Exploring by bicycle

One week to go!

Here’s our itinerary for the Maine ride along the East Coast Greenway.

Next Saturday afternoon we’ll be on a bus from Portland to Calais (pronounced cal-iss) and the start of our 337-mile ride along the East Coast Greenway. Calais seems to be not quite the most eastern point in the U.S. But it does have a border crossing — passport and Canadian dollars are packed. Dinner? Ice cream? Definitely a passport stamp!

We’ve gotten the cue sheets and here’s how it’s shaping up:

Sunday: Calais to Machias. We’re taking the road option — the Down East Trail looks rocky and we’d rather have our road bikes for the hills that come later. 46 miles.

Monday: Machias to Ellsworth. Once again, road over that rocky trail. Thankfully we have the option. This is our long day — 68 miles. I think we stopped in Ellsworth on our first trip to Maine 11 years ago (destination Acadia National Park) — there’s an L.L. Bean outlet in town. Looks like our hotel is a parking lot away.

Tuesday: Ellsworth to Bangor. This is apparently where the hills start. At least it’s just a 42-mile day.

Wednesday: Bangor to Unity. More hills? But just 38 miles. We’re spending the night in a college dorm. We did the same thing at the start of the charity ride I did for Anchor House three years ago (then it was Burlington, Vermont) — here’s the blog about that year.

Thursday: Unity to Augusta. A 43-mile day, and our hotel at the end has the word “spa” in it. Better pack a swimsuit.

Friday: Augusta to Lewiston/Auburn. The day includes an event with the Maine Department of Transportation just 2 miles from the start, at a trailhead for the Kennebec River Trail. It’s always great to meet local and state officials and help make the case for the East Coast Greenway. And to say thanks too, of course. It looks like we’ll ride most, if not all, of this 6.5-mile trail. I wonder if there are plans to extend it? We end the 44.5-mile day with a much shorter Riverside Greenway.

Saturday: Lewiston/Auburn to Portland. We’re ending the ride with another long day — 56.6 miles, with the option of another 3.5 miles for a victory lap with Maine Adaptive Sports. If people with physical disabilities are coming to ride with us, heck yes we can do another 3.5 miles!

THANK YOU once again to all who have supported the East Coast Greenway through this ride. If you’d like to donate, you can do it online here. If you prefer to support Clive, go here.

Closing some of the gaps from the 2014 ride

It’s always exciting to read about gaps in the East Coast Greenway being closed. There’s been good news in Delaware and Maryland (and of course Connecticut, which I’ve written about earlier).

Gov. Markell and the riders from NJ — Delaware Gov. Markell and the East Coast Greenway ride in 2014

Back in 2014, I took part in my first East Coast Greenway Week-A-Year ride, pedaling from Philadelphia to Fredericksburg, Va. We rode on some great trails, of course, but we also were on roads plenty of times (some good, some bad).

So I was excited to come across two items Friday that show gaps on the trail are being closed.

In Delaware, the state’s General Assembly just approved a record $20.7 million for bicycling and walking improvements, and the state has a very pro-biking, pro-East Coast Greenway governor (who took the time to meet us on the 2014 ride). As Bike Delaware reports:

One of the most ambitious projects that will now be completed with this authorized funding is the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway, a safe, direct, paved, flat and nearly uninterrupted non-motorized six-mile travel route between the Wilmington Riverfront and downtown New Castle. Another project that will gain additional momentum is the Lewes-Georgetown Trail, a 10 foot wide paved trail that will extend a total of 17 miles all the way from Lewes to Georgetown, creating the longest trail in Delaware.

The East Coast Greenway goes from Wilmington to New Castle; maybe one day there will be a direct Wilmington-Newark route. No word yet on how quickly construction can happen, but it’s still a great step.

The Lewes-Georgetown Trail isn’t part of the East Coast Greenway but it’s about getting people to and around the beaches. and of course people already are biking on vacation — here’s a recent news article about some badly needed signage down in Rehoboth. Another bonus: it connects to New Jersey and the Cape May area via the ferry at Lewes.

Some of the group before the crossing in Perryville — Some of the 2014 group advocating for a safe crossing in Perryville

The day’s other news is that the bridge over the Susquehanna River between Perryville and Havre de Grace opened for bikes on Friday. This is a great victory! Sure, there are some complaints (and yes, we have to pay the toll too), but it’s far better than being barred. When we were here in 2014, the boats that were to shuttle us over never showed (they got the wrong day), so we were bused over the bridge.

Bridges. That’s the costly and really time-consuming part. If it had taken a new bridge to close this gap, we’d be waiting a long time. It’s also the gap in the WB&A trail from Washington to Baltimore. We rode part of this trail in 2014 too. The East Coast Greenway route goes from Baltimore to D.C. via Annapolis, and the vision is have a traffic-free route there too. A 1.7-mile gap on that leg closed in May because a developer realized it made sense for his own project (no doubt with some prompting).

A bridge is also the $1 million question in closing a gap in South Portland, Maine. The Eastern Trail runs 65 miles with gaps from Portland to Kittery, the border (with a bridge) to New Hampshire. The group is fundraising right now because state funding could otherwise disappear. I did my small bit. Had I won the Mega Millions jackpot last night, I’d have done much more. (The good part is no one did, so I could try again.) I hope they’ll win some grant money from People for Bikes and Rails to Trails via the Doppelt Family Trail Development Fund.

But I always wonder what could be done to make bike bridges less expensive. Would more prefab parts help, vs. constructing on site? Do construction standards require that they be able to support something as heavy as an ambulance and that adds to the cost? Can anything be done? Or is this just the unfortunate reality?

Trail dust

On Sunday, a group of us headed north from Princeton on the D&R Canal towpath.

I haven’t ridden north on the D&R Canal towpath from Princeton in a long time. So on Sunday a group of us headed out that way.

The D&R Canal towpath is part of the East Coast Greenway, and the trail was busy — maybe busier than I’ve ever seen it. We had plenty of shade, and having the canal right there made it even more pleasant. Loved the turtles lined up on a log — the same family as some Week-A-Year riders spotted three years ago?

But unlike some of those Connecticut trails from last week, this trail isn’t paved. It’s also not quite as smooth as the Hop River Trail and Airline South, so it’s not something I would want to do on a road bike.

And the closer we got to East Millstone, the more we encountered a dusty red surface. Everything got caked. This is what my bike looked like before I washed it:

And

My panniers also were in need of a wash, and my once-white sneakers now have an orange-brown tint. Oh well.

We also rode over a bridge repaired (replanked?) by some East Coast Greenway volunteers earlier this month. Thank you, guys! Though as a friend pointed out to me, a “path closed’ sign at the point where you had a detour option would have been a nice touch.

Total miles on the trail: 30

Total miles for the day: 39

Connecticut’s trails east of Hartford

We finally got off the Farmington trails and explored the Hop River Trail and Airline Trail South.

Day 3 in Connecticut — we finally got off the Farmington trails and headed east of Hartford. There are a series of trails — the Charter Oak Greenway, the Hop River Trail, Airline Trail North and Airline Trail South. All but Airline South are part of the East Coast Greenway “spine” and together take you almost to Rhode Island. (The Airline trails get their name from an old train line that connected Boston and New York as if a line was drawn through the air.)

There’s work being done here too — we saw construction along I-384 for a trail that will connect the Charter Oak and Hop River trails (and eventually include some costly bridges). Barb, one of my ECG buddies and a trail angel, told me another project is tying the northern end of the Hop River Trail in Vernon (where it’s no longer part of the ECG) to the Charter Oak Greenway in Manchester. And it’s all because of this man, a true trails advocate and East Coast Greenway champion. Thank you, Bill O’Neill.

We rode a 39.5-mile loop of trail and road from Bolton Notch State Park to Willimantic, then to Hebron and back to the car. Unlike the Farmington trails, these trails were stone-dust trails and every once in a while a bit bumpy on our road bikes. Still — road bikes with skinny tires!

Continue reading “Connecticut’s trails east of Hartford”

Closing the trail gaps in Connecticut

A big gap on the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail will be closed by the end of the year. More is in the works.

An inspiring part of our three days in Connecticut was seeing gaps in the trails being closed. And East Coast Greenway advocates are a big reason.

We had heard that work was being done to turn the 4.7-mile section of railway line into more of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail north of where we parked on Cheshire on the second day of our Connecticut exploration. So of course we had to look.

There’s no sign of anything in the first section, between Cornwall Avenue and West Main Street; in fact, there is at least one active business. Willow Street, just around the corner, is a quiet road, so easy to ride (but no sidewalk or shoulder, so less easy to walk). And this newspaper article says the work will be done next year.

But a section beginning at West Main Street in Cheshire was just about done. The new crosswalk signals and barriers to keep motorists from getting on the trail still had to go up. A fence was up, but that wasn’t stopping locals from taking their bikes on the trail. One man told us about a new 70-car parking lot (I predict it will be busy) and solar-powered restrooms along the new section.

Further up, a section needed a second coat of asphalt.

And at the very northern end of this section, the trail was marked out but had absolutely no asphalt. But it’s all supposed to be finished this year.

Finally, the southernmost leg in New Haven is in construction too.

The bottom line: Best I can tell, come the end of the year, all but less than a mile of a 26-mile stretch of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail from New Haven (accessible by train from New York) to Southington (all part of the East Coast Greenway) will be complete.

Fantastic!

And two breweries apparently are coming to Southington — could there be any better bicyclist magnet beyond that ice cream shop at the edge of the trail?

After that, there’s still one big remaining gap to close on this trail — essentially between all this construction in Southington to where we parked on Friday. And planning has started for that. Then it will be easy to bike traffic-free from the Connecticut coastline to Massachusetts.

The bad news is it’s supposed to be five years until it’s done. Planning alone will take two.

In the meantime, it looked like you could ride on the road. You just need to feel comfortable with traffic. We just didn’t have time to try it out.

Here’s a full “state of the trails” report from the Farmington Valley Trails Council on what done and what’s not, including the Massachusetts section we barely saw.

There is an organized ride this Saturday (June 25) leaving from New Haven if you want to try out the entire 56-mile stretch. A grand opening ceremony is planned for that new piece in Cheshire.

Given what we saw, once finished, this new section should be popular with Connecticut residents. It hopefully lure in plenty of out-of-staters too, bringing in some extra tourism dollars.

We saw more trail construction east of Hartford, but that’s part of my next post.

Discovering New Haven

The East Coast Greenway took us to New Haven pizza.

On our second day in Connecticut, we biked more of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail, heading from Cornwall Avenue and Willow Street in Cheshire 16 miles south to New Haven and then back. It’s all part of the East Coast Greenway.

Here’s some of what struck me:

The parking lot we used was full before 10 a.m., and the overflow lot (really a local business’s lot) was pretty full too. (And when we came back late in the afternoon, the main lot was still pretty full, just with different cars)

The trail was heavily used by young and old, thin and fat, people on bikes and people on foot. The entire stretch was paved and while not as wide as the widest sections of the Farmington River Trail, still plenty wide. We did see a dirt section on the side for those who wanted to skip asphalt.

Because it was hot and sunny, the heavy shade along much of the trail was greatly appreciated. The downside of biking through the woods is that you don’t see as many businesses, so the economic impact isn’t quite as obvious as in Collinsville, for example.

And Connecticut drivers are generally polite. Although we had stop signs at intersections, so many of them stopped for us.

Once in New Haven, we rode to the coast, past the Puerto Rican food trucks parked along a fairly busy road and through a small nature preserve before deciding to head back to the New Haven Green. Of course we found some East Coast Greenway signs — thank you, Rob Dexter. (We also found Rob in between two bike rides he was doing that day, so I got to see another person from the Week-a-Year rides.)

At this stage, you’re probably thinking “You’re in New Haven. What about the pizza? How could you of all people pass up trying New Haven pizza?”

Of course I didn’t. One of our first stops in New Haven was Frank Pepe’s, one of the oldest New Haven Neopolitan-style pizzerias. It has a super-thin crust and comes on a sheet pan lined with wax paper. Personally, I thought it was pretty similar to a Trenton tomato pie (I guess the difference is sauce first, then cheese, instead of cheese, then sauce like in Trenton). Fwiw, the typical New York pizza has a slightly thicker, chewier crust.

Here’s something we found that we haven’t seen elsewhere. Clive said it really did have a birch taste:

Connecticut’s gold-star trails

We spent three days riding our bikes on Connecticut trails. Day 1 was the Farmington River Trail and part of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the Connecticut section of the East Coast Greenway over the past two years and knew I wanted to see these trails. But after I was put in charge of the ride-on-your-own section of a “Discover the East Coast Greenway” event in NYC a group of us organized in April, I knew I had to go.

So we took a three-day weekend and toured the trails with the help of some ECG buddies.

WOW!

We just loved them. (One of my nieces might call them “epic”.) Judging by how busy they were, so do lots of other people. And then to see gaps being closed along the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail (which runs from New Haven into Massachusetts) — well, this is why I ride in support of the East Coast Greenway.

Continue reading “Connecticut’s gold-star trails”

3 National Parks sites on a bike

A bike ride with a bit of history thrown in — a great combination. Happy 100th birthday, National Parks Service!

Saturday I helped out with the East Coast Greenway’s ride in New York City to mark the centennial of the National Parks Service. We hit three sites over about 26 miles. Bet you never heard of one of them!

We started out at Castle Clinton, at the southern tip of Manhattan, where we dodged tourists getting their tickets to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Castle Clinton was conceived as part of a series of forts built before the War of 1812 to keep the British from taking New York, as they did in the Revolution. It worked.

But the fort didn’t last long as a fort — it then became a party place (once trashed by Andrew Jackson and friends), a rather casual immigration station (before Ellis Island) and finally an aquarium. Thank you, Ranger Derrick Hand, for the quick history lesson!

Then we headed up the wonderful Hudson River Greenway to Grant’s Tomb. No ranger talk there, unfortunately. But I learned that Grant is the president who preserved Yellowstone — and yet we think of Theodore Roosevelt as the man behind the national parks.

I spotted a series of mosaic benches just outside, made, apparently, in the 1970s:

Is that Grant, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on the right? The second from the left looks like Shakespeare, doesn’t it? But that makes no sense…

We crossed the High Bridge into the Bronx and new territory for me. Several greenways took us across the borough, and we had some glimpses of the Long Island Sound before we reached Westchester County. Finally some proper East Coast Greenway signs!

Pelham Manor has some gorgeous mini-manors. If you saw the prices for water and a red fruit punch (fancy Kool-Aid?) from these budding entrepreneurs, you’d know we are talking money.

We were only a few miles from our final stop — St. Paul’s Church in Mount Vernon. Told you you wouldn’t have heard of it!

This site isn’t open much on weekends, and Saturday was picked for the bike ride because they were marking Colonial Day. (A rather small celebration, I have to say. So the dozen-plus cyclists in our group were definitely noticeable.) The church dates back to before the Revolution. The Hessians used it as a field hospital during a minor battle ahead of the Battle of White Plains in 1776 (part of Washington’s retreat from New York, across New Jersey and into Pennsylvania before that Christmas crossing that led to the Battle of Trenton followed by the Battle of Princeton.) Alexander Hamilton came up here for a few legal matters — even once faced off against Aaron Burr, in 1786 (That’s the man who killed him in a duel). Bet they didn’t like each other then either.

And this is the grave of the doctor who was at Ford’s Theater the night Abraham Lincoln was shot and attended him until he died:

It’s amazing what you see and learn on a bike — this is the kind of ride I enjoy!

The train ride home, though, was the train ride from hell. First my train is cancelled. (I later learn it’s because one woman pepper-sprayed(!) another woman in the train while still at Penn Station, and the police were called.) I’m grateful I didn’t get kicked off the next train (they could have claimed weekend rush-hour restrictions for bikes, since it was after 5 p.m.). It broke down in New Brunswick. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing before the train gets pulled away and we finally get on another one. I could have biked home had I known we’d be there for two hours! In the end, what my rush-hour express train does in 35 minutes took four hours.

Black, orange and 67 miles

My Memorial Day weekend tally: 3 bike rides, 67 miles, lots of black and orange.

Memorial Day weekend training tally: out on the bike all three days, for a total of 67 miles. Though to be honest, all of that only equals the longest day on the Maine ride. Time to pick up the pace.

The big ride was Sunday — 31 miles with hills through Princeton and Hopewell and back. Memorial Day weekend traditionally is reunion weekend for Princeton University, when alums come back wearing the most garish black and orange print their class can find (once they hit the 25-year mark) or at least their class jackets. One year we hit the P-rade, when each class marches (we stood near the gathering point for the class meeting for their 20th reunion, dressed as P-rates of the Caribbean). Saturday night we caught glimpses of a heavily black-and-orange fireworks show. And on Sunday, we biked by homes of some proud alums. Here are a couple of examples:

This one had two banners — the one for the Class of 1932 is obscured by the tree leaves. The brunch with some easy-listening jazz was being set up in the garden as we went by:

And this driver takes his Princeton connection very seriously. Can you spot the tiger’s tale?

On Saturday, I combined my bike ride with a small errand: The garden needed some basil. Glad I could fit it into my little rear bag. It arrived home unscathed.

Join me for this family-friendly ride

June 4 is National Trails Day and given that the East Coast Greenway is all about connecting trails (and quiet roads) into one 3,000-mile route … of course I want to mark the day with a ride on a trail!

So I’m organizing this free family-friendly bike ride to promote the East Coast Greenway. We’ll ride a total of eight miles on the D&R Canal towpath in New Jersey. If you’re a hardy cyclist, it’s a great way to get friends and/or family out on a bike. And if you’re not a big cyclist, this is your chance to ride with me (and maybe 48 other people).

All you need to do is claim your spot here.

Bonus: The halfway point is Brearley House in Lawrenceville, and a representation from the Lawrence Historical Society will give us a short talk on the history of the house. Wonder if Washington slept here…

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