Our ragtag group of Northerners and Southerners moved out of Richmond and onto Petersburg.
This ragtag group of Northerners and Southerners made a slow advance out of Richmond, first doing a reconnaissance to the rear of our lines to inspect the statues for the Heroes of the Confederacy (clearly Robert E. Lee was the hero, and Jefferson Davis’s statue was pretty puny) and the one for hometown star Arthur Ashe, also on Monument Avenue but set apart from all those who fought for slavery.
Continue reading “Day 2 – On to Petersburg from Richmond on the East Coast Greenway”
Hostels have changed a lot — except in one way.
I haven’t stayed in a hostel since my early backpacking-around-Europe days. But that was the preferred option in Richmond, so I signed up.
Hostels have changed a lot. More private rooms, with bathrooms too. Even in the bunks, they provide sheets and towels — no need for a sheet sack. It’s one toilet and shower per bathroom, so not even what I remember from college dorm life.
The Richmond hostel is brand new and is in an old factory that later became a women’s prison. Very hipster, with exposed brick everywhere on the ground floor.
One thing hasn’t changed: You have to help clean up.
We’d been told we could get across this bridge despite the construction. Not so.
Coping with the unexpected is part of bike touring. We’d been told we could get across this bridge despite the construction.
Not so.
Not that someone didn’t feel the need to take a closer look.
The detour added another four or so miles to the day. Total mileage: 77.6.
The first day of this year’s East Coast Greenway ride is full of Civil War sites. We were more fortunate than the Union Army, needing only one day to reach Richmond.
One of the great things about touring by bike is that you see so much that you would miss by car. And this area is full of Civil War sites. We were more fortunate than the Union Army, reaching Richmond in just one day instead of taking several years and countless dead and wounded. But biking more than 70 wet miles means we didn’t have time to really see the sights. Even taking photos tended to be hurried.
Fredericksburg is the site of a couple of Civil War battlefields (referred to on one sign as the first and second battles of Fredericksburg, but the second one is better known as Chancellorsville).
The gray mist over these cannons set the appropriate mood. The first battle was in December 1862, and as we biked past where North and South had fought, I could only think of how cold and wet it must have been. We were dealing with rain, but at least we have waterproof jackets and warm, wicking fabrics.
Chancellorsville is where Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded by friendly fire, and the East Coast Greenway route goes past the spot where he died. Turns out that’s now part of the National Parks Service. Continue reading “Day 1 – Bicycling through the battlefields of Virginia”
Ready to head out on Day 1, fueled by leftover Chinese food.
Give me leftovers over breakfast food any day. Great fuel for a bike ride! (Not that some people at breakfast agreed. Yes, I mean you, Bob.)
Two of us tackled the leftovers from Peter Chang’s (unrelated to PF Chang’s).
Others turned to Alan, our mechanic, for last-minute adjustments.
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”
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:
Exploring by bicycle 