MILLINOCKET, Maine — When Matthew Jamieson said he never quit trying to pedal 50 miles using his hands on Saturday because of all the people who were behind him in his quest, he wasn’t just speaking metaphorically.
A group of five people, including his mother and father, an aunt and two family friends, drove their cars or vans with him for most, or all, of the ride through Millinocket, East Millinocket, Medway and Grindstone, while friends Mike Rioux and Linda Delahanty rode their bicycles the entire trip. Another friend, Wendy Berube, joined the ride on her bicycle during the run’s final legs, Jamieson’s mother Peggy Jamieson said.
“I feel good — good, as in tired,” the 17-year-old Stearns High School junior said Saturday. “So I think I am going to go to bed here pretty soon.”
Jamieson did the 50 miles — actually what looked like 50 miles on the map but proved to be 51.5 miles in reality — to earn Eagle Scout merit badges. He rode a Top End Excelerator Handcycle, a seven-speed three-wheeler with hand pedals built into its steering wheel, because his legs are paralyzed by spina bifida, a developmental and congenital spinal disorder.
Saturday’s ride was a culmination of two 10-, 15- and 25-mile rides each as part of the badge requirements. It happened in gloriously sunny and mild weather, which helped. It wasn’t until Jamieson got to Forest Avenue, the last half-mile of the trip, that he began to seriously think of quitting, he said.
“The fact that everybody was behind me,” Jamieson said, “kept me going.”
It might be a measure of the good physical shape afforded him by his training, which began in July, that he got about five miles into the ride before he really felt loosened up. He said he spent most of the journey thinking about school and keeping an eye on the scenery and the traffic around him.
A left arm slightly stronger than his right forced him to continuously make slight course corrections, and muscle soreness — the good kind, the kind that comes with muscle building, not muscle damage — accompanied him on the trip. His mother was impressed.
“He did awesome,” she said.
Though the attention his trek drew he found somewhat discomfiting, Jamieson said he did the ride to encourage more people to exercise and to show what he can do.
His next task — earning three more merit badges to complete his Eagle Scout requirements.