I’m an old man (51 years old to be precise) with one foot in the grave, more interested in the location of the bathroom than in the attentions of the fairer sex, but I wear out bikes like a 27-year-old Tour de France winner.

This is my latest, a Giant Contend 1. It’s a rather modest entry-level aluminum road bike with a Sora group set, but the 11 x 32 cassette (which will give me lower gears almost as good for steep hills as a mountain bike) should serve me well for my coming trek through Vermont and upstate New York.

I have no idea who Samuel W. Burrows was, but he only made it to 39. I suppose he was important since he’s got the biggest tombstone in the whole cemetery. He should have ridden a bike more and drank less of that good Nineteenth Century ale.