Category: bike ride

The people who join the East Coast Greenway’s annual ride are an amazing group.

Some are staff members, and several are on the board. But many of the others are local advocates with great stories to tell. My roommate, Donna, for example, heads a local group that is building “Air Line South”, a spur trail to the East Coast Greenway. (The northern section is part of the route). Why is it called Air Line Trail? The name comes from the old railroad line that was to connect Boston and New York by the shortest distance possible via New Haven.

Then there’s Steve Mitchell, who came with a fold-up bike that promptly had a mechanical problem that couldn’t be fixed, at least locally. So he bought a new bike in order to keep riding. It’s the 10th between himself and his wife, going back to the bike he rode cross-country in 1977. Here he is with his latest:

By the way, Steve’s a big car dealer. You don’t have to like one or the other.

Another thing I love about this group is how low-key the riding is. No “teams” that are zipping by you in a pace line, intent on finishing early and then just sit around the hotel. No cliques.

That’s not to say I didn’t ride with a core group most days. And Bob, Ed with his Ed-rated banter and newcomers Sherri and Sue (plus their lipstick) were a great group. Looking forward to riding with all of you again next year!

Another question I got: when do we start riding? On our long days (those 70-milers), we started at 7:45 a.m. or so — once there’s plenty of daylight. Sometimes we have an event early in the day (a group photo for a newspaper, for example, or a meeting with a governor last year). We stop along the way, perhaps for lunch, perhaps for an event like the one in Lawrenceville for the Tobacco Heritage Trail. On shorter days, we were more inclined to sightsee early.

Today we finally reached another state!

Once again, we had a lot of quiet country roads, at least for the first half of the 61-mile day. But unlike Virginia, the route was well-signposted with East Coast Greenway markers. So nice not to be wed to our cue sheets! (Why almost no signs in Virginia? The explanation is after all the photos.)

We also had a special North Carolina welcome from Mary, who actually lives in Virginia and was part of our Tobacco Heritage Trail welcome back in Lawrenceville two days ago. Just after crossing the state line, this man was waving us over to the left. I was thinking: “doesn’t the route go straight?” But a bunch of us followed his directions anyway, into a park, and there was Mary. She’d set up a table with Gatorade, granola bars and even a vase of flowers. Behind it was a lake and her favorite view.

What a wonderful thing to do for us! And love that Virginia-North Carolina bike flag!

The area in front of the orange rope/marker is the swimming area .. only thanks to Joaquin, there is no beach. The depth markers show the lake is 11 feet deep at the orange marker. Before the storm, it was just two feet deep, she told us.

As nice as those quiet country roads are, we got a look at what the future of the East Coast Greenway. The vision is to convert this abandoned railway line from Clarksville, Va., to Oxford, NC, (our halfway point) into a rail trail.

Back to those East Coast Greenway signs. Why are there none in Virginia outside of Richmond? The explanation I got is that that Virginia DOT requires outfits to use a particular sign company and to have an expensive maintenance contract with that firm. The only way around is to be a VDOT program. And being recognized by the Department of Natural Resources as one of the state’s half-dozen long-distance trails doesn’t cut it.

So Adventure Cycling, whose U.S. Bicycle Route System is being developed with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, gets its U.S. Bike Route 1 and 76 signs, and the East Coast Greenway (which prefers trails) still has to jump through some more hoops to be signposted on quiet roads.