Ready for day 1 of the East Coast Greenway ride.
You know you’re in the south when you find shrimp and grits on a cafe menu. That for lunch, szechuan Chinese for dinner. But too much rain to tramp around battlefields. Ready for Sunday’s 72-mile day.
Scored some 20% off coupons for REI. Who wants one?
I start riding on Sunday. Thank you for your support.
We start biking on Sunday. A huricane is coming up the East Coast right now, and I am keeping an eye on it, hoping it weakens and continues to veers east, leaving us dry (or pretty dry) on Sunday. I am not looking forward to a 70-mile ride in the rain!
I want to once again that everyone who is supporting me on this ride, particularly those who have donated so generously to advance the work of the East Coast Greenway Alliance. (Haven’t donated and want to? Click here.)
Building the Greenway is hard work, as I have said before, and it can seem like forever. Even though we know more people will bike if they feel safe because they’re away from traffic. Yes, the Greenway is only 30% off road right now. But this project is incredibly complicated and involves countless partners at so many levels of government. Even something as seemingly simple as signage isn’t simple. (I’ll spare you the details.)
I want to leave you with some factoids to put this effort in perspective.
The Appalachian Trail, a marked hiking trail, took 75 years to build. It skips urban areas.
The Blue Ridge Parkway? Congress authorized this 469-mile roadway in 1936. The last section opened in 1987. That’s more than half a decade for a project with clear government backing from the top.
The Natchez Trace is based on an old forest trail going back to the Indians. Even so, it took even longer to build. But construction of this 444-mile parkway began in 1938 and was finished in 2005. Like the Blue Ridge Parkway, it’s operated by the National Parks Service.
The East Coast Greenway will be a national treasure. And you are part of it.
I’ve discovered the Delaware & Lehigh Trail.
My last two-day training ride before the Week-a-Year was 70 miles along part of the Delaware and Lehigh Trail in northeastern Pennsylvania. And all four of us on this trip kept looking at each other and saying this is beautiful and why didn’t we know about it?
Here’s some of what it has: miles of thick tree canopy that offers shade on hot summer days and that no doubt will turn brilliant colors at peak leaf time, a gorge, the river, complete with rapids, remnants of the railroad line, down to an old signal, a nature center built on an old superfund site and generous trailheads with shelters and sometimes even toilets. Continue reading “This secret long-distance trail in Pennsylvania is one for the bucket list”
The Schuylkill River Trail could be eastern Pennsylvania’s version of the Great Allegheny Passage.
Pennsylvania is one lucky state.
It already has the amazing Great Allegheny Passage, that 150-mile rail-trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md., where it links up to the C&O Canal for those wanting to bike to Washington D.C.
After two days on the Schuylkill River Trail, I think this could be eastern Pennsylvania’s response. Admittedly, the trail isn’t completed and some completed sections are on quiet roads, rather than on paths. Nor will it be as long as the GAP. But even on the stretch we did — just over 50 miles from Conshohocken northwest to Reading, and then back — we had urban and rural, one-time industrial towns, some doing better than others, wide open and tree-covered paths, paved and crushed-stone surfaces, glimpses of river and a detour to history at Valley Forge. We even saw a row of four smokestacks, all that remains from an old factory. It could have been on the GAP.
Continue reading “A bike overnight on Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill River Trail”Come Saturday, Oct. 3, I’ll be heading down to Fredericksburg, Va. and the start of the East Coast Greenway’s 2015 Week-a-Year ride.
Come Saturday, Oct. 3, I’ll be heading down to Fredericksburg, Va. and the start of the East Coast Greenway’s 2015 Week-a-Year ride. It’s all part of an effort to ride one week of this 2,900-mile route each year and make it to Key West in 2019. (I missed this first three years — from the Canadian border in Calais, Maine, to Philadelphia, so I have a lot of catching up if I’m going to claim I’ve ridden down the east coast.)
We got more information about the week on Friday, and I am excited that our final group dinner, on the next-to-last day, features Carolina barbecue. We will be eating at The Pit in Durham. This is “eastern Carolina” style barbecue — roasting the whole hog and using a vinegar-based, not tomato-based, sauce — and I suspect I will be getting a barbecue education on this trip. Anything I should know before I start eating?
I’ve already got one other food spot I want to try on the route — the Peter Chang Chinese Restaurant in Fredericksburg. No, it has nothing to do with P.F. Chang’s. It’s been on my list for this ride since I read a New York Times article more than a year ago.
We’ll be staying in downtown Richmond, in Petersburg, South Hill and Clarksville, if anyone has recommendations for those places.
There’s already a bit of advocacy on the calendar — we’ll be having lunch on the Thursday with the mayor of Oxford, North Carolina, a town of about 8,500.
And on the final day, our ride will join with a one-day ride from Durham to Raleigh. I’m excited that a friend who has moved back to Raleigh will be riding, and I’m looking forward to catching up over the 50 miles.
I’ve said it before and I know I’ll say it again, but thank you everyone who has supported the East Coast Greenway through my ride. Creating an off-road trail down the coast and through major cities is an amazing vision that I want to see turned into reality
My month of trails: the Hudson River Greenway, the 606/Bloomingdale Trail and the Chicago Lakefront, plus the Lawrence Hopewell Trail by moonlight.
For me, August turned out to be a month of riding on trails.
First up: the Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan, as part of the bucket-list Manhattan Loop Ride with the East Coast Greenway. About 40 of us rode to almost the northern tip of Manhattan (and getting a look from below at the newly reopened High Bridge), then down along the Hudson, around Battery Park and up the East River Greenway until it peters out just south of the United Nations.
While there is a stretch along the river north of the U.N., it dies again at one point, and you need to know your way through Harlem to get to another piece of greenway — and then not miss the hidden sharp left halfway down the ramp to the Harlem River Drive. Close the gap and add some signs!
Here’s the group in front of a fake Grecian temple with the New Jersey Palisades in the background. This sitting area north of the George Washington Bridge was built in 1925.
Then off to Chicago, where I took a Divvy Bike (Chicago’s bikeshare program) to check out the Bloomingdale Trail and the 606 (trail + parks). Just wonderful!
It is twice the length of New York City’s High Line, plus wider and open for bikes. Sweeping on-off ramps make it so accessible. The plantings are still going in so it’s not as lush (and won’t be as precious — but you can see the work of the High Line’s designer in the Lurie Gardens in Chicago’s Millennium Park).
And I finally got to bike along Lake Michigan too. I admit it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Chicago all over again.
My East Coast Greenway training rides generally haven’t been that arduous this month — blame a lack of time. But I did bike down to the Shore again and again hit the few miles of trail that make up the stalled Capital to Coast Trail.
The month ended with a six-mile moonlight bike ride on part of the almost-finished Lawrence Hopewell Trail, which connects to the East Coast Greenway. Despite the full moon, there wasn’t enough light to cycle without a light (though some people certainly tried). I didn’t see any crashes, thankfully. The organizers smartly sent people headed off in waves, although there were still plenty of people to watch out for. You wondered when some were last on a bike! But at least they were on one!
Loved being able to glance at the moonlit lake, even if I waited until the end to actually stop. The crunch of tires on gravel drowned out most of the sounds of bugs and other bits of nature. Next time I’d either start late or make sure I have enough power in my lights to do a second loop.
And one day I’ll make it to that moonlight ride around Manhattan.
In the meantime, a video from the Moonlight Ride:
Bicycling magazine is asking everyone to get just one nonrider on a bike with its #GetSomeoneRiding campaign.
I’ll claim credit for getting a neighbor riding — and now she calls herself a bike evangelist. She’s gotten her daughter riding, then her husband — and now some relatives, after taking them on a trail in Connecticut that is part of the East Coast Greenway.
I have colleagues who think it’s insane to bike in New York City because it just doesn’t feel safe. I say try the Hudson River Greenway, look at the bike maps for bike lanes and start with that.
But this is why I love the East Coast Greenway project. It’s about linking trails and linking cities, and it helps inspire cities to do more (because the East Coast Greenway, as awesome as it is, isn’t enough). Too many bike lanes and trails just … end. And that is frustrating for anyone seeking a safe way to get to where they’re going without a car.
Today I led the neighborhood kids around the block in a bike parade, led by some of the soon-to-kindergartners. And then I helped a 3-year-old start to get the hang of pedaling on her bike with training wheels. She has no tricycle experience, so she’s still learning the concept of pedaling. But hearing her joyous laugh as I helped move her legs and she saw she was moving on a bike, just like the big kids … priceless.
Soon she’ll be pedaling on her own and be one of the 300 million reasons we need trails and other safe places to bike.
This is a bucket-list ride: A 32-mile Manhattan Loop ride, and part of it is on the East Coast Greenway.
This is a bucket-list ride: A 32-mile ride that goes around Manhattan, using part of the East Coast Greenway.
We’ll start along the East River and go north and counter-clockwise, through Harlem and along the Harlem River Park Greenway, eventually west to the amazing Hudson River Greenway all the way to Battery Park and then north along the East River … until the gap south of the United Nations, where the ride ends.
There are some streets and traffic to negotiate, especially on the east side, but mostly on-street bike lanes. There are some hills on northern sections.
The ride is Aug. 2 (rain date Aug. 9) and will go at an easy-going 10-13 mph, with stops. Yes, we will be riding as a group.
It’s sponsored by the ECG’s New York Committee. This is New York City, so yes, there is a charge. BUT it’s free for East Coast Greenway members, and if you are one of my sponsors for the East Coast Greenway’s Week-a-Year bike tour in October, you probably qualify as a member.
And the group will be far, far, far smaller than the insane number on the 42-mile 5-Borough Bike Tour.
Stopped for a berry break on my ride today. Great mix of sweet and tang.
Stopped for a berry break on my ride today. Great mix of sweet and tang.
33 miles, and then a second, six-miler to pick up a few items from a store. Tough spin class on Saturday. The start of getting serious about my training?
I’ve got something to offer all my East Coast Greenway supporters in the Philadelphia area.
Thank you, everyone who has supported the East Coast Greenway through my ride this year and last year. You’ve all been so generous. Beyond the regular updates on training and the ride, I’ve got something (small) to offer all of you in the Philadelphia area (or with friends in the Philly area) in return.
Wawa fans, who wants any of my four my coupons for $1 off a shorti hoagie? (Expire Sept. 30.) And I’ve got four promotional cards from Chick-fil-A for a free chicken sandwich or chicken nuggets from Philly-area restaurants that expire at the end of the year. These were handed out a recent Trenton Thunder game and I’m happy to pass them on.
Someone must be a Wawa or Chick-fil-A fan, or know someone who is!
I’ll work on a proper East Coast Greenway giveaway next.
Thanks for following this blog and for your encouragement. And anyone who wants to go for a ride, just let me know.
Exploring by bicycle 