Spotted along the East Coast Greenway: Chess pie and pig picking cake.
I know — bike rides are really all about the food (or for some, the beer).
And when we topped that hill into Clayton and reached Main Street, it was too early for lunch. But is it ever too early for something sweet?
I peered into the pie case at Nancy Jo’s Homemade and settled on a lemon chess pie. Chess pie is a southern classic; I discovered it in Occoquan two years ago. Amazingly, I couldn’t take more than a few bites. Into the rear bike bag it went, to be eaten further along the route and polished off once we got to the hotel.
But this is what really caught my attention. It’s not something we have in New Jersey:
Why the crazy name? The key ingredients seem to be a cake mix, canned mandarin oranges and canned pineapple. There’s no pig in it. But it does seem to be served at barbecues, and people there pick at the pig, I guess like we pick at the turkey leftovers after Thanksgiving.
There wasn’t exactly a stampede of riders with me into the bakery, so I couldn’t suggest that we share this half a cake. But you can bet I will be looking for a single-serving size further along the East Coast Greenway. Or riders to share something bigger.
I’m guessing I haven’t seen the last of boiled peanuts either.
Today’s offbeat stop on the East Coast Greenway: the Ava Gardner Museum.
This Hollywood star is Smithfield’s claim to fame. She actually was born a few miles away and this was the “big city” back then, reached on dirt roads. But she’s buried here and the town is claiming her. And there was no way I was missing the Ava Gardner Museum — just because where else would I find something like this? It’s the sort of thing I stop for on bike rides. Continue reading “What I learned about Ava Gardner at her museum in Smithfield, North Carolina”
I’m back in love with the trails in the Raleigh area.
Wow, what trails!
I can’t rave enough about the first 20 miles of our ride today. We were outside of downtown Raleigh within a matter of blocks and on a trail in just over a mile. And then we stayed on them for 20 or so meandering miles, at times along a river, at other times along fields (apparently full of sunflowers at the height of summer). Sometimes we saw neighborhoods with a connector to the trail. Lots of boardwalk (so lots of money spent), many short bridges and then some serious ones. It’s all part of the Capital Area Greenway Trail System. We rode parts of the Little Rock Trail, the Walnut Creek Trail and Neuse River Trail into the next county.
That may look like a harmless stream or creek but clearly it had recently flooded:
A view from a bridge:
The value of trails couldn’t have been made clearer than when we reached the Clayton River Walk’s trailhead at Covered Bridge Road and had to leave the trail. We had a long, steep-ish hill on a somewhat curvy road with the tiniest of shoulders. One motorist patiently held back behind a few riders slightly ahead of me, and traffic started backing up. The third in line became impatient at one point, pulled out and zipped past the two cars in front. Another thought about doing the same. I was equal with him at that point and the passenger window was open. I could see a car in the oncoming lane and quickly said there’s a car coming. So one mess averted. But I do wish there had been a trail to take us to downtown Clayton.
We hit another lovely (much shorter) trail toward the end of the day — the Buffalo Creek Greenway/Smithfield Neuse Riverwalk. Unfortunately, the local hotels are a few miles away at the other end of town, by the interstate.
Why is today’s distance longer than advertised? A bit of backtracking to reach that last trail — and more backtracking from the hotel to visit the Ava Gardner Museum that tacked on about four miles.
I’m ready for this 325-mile bike ride along the East Coast Greenway in the Carolinas.
I’m ready to start this six-day, 325-mile bike ride along the East Coast Greenway. It’s great to see so many familiar faces among the riders and to start catching up with people, some of whom I haven’t seen since we ended last year’s ride in Raleigh. Thank you, Sherri, for welcoming all of us on the beautiful terrace in your downtown building. And now we’re all well-fed after that dinner at the Greek restaurant next to the hotel! Lovely to be eating outdoors, especially after all the rain and fleece-like weather we’ve had at home.
Tomorrow’s ride will have a good chunk of trail. That’s a nice way to get out of Raleigh, letting us avoid traffic. We’re headed to Smithfield 42 miles away. It’s a county seat with a population of about 13,000. So I’m really hoping our dinner choices are better than Chipotle (one of the three suggested options). But I’m definitely checking out the Ava Gardner museum.
Got to be ready to go at 7 a.m. Someone’s coming to film us heading out for some documentary that’s in the works.
I’m getting ready for my second big bike ride of the year along the East Coast Greenway.
This is the second big East Coast Greenway ride of the year. It’s 325 miles — similar to the fall rides of the past two years — but crammed into six days instead of seven. That’s what happens when hotels dictate where you can stop.
So I’ve got three days over 50 miles and one that is just under that. On the flip side, it’s mostly flat, unlike Maine, the hilliest section of the 3,000-mile route. I figure it will be cooler too — yay. There are 40 of us riding (plus staff and support), and I’m looking forward to seeing many people I know from previous rides. It’s going to be fun! Just hope we don’t have any big storms.
Here’s the itinerary:
Sunday, Oct. 2: We gather in Raleigh, NC, where we ended last year’s ride.
Oct. 3: 44 miles to Smithfield, NC.
Oct. 4: 69 miles to Fayetteville, NC
Oct. 5: 40 miles to Elizabethtown, NC
Oct. 6: 58 miles to Wilmington, NC
Oct 7: 66 miles to Ocean Isle, NC — after an early-morning boat cruise on the Cape Fear River.
Oct. 8: 48 miles to Myrtle Beach, SC and a celebration to mark a trail opening. Then we get shuttled back to Raleigh.
Any suggestions for sights I should see out? Places to eat? If Maine was about lobster, this ride may be about barbecue…
After this, I can say I’ve ridden from Philadelphia (really just outside, in Conshocken) to Myrtle Beach — about 1,000 miles. Plus, of course, there’s the Maine ride earlier this year as well as training segments in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.
I’ll be blogging every day of the ride, so check back for tales from the road.
Finally, this is a fundraising ride for the East Coast Greenway. If you’d like to support the cause, you can donate here. All the money goes to the cause; I’m paying for food and hotels.
With this ride, these six closed their personal gap from Calais to Raleigh.
Bob Spiegelman says set this to the tune of “McNamara’s Band” (if, unlike me, you know it). We groaned at first — but it was a lovely end to our final group dinner.
Down East’s East Coast Greenway is the place we love to ride.
We bust our butts on up the hills and down the hills we glide.
We biked on trail, we biked on roads, we sometimes biked on sand.
Our week in Maine helped us see the Greenway’s great grand plan.
Our fearless leader Molly always kept her smile.
Andy did his best to keep us riding single file.
Alan and Walt supported us so we could ride carefree.
And Silvia’s blog kept track of things so we made history.
Barb and Bev together were an inspirational pair.
Russo bought an extra tire so now he has a spare.
Ash explained the local scene as we were near his home.
And Bob spent his time taking notes so he could write this poem.
Helen enjoyed her tour, without her bike buddies.
Aaron and Emily spent the week with a dozen old fogies.
Kate signed up and took the challenge with bravery and class.
We welcomed her to her first tour-it will not be her last.
Tina drove from Florida excited by the challenge.
But when she hit adversity she found a work around.
Donna was as steady as anyone could be.
Now she’s looking forward to October in Raleigh.
Chris showed everybody how to tear off lobster parts.
Don was chasing Pokemon while Clive missed playing darts.
The tour held close together, we had a lot of fun.
No other way to say it than “our group was number one.”
Down East’s East Coast Greenway is the place we love to ride.
We bust our butts on up the hills and down the hills we glide.
We biked on trail, we biked on roads, we sometimes biked on sand.
Our week in Maine helped us see the Greenway’s great grand plan.
I just want to thank everyone who supported the East Coast Greenway through this ride. (It’s not too late to show your support — click here for Silvia and here for Clive.) And thank you for reading about our adventures over the week.
The Bike Maine ride happening next month has its own blend of coffee, and the photographer who took our photo in Machias for a local paper brought some for us (OK, he also works for Bold Coast Coffee):
Since I don’t drink coffee, I’ll have to rely on my fellow riders for reviews.
Ash, one of the two Maine residents on this trip, rode the entire route on a mountain bike — and took the road the first two days, rather than the Down East Sunrise Trail. Being a Down Easter, he’s already ridden a lot of that trail and figures he can do more whenever he wants. Hills were tougher than for those of us on road bikes, but he wasn’t the only one who walked a few of them.
He rode in regular shorts, no padding hidden underneath. Seven days and 350-plus miles? That can be painful.
We were in awe that he has built his own log cabin, beginning with felling the trees himself and turning them into logs. The cabin has solar power and well water but lacks every modern convenience — making it too rugged for Alan, our mechanic who dreams of being off the grid as long as he can still somehow run Netflix.
Ash has a deep interest in caring for the land — he built and maintains trails in his area. He’s ready to share it through a primitive campsite he has built on his property for cyclists.
When Clive spotted outdoor cookers near homes on Day 2, Ash explained they are outdoor wood-burning furnaces. People use them to heat water that runs through their homes and radiates heat. Of course I then had to start looking too. Clive spotted plenty of shed-like buildings with a smokestack that houses furnaces — and even a furnace for sale for $900 — but I never saw a one.
I’d include a link to his local newspaper’s article about him and this ride, but I can’t find it.
We capped off our week-long ride along the East Coast Greenway from the Canadian border in Calais to Portland with a victory lap around Portland’s Back Bay with an inspirational group from Maine Adaptive Sports. And we saw where a 10-mile trail could go between Lisbon and Brunswick.
We capped off our week-long ride along the East Coast Greenway from the Canadian border in Calais to Portland with a victory lap around Portland’s Back Bay with an inspirational group from Maine Adaptive Sports.
These are people in wheelchairs, perhaps since they were born, who bike, ski, kayak and golf with the help of volunteers. I chatted with one who started skiing in 1999 and added the other three sports in 2009. He regularly does three loops around the three-mile route, cranking with his arms instead of his legs, on a customized 20-plus speed bike that is built like an upside-down version of an able-bodied person’s bike (except for the seat, which isn’t upside down, of course!) and just flies down the descents. He’s now a mentor to others who join the program.
I hope this is the first of many ways the Week-A-Tour reaches out to groups beyond the local trail advocates.
Another highlight of the final day was a beautiful three-mile trail in the Lisbon area, at least part of which is known as the Papermill Trail. It went by schools and dropped us off in a residential area at the edge of Lisbon. Once again, we rode through woods and along the river — what a wonderful way to bike to school!
When the trail ended, we found ourselves on the shoulder of a road with fast-moving traffic and of course climbing a few hills. And I could see a rail line in spots along the river (flat!), with weeds that aren’t kept in check by freight trains. It turns out that stretch of many miles from Lisbon to Brunswick on the other side of the river is abandoned — and owned by the Maine Department of Transportation. The state, however, doesn’t want to convert it to a rail-trail because it sees its mission as preserving it for future rail service. Fortunately, it is open to a rail with trail, and I will thrilled to hear of progress there. And yes, the old railroad bridge is still up.
As we left Bruswick (home of Bowdoin College), we stumbled across a very popular farmers market. It’s in a field just outside town, with lots of cars pulling in and out and parked along the road — not the most family-friendly bike ride to reach it. It really could use a multi-use trail alongside the road.
But there are bike racks, and they were pretty full (not just with a good number of our group!). We fell into conversation with a family of four at the nearby picnic table. The mother lamented how difficult it is to find a place to take the kids biking (the youngest son is about to start first grade). Seems kind of odd since Brunswick is a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community, according to the League of American Bicyclists, but that says a lot about how families define bike-friendly (and how well or not the word gets out about area trails).
I encouraged her to drive out to Lisbon for those trails (such a shame you have to say drive to bike) — but of course also had to fill her in with what I knew about the saga of that abandoned rail line.
From the moment we got on the Lisbon trail until we crossed the river into Brunswick was 13.5 miles. Imagine if it was all trail — so there was an alternative to those 10 miles of road. OK, it might be a little shorter and more direct, but you could organize a half-marathon from Lisbon (the schools?) to the Brunswick waterfront or Main Street. Double back and you’ve got a marathon. The training routes runners would have!
Imagine the bike rides locals would do, with a stop for a snack at one end. And how families could get out and ride without worrying about cars speeding by with nothing but a line of paint to separate the two. There’s an Amtrak station in town — think cyclists coming up from Portland or beyond. What an impact that could have!
One of the great things about the East Coast Greenway Week-A-Year ride is meeting passionate volunteers. Peter Garrett is one of those.
One of the great things about the East Coast Greenway Week-A-Year ride is meeting passionate volunteers. Peter Garrett is one of those. This soft-spoken Brit has lived in the Waterville area for nearly 40 years and has spent more than a decade building 40 miles of trails in Waterville, Winslow and surrounding towns for the astoundingly low cost of about $2.5 million (this article says $4 million, which is still cheap).
Peter has learned to be both patient and persistent. As he took a group of us along the Rotary Centennial Trail and the connecting East Kennebec Trail, he told us how his group, Kennebec Messalonskee Trails, asked the railroad if it could buy some land along the river that was no longer being used. It was told no .. and several years later, the railroad donated the land. Now I’m sure he left out a few details of how this gift came to be, but it is now a flat, grass-covered trail mowed by a volunteer we were introduced to.
If I’m remembering right, not only was the land donated but the company put up a fence at its own cost (rather than requiring the trails group to pay for it) to separate the trail and company land.
The surface on other parts of the trail was hard-packed soil or crushed stone, all at least as smooth (and sometimes more so) than the D&R Canal towpath near me that is a long section of the East Coast Greenway. Certainly none of that reddish-brown dust that caked my bike a month ago! And it was lovely to be in the shade (something we appreciated even more as we biked down U.S. 201 with none) and get a break from hills.
Peter is second from left
It got me thinking about what makes a good trail, and what makes a good trail segment for the East Coast Greenway. I don’t claim to be an expert, and I certainly don’t have the educational credentials. But that’s not going to stop me from offering my thoughts.
I thought: who is this for? As a cyclist, I think of the East Coast Greenway one way, but it’s also for runners, walkers and more. And even among cyclists, road warriors would look at it one way (they stick to the roads), touring cyclists another and recreational cyclists yet another. Do I personally prefer paved? Yes, because my road bike likes that better, though I then curse the bumps created by tree roots. Still, I took it on unpaved trails in Connecticut. I just can’t go as fast (and probably shouldn’t even on paved trails, the better to share with walkers and their dogs). But my hybrid can take anything. And give me these surfaces over the C&O Canal! I liked these trails.
If I was hiking a section of the East Coast Greenway, I would love this. There were scenic vistas and even a place to sit and eat. If I was running, ditto. And we saw a woman running alone, a sign that safety isn’t a concern. Is it wheelchair-accessible? Certainly the area where we exited isn’t — too steep, perhaps, and I would definitely pave it to avoid deep ruts from the rain flowing downhill. (We walked up — but that was no more than 10 yards.)
Can’t miss this! This is where we exited.
You can see only a tiny bit of the fence on the left. It’s an automated gate put in by the business next door (the railroad? remnants of the paper mill?) to keep trail users from parking on its property. Peter tells the story better, but it seems like more proof of how this community group works well with others.
I like that the trails connected to the schools. Does it mean it meanders a bit for a through-rider? Yes. But the added distance really isn’t much, and you could have jumped back onto the road for what I expect is less than half a mile if you wanted to skip that.
Peter’s trail is an “orphan” trail and not part of the main route. But given that tourism and the economic boost it provides are among the selling points for this national trail (and, of course, encouraging exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle), it seems to me that if it doesn’t become part of the main route, it should be listed as a loop or spur. The same goes for Donna’s Air Line South trail and the Lawrence Hopewell Trail near me. After all, the more there is to bike in one area, the more likely you are to linger or plan a weekend around it.
Peter’s group has great ambitions to connect to the Waterville side of the river using old bridge pilings. It’s a long way across, but given what this group has already accomplished, my money is on this one day happening.
The route that exists today led us to the Two-Cent Bridge, an unusual pedestrian suspension bridge that is more than 100 years old — and which Peter and co. got fixed up and re-opened. The name comes from the two-cent toll to cross the bridge.
Look at the fun sculpture (wearing my bike helmet) and bike rack on the Waterville side!
Not only did Peter show us his trails, but he played tour guide from Unity to his trails, entertaining us with little stories along the way.
If you like reading about passionate advocates, I’ve written about others here and here.
I know — bike rides are really all about the food (or for some, the beer).
But this is what really caught my attention. It’s not something we have in New Jersey:
Exploring by bicycle 