My final tally for Day 7 was 73 miles, giving me a total for the whole tour of 556.8 miles.  So, despite all my whining, this is pretty close to the advertised length of 550 miles.  To be honest, I feel pretty good after having finished; that is, I'm not as sore or tight or really anything as I thought I'd be.  I did sleep for quite a while on Saturday, but other than that, no ill effects so far.  Maybe I will notice those when I try to stand up, which I have not done since getting off the bike.  So far, I've been crawling everywhere.

The very end of the ride was a little anticlimactic, in that people just arrive at the end, pack up, and leave.  It was a hot last day (about 92^o) and very humid, so my goal was to get done as early as I could.  And it turns out that, compared to states with unfortunate geographic features like the "White Mountains" or the "Green Mountains", Massachusetts is really, really flat.  So I was able to move pretty quickly, most of the time, and finished up the whole thing before 1:00 pm.  Several of you reading this work with me, so you might be interested to know that at one point I was only about 3 miles away from the Airvana offices.  We came in through Westford, crossed Rt. 110 on Tadmuck Road (this is one of the routes that I often ride at lunch time), and ended up going right past Great Brook Farm.  This is one of my favorite places to go for ice cream and such, and I stop there when I ride and I also feel like being fatter after I finish than before I started.  But no eating ice cream in the dappled sunlight on this day.  A lot of people stopped, but I went on by and headed for Woburn.

You may be surprised to hear that the end of the ride is so anticlimactic, but that's because the real social ending of the ride happened the night before.  The whole group got together and awards and recognition were given out for the organizers, the volunteers, and the riders for various things.  (Weirdest clothing, brightest clothing, wearing a bike helmet to breakfast, etc.  The awards for the organizers and the volunteers were deserved.  The awards for the riders were an excuse to stay around and continue drinking.  Have I mentioned yet that the TdC appears to be powered, almost entirely, by alcohol?  This is not entirely surprising when you think about it.  There are at last two ways you can imagine getting through this ride.  One, you can try to figure out how to play the psychology game to get through the rides and the days.  Two, you can be drunk the whole time.  I can see the advantages of each.)  Although I didn't get any awards myself, this did make me think of a few awards I should give out myself.  As I've mentioned, but not discussed in detail yet, Erin and the kids did come and hang out with me for 3 days of this ride, and I think some special awards are deserved for that.

• Most Enthusiastic -- Tatiana Chinitz: At every rest stop (when they were able to drive quickly enough to catch up with me :-)) Tatiana was always the most excited to see me.  Not only was it great to have someone that enthused just by my presence, she was also very useful in helping me to test out my legs by jumping on me every chance she got.  There is no better test of your legs after a 50 mile ride than having a small girl leap into your arms.
  
• Most Nonchalant -- Conor Chinitz: In an attempt to never let us forget that he's now a teenager, Conor wins the award for most clearly demonstrating that he thinks riding an ungodly number of miles on a bicycle is incredibly stupid.  He did, however, read at least 4 books while being dragged around to watch me crawl into rest stops and collapse under Tatiana's weight.  The thing about it is, from any reasonable point of view, I think Conor has it about right.
  
• Most Supportive -- Erin Reilly: Even I thought that following me around, watching me ride a bike would be like watching paint dry (this phrase used by one of the other cyclists to describe why his family didn't come along) but Erin persisted, kept the kids from going completely stir-crazy, and found fun places for us to stay.  But most importantly, she paid attention to things I was saying and even acted on them.  Remember when I said I needed a mirror?  Well, she showed up with a mirror.  Remember when I complained about my crazy tan?  Well, she showed up with a sleeveless jersey.  At the end of the ride, she showed up with a bottle of something called "Tired Old Ass Soak", which, no matter what it actually is, has the perfect name.  I have no idea how far this support extends.  However, I feel it's important to mention that I noticed that some people on the ride had bikes like those made by Serotta, for example the Ottrott SE which features a C5IT Colorado Concept platform that combines TC5 Torsion Core™ carbon tubes and 3Al/2.5V titanium with more than 100 stiffness options and an eccentric machined head tube and bottom bracket shell for reduced weight.  It's quite possible I need one of those.