Author: alliumstozinnias

A gardener (along with the Brit) who has discovered there is more than hybrid tomatoes. And a cyclist.

Day 4: 70 miles from St. Mary’s, Georgia, to St. Augustine, Florida

Fabulous riding in Florida, aided by a powerful headwind.

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We were blown down the coast of Florida today, propelled by a strong tailwind that had us hitting close to 25 mph on flat road while pedaling seemingly effortlessly. That’s a casual pace for the Tour de France, but a speed we mortals can’t sustain. Wow! (And so glad we weren’t trying to go north.)

Florida is quite the contrast to Georgia. Lots more money. Lots. The East Coast Greenway route took us down the coast, so start with normal beach towns. Then ramp it up and up and up some more as you hit Ponte Vedra Beach. We took the residential road one block in from the beach that ran for miles, and the estimates for the value of these mansions kept rising — a million or two dollars at a time. All ginormous. As for their beauty, well, it’s a matter of taste. One rider called it F-you money. As for me, I wondered how many of them take advantage of taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance. Not that they would see it as a handout, of course. And who does the work maintaining their yards and cleaning their homes?

But let me start at the beginning of a great day. We pedaled a few miles from our hotel off the main drag in St. Mary’s to the historic part of town, where East Coast Greenway had chartered an hour-long ferry ride across the St. Mary’s River to Fernandina Beach, Florida. Folks in St. Mary’s want to turn this into regular service, and I hope they succeed. There’s certainly a well-connected and enthusiastic cheerleader for the area. Amelia Island in Florida was beautiful, and more trails are being developed; St. Mary’s needs to find a way to lure tourists — in this case, cyclists — across the river. What story can it tell?

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Day 3: 72 miles from Jekyll Island to St. Mary’s, Georgia

The day’s highlights: a rail trail and a “submarine”.

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Today’s highlights: the Georgia Coast Trail in Woodbine, the “submarine” outside a military base and tagging along with Brent for his talk about the East Coast Greenway to about three dozen people at a meeting of a military officers association in St. Mary’s. Only a few of them may want to get on their bikes, but they certainly could appreciate the dollars from filling around 30 rooms at a locally owned, non-chain motel.

Once again, worries about the weather were unfounded. No rain. We finally got the sun and heat we were expecting (while there’s snow in the forecast at home — glad to be missing that!)

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Day 2: 54 miles from Hinesville to Darien, Georgia, plus 14 miles around Jekyll Island

No rain .. yay! Today topped expectations in many ways.

4467D632-D9F9-421E-8E22-20F22DD78B28The word of the day is lollygagging.

Lollygagging while writing the day’s blog entry, of course. But also lollygagging a bit during the 54 miles we rode during the morning.

Lollygagging, as the Brit learned this morning, is a southern way of saying dawdling. Can I explain that five ways to Sunday?

Today’s biking exceeded expectations. The rain we were expecting to wake up to never materialized. The stretch of Highway 17 turned out to be pretty harmless. And we had a vehicle keeping traffic off our backs while we backtracked a bit from our hotel in Hinesville to get back on the East Coast Greenway

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Day 1: 46 miles from Savannah to Hinesville, Georgia

Where’s that southern heat? And here’s the scoop on alligator meat.

868732AE-71FF-4999-8DF7-D0E28B806485Take a look at how we’re all dressed in this year’s group photo, taken mid-morning in Savannah: long sleeves all around, and even some tights. So much for the warm southern weather we’d been expecting!

And given that it’s Veterans Day, we took time to call out the four vets in our group:

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Day 0: Exploring Savannah ahead of a weeklong bike ride

The annual Week-A-Year bike ride along the East Coast Greenway starts Sunday. Some of us couldn’t wait.

3A30EF1C-CF41-407C-9CF8-47A2336F5B7DAnother adventure on the East Coast Greenway begins Sunday. About 40 of us will spend the week biking from Savannah to Titusville, Florida. But some of us couldn’t wait, so we rode through Savannah and out to the giant Bonaventure Cemetery, of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” fame.

My fellow riders seemed more intent on finding the grave of Johnny Mercer, founder  of Capitol Records. He’s also the great-grandson of Hugh Mercer, a Confederate general who in turn was the grandson of the General Hugh Mercer killed at the Battle of Princeton during the Revolution. Somehow New Jersey is never far away!

I do love learning bits of history on bike rides, and there’s  more Revolutionary War history in Savannah. The Siege of Savannah in 1779   is a mystery to me, something not taught in U.S. History classes. I learned of the contribution of Haitians and the death of Count Pulaski (remembered through New Jersey’s Pulaski Skyway).

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Biking another segment of the East Coast Greenway, this time in Georgia and Florida

I’m heading out soon on a bike ride that is another installment of thhe East Coast Greenway Alliance’s Week-A-Year ride on track to reach Key West in 2019.

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Looking for No. 6

In a couple of weeks, we’ll be pedaling out of Savannah, Georgia, headed south for around 300 miles on our bicyles. We’ll follow the East Coast Greenway for six days, to the trail town of Titusville, Florida, near Cape Canaveral, where we will play on the seventh day.

Once again, our route will be a mix of trails away from traffic (sometimes lined with Spanish moss), quiet roads, roads with bike lanes or shoulders — and some not-great stuff, like more of U.S. 17, our nemesis last year. That’s the reality of creating a 3,000-mile route down the East Coast that goes through cities, rather than opting for the middle of nowhere to avoid anything difficult.

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Bruce Springsteen’s Freehold by bike

To kind of quote Bruce, tramps like us, baby we were born to bike.

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When you think New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen has to be high on the list.

So I can’t explain why it took me so long to come up with the idea of a Springsteen bike ride, given that I live in the state. But I finally did this year, after being one of the lucky ones to see him on Broadway.

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Connecticut’s Farmington Canal Trail: One last major gap

There’s been big progress on Connecticut’s Farmington trail since I biked it in 2016.

farmington canal signI’ve been touting Connecticut’s Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, which bifurcates the states as it heads north from New Haven and ends in Massachusetts, as a 5-star trail ever since I biked it in 2016.

Now it’s even better because all the construction projects I saw two years ago have been completed. Only one sizeable gap remains — the 5-mile “Plainville Gap” up to Southington. While the state has approved funding for the project, the gap likely won’t be closed until at least 2023. You can cope by using roads and sidewalks, but of course that’s not quite the same thing.

This gives a sense of just how popular parts of the Farmington trail are.

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Discovering two Delaware bike-trail gems: the Markell trail and the Castle trail

We biked on the new Jack A. Markell Trail from Wilmington to New Castle and part of the Michael Castle Trail cutting westward across Delaware.

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Four years ago, I was on a bike ride from Wilmington, Delaware, that had us meandering through some industrial areas, navigating the traffic headed for I-295 and riding on Delaware highway 9 just to get to New Castle seven miles away. We met the governor at the time, a cyclist, and he bluntly told us that it wasn’t a great route … and that better was coming.

Better  has finally arrived, and it’s not just better, it’s fabulous: a trail from the environmental center in the middle of the Wilmington riverfront’s wildlife refuge all the way to New Castle. One beautiful bridge over the Christina River visible from I-95, two well-lit tunnels, under I-495 and I-295, one long boardwalk through the wildlife refuge, plus woods in another section. Great variety!

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Biking 2 trails — the D&R and D&L — to watch polo in Pennsylvania

Polo matches along the Delaware? Who knew?

2B034D8E-1642-49BB-93D7-84CE589BE71FThis bike ride began with a tip: you can watch polo matches in Tinicum Park, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware River from New Jersey.

Polo? That blue-blood sport? Who knew?

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