  Very smart of me.

Cool gray day.  Never warmed up. Panini’s on a windswept hill in a farmer’s field.  Frogs in Wyndham.  And then the afternoon of pedaling which basically was never going to end. Darkness came.  Every one of those hills was still there in CT and MA as well.  How about that? Then the rain came. Scott and I were having a fantastic time and every stroke was a power stroke! Still confused about why then, we were going so slowly? Actually Scott pronounced  himself done somewhere well before the finish line but no one told his legs which just kept churning.  I stopped chirping for a while so as not to annoy him but I don’t think it’s actually possible to annoy Scott as long as he’s on a bicycle.  Great sport. On the other hand if it’s not going to work out with a riding buddy, it’s not going to work out BIG time on a tandem.

No such problems here.  Pulled in to his barn at 9 PM.  I jump in my car and I’m guessing Scott was through his hot shower and two beers before I arrived home and ran in to find Dimitri for one very big hug.