Day 33 Keene to Amesbury (112 miles)

I'm writing this at South station in Boston on Friday morning, so maybe it doesn't have the immediacy which I've tried to maintain throughout the ride. Hopefully me and my massive bike box will be boarding a train to New York soon where I'll spend a couple of days with Kate before flying back to England.

We were reminded throughout yesterday that this really was the last day, the last morning load and sign in, the last lunchtime SAG etc but somehow it just didn't seem like it. It was another beautiful day, again clear blue skies and very warm, temperatures hit the 90's by the afternoon. We were also told that it wasn't uncommon to get a bit emotional as we neared the beach. My main emotion (if it is an emotion) was exhaustion. It was another tough day, long mileage and about 5000 feet of climbing. I hadn't been expecting that much and coming on the back of the hilly day before my legs were aching about as much as they have all trip.

For once we didn't ride as a four. One of our group, Tom, was also feeling tired so started out a little earlier. I was riding with Ron and Sam, but when they upped the pace, I didn't feel like responding and was content to go my own speed and soak in the atmosphere. It had been arranged that we'd all meet up about 5 miles from the beach and then ride down together, so as long as I stayed in front of, or near the last guy, there was no reason to push it along.

Again the ride was beautiful, tree tunnelled winding roads with dappelled light most of the way. There was also several lakes, many small ones when we were up in the hills and then a large one as we moved further down, all surrounded by trees. It seemed like just another day, but then we were out of the trees and on to a salt marsh with a row of beach houses just ahead of us. Riding the last few miles as an eight and relatively slowly was strange, it's the first time we've done that all trip. It was very busy, there'd been a car accident on the opposite side of the road and ambulances etc were still arriving.

Then suddenly we turned a corner and arrived at the beach. Everyone seemed a little stunned and didn't really know what to do. There were handshakes and congratulations all round, but no whoops of joy or out pouring of emotion. Mike, Barbara and Karen had just parked the vans and arrived to organise us for photos and the ceremonial dunking of wheels. It's a tradition that a bottle of water is collected in the Pacific and transported to the Atlantic. I was given the honour of pouring it in to the ocean.

Like the UK, we're coming up to a holiday weekend here, so the beach was fairly busy. I don't think the locals knew what to make of us, eight guys with very expensive bikes walking over the sand. It's quite likely that I won't be at the beach on a day as nice as this for quite some time, especially if this summer is anything like the last two, so had to take the opportunity for a dip. Strangely nobody followed me as I dived in and pretended to start swimming to England.

There was then the logistics of packing up all the bikes for transportation and returning to the hotel. We all went out for a meal at a noisy restaurant, which was pleasant but again a little muted. I think for me it hadn't (hasn't) sunk in yet and also I was absolutely knackered. At the hotel we had a private room for a final rap session. Everyone, staff and riders, were given the opportunity to speak about their thoughts on the ride and what it meant to them. After the downbeat celebrations earlier, this went much better than I expected, with several riders speaking eloquently and at length about everything that had happened in the last 5 weeks.

We've been keeping a map and displaying it in the hotel lobbies to chart our progress each day. It's another tradition that it's given to the rider who, in the opinion of the staff, most deserves it. Jack was the recipient and there were certainly no arguments with that decision. He's ridden at the back and mainly on his own pretty much the whole way, but like he said in his speech, he'd completed each of the last 19 consecutive days.

TLM then presented a slide show with 10 or so photos from each day. For anyone other than this group, it would be largely just a series of shots of cyclists travelling down very long highways. However for us it bought back lots of memories of 31 individual challenges. There was no late night drinking session, that's not what this trip's been about, it was off to bed in time for another early start.

I'll bring some final thoughts in the next few days.