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Bikes everywhere

Time to start training for the weeklong East Coast Greenway ride in October.

It’s time to revive this blog and start training — I’ll be riding in the East Coast Greenway’s annual weeklong fundraiser ride again come October, this time from Fredericksburg, Virginia to Raleigh, North Carolina.

So I rode two out of three days this Memorial Day weekend — the 40-miler was the “easy” way to Hopewell, while the 30-miler was the hillier way. So many cyclists wherever I looked! Sometimes it was a group decked out in lycra (oh, besides us), other times a family with a bike trailer for kids heading onto the towpath trail. There were even some (besides us, again) who’d ridden to catch our town’s Memorial Day parade.

So yes, May has been the month to start riding more than just to the train station and to work on the other end, plus the odd errand in town. One of my other notable rides was the 22-mile Four-Island Ride in New York with the East Coast Greenway.

But clearly I need to do more! This year’s ECG ride is being compressed into six days from seven because there wasn’t enough room for all of us in a small-town hotel. So this is what I’m facing:

Day 1: 68 miles from Fredericksburg to Richmond

Day 2: 31 miles from Richmond to Petersburg

Day 3: 80 miles from Petersburg to South Hill (hope it’s not too hilly!)

Day 4: 37 miles from South Hill west to Clarksville

Day 5: 59 miles from Clarksville to Durham (that’s the day we cross into North Carolina)

Day 6: 49 miles from Durham to Raleigh (I had no idea they were so far apart)

Thanks, and next year’s ride

The 2015 Week-a-Year ride will pick up where this year’s ride left off, in Fredericksburg, on Oct. 4 and will end on Oct. 10 in Durham, North Carolina about 325 miles later.

Thanks to everyone who supported me on this year’s East Coast Greenway ride. Thanks to your generosity, I came out of nowhere to be one of the top fundraisers for a project I deeply believe in.

The 2015 Week-a-Year ride will pick up where this year’s ride left off, in Fredericksburg, on Oct. 4 and will end on Oct. 10 in Raleigh, North Carolina about 325 miles later.

I’m in and already looking forward to seeing a bit of both cities. Lots of history in Fredericksburg!

Who will join me?

Note: This year’s ride was hillier than I expected. And you need to be comfortable riding with traffic because the route remains a work in progress and we’re not always on trails on quiet roads. That’s what happens when you aim to connect cities rather than bypass them.

Two final requests:

If you don’t already receive updates from the East Coast Greenway, please sign up here.

And please sign the petition for a safe bike and pedestrian crossing over the Susquehanna River.

Random photos from this week

More sights from a week on my bike.

More sights from a week on the road:

Colonial flavors at an ice-cream shop in New Castle, Delaware — In New Castle, Delaware

Unfortunately it wasn’t open when we biked by.

Message on the Riverfront Trail in Wilmington, Delaware — On the Riverfront Trail in Wilmington, Delaware

Farm stand on a path between New Castle and Newark, Delaware — On a path between New Castle and Newark, Delaware

The owner gave us bottled lemon-mint water.

New Jersey Transit in Baltimore (and my bike)

Business on the B&A Trail — On the B&A Trail

Capital bikeshare — For when I don’t have my bike with me

These inedible fruits, also known as hedge apples, are the size of a softball. They were for sale at a Washington D.C. farmers market, but you could pick up plenty for free on the East Coast Greenway route in northern Maryland.

What's missing on this sign in Alexandria? — What’s missing on this sign in Alexandria?

Answer: Mileage to Key West on the East Coast Greenway!

Promoting the East Coast Greenway

On this ride, I met several people who have found their own ways to promote the East Coast Greenway.

There’s Barb and Bev from Connecticut, who say they ride so that their grandchildren will be able to enjoy a safe East Coast Greenway from the Canadian border down to Key West.

Each keeps a box on the trail or a trail spur stocked with information about the East Coast Greenway. (Bill from Connecticut, one of the fathers of the Greenway, also has a box). Every month, about a dozen cards get taken from each. Awesome idea!

Here’s what one looks like:

Rob, also from Connecticut, rode all week with his East Coast Greenway flag flying from his bike. How could anyone miss him?

I was also impressed by Chuck, who is working to get the Octorara Trail built in Pennsylvania’s Delaware County. News on a grant for a feasibility study should come soon, and the vision is for the trail to eventually to connect to Chadds Ford in the heart of the Brandywine region. It would also eventually connect to the East Coast Greenway via the Chester Creek Trail. I know how hard it is to get a sidewalk added on a busy road, and getting a trail built is lots and lots more work, even if you have the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia and its Connect the Circuit vision behind you. Chuck rode with his son and is one of the many faces in my photos.

Day 7 — Dumfries to Fredericksburg, Virginia

Today was the East Coast Greenway’s #IceBucketChallenge.

It rained for almost the entire ride, sometimes moderately, sometimes hard. My RainLegs worked (thank you, Dede and Janet) and got plenty of interested looks. The new rain jacket got its first test and passed with flying colors. Still, it was cold, especially after a stop. And then going downhill.

Of course it stopped just before we reached Fredericksburg and the end of the adventure. Too bad there wasn’t time to explore the town and the Civil War battlefields in the area before lunch and the bus back to Conshohocken. I’ll be back.

Once again, plenty of hills. We climbed just under 2,000 vertical feet in 30 miles, just 200 less than on a longer Day 6.

Bonus: Signs for Adventure Cycling’s U.S. Bicycle Route 1, part of a developing network of urban, suburban and rural routes, as we neared Fredericksburg.

Odd names for roads on today’s ride: Eskimo Hill Road. Dishpan Lane.

Total mileage for the week: 343.19.

And after seven days of biking, it took us just 3 1/2 hours and no D.C. traffic to zip back up I-95 and I-476 to Conshohocken.

Pie, pie, pie

Our find on the East Coast Greenway: Mom’s Apple Pie Bakery in Occoquan.

The food find of the trip? We came across Mom’s Apple Pie Bakery about two blocks off the route in Occoquan, Virginia. It made a list of the South’s best pies a few years back, and can claim a visit by Michelle Obama.

In another article hanging on the wall, “Mom” says her secret is to use less sugar than the recipe calls for so the fruit flavor can shine through. One of her employees says she grows most of the ingredients for her fillings. They bake about 100 pies per day on a weekend.

Buy a whole pie, or by the slice. I went for an almond amaretto chess pie. Delicious!

Lots of choices, and benches outside to sit on.

This town is a great stop for cyclists, whether on the East Coast Greenway or Adventure Cycling’s U.S. Bicycle Route 1, part of a developing network of urban, suburban and rural routes. Saw some signs (and a long-distance cyclist loaded with panniers heading up a hill just before Occoquan).

Best advocacy sign!

I spotted this sign on Day 6 of the East Coast Greenway ride.

Spotted on Day 6 in Virginia. Some problems are universal.

Day 6 — Alexandria to Dumfries, Virginia

Virginia has some catching up to do.

Oh, there’s the wonderful Mount Vernon Trail that we took for the first quarter of the ride or so and that gets packed on weekends. And there are wide sidepaths that you wouldn’t expect to find along some busy roads in the middle of suburban sprawl.

(That’s part of the sprawl, not the sidepaths)

But there are other places that are just awful. One road we needed to cross only had pedestrian cross buttons on the side we needed to get to. In another spot, we walked our bikes through one construction site rather than take the road. (I think they were both widening the road and adding a sidepath that will become part of the East Coast Greenway route, so there’s at least that.) I’m not talking about some of the other nasty bits, and governments haven’t yet installed East Coast Greenway signs.

Yes, our bikes turned into a mess. Our wheels picked up the red clay soil, which was then blocked by our brakes. Our wheel rims were a mess. We cleaned them off as best we could with road trash and poked at the mud clumps with sticks.

One rider tried this:

And this:

The rain didn’t clean off everything, so the Comfort Inn in Dumfries brought out a hose for us:

My cycle computer says 313 miles so far, with another 30 or so to go.

Lafayette was in Annapolis too

Thursday’s history lessons on the East Coast Greenway.

Thursday’s history lessons:

Our route has crossed the new W3R (Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route, a new national historic trail that highlights the role of the French in the American Revolution).

And closer to Washington D.C.:

Best sign!

Nearly halfway: Key West is just 1,509 miles away on the East Coast Greenway.

The East Coast Greenway route definitely needs more signage (as do local trails). How about this as the model? (Note the last line!)

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