I’m taking a bike touring trip this summer. I’ve never been out on my bike for anything longer than an all morning or all afternoon ride, usually on local trails, but somehow I’ve decided I need to personally power a bicycle from Philadelphia to New York City in a weekend.
Sure, I have a bike. But I haven’t camped in years. I don’t even own a sleeping bag or a tent. I live in a tiny apartment in Washington, DC and usually get around on trains.
But still, I have an overwhelming desire to travel 150 miles on a bike tour, while figuring out how to pull it off along the way. And I’m going to write about it here, for me, and for anyone else who might be feeling a similar urge to jump on a bike and go.
How I ended up at bike touring
I’m 38 years old. I’m typically an indoor sport kind of guy – like reading, flicking mindlessly at my phone, playing games, or ogling at the latest electronic gadget I think I need (note that all of these can be done on electronic devices). At some point over the last 12 months, I decided it was time to get back outdoors. I went from passively owning a bike that I put to use on special occasions, to upgrading to a pretty versatile, but affordable hybrid bike that has been put to use for quick trips to work or the store to 20-mile weekend trips.
I am not an expert, and over the last year and a half of biking more frequently I have not become an expert. Sure, I’ve purchased form-fitting bike shorts, but I definitely still feel awkward wearing them when I stop at a local coffee shop after a long ride. While I definitely consider myself enthusiastic, I’m a novice nonetheless.
The most adventurous rides I’ve taken to date include the 50 States Ride in 2017, a cleverly named annual ride that takes you on an endurance testing 60-mile urban criss-cross that manages to hit every street in Washington, DC named after US States.
After that trip, I was hooked on squeezing in more and more adventurous trips than the 20-30 mile ‘out and back again’ trips I had been taking on the trails serving Washington, DC and Baltimore. Earlier this year I hauled my bike up to New York City for the Bike New York 5 Boro Bike Tour, a sort of cousin of the DC 50 State trip that is both shorter (about 40 miles), does not put you in direct competition with angry drivers (thanks New York for closing the streets), but also at times is more of a bike walk than a bike ride given the tens of thousands of riders who sign up and ride each year.
Looking for more
So here we are, square in the middle of summer and I am already looking for something greater and more adventurous than the big, sponsored local bike ride. Over the past couple years I’ve had a growing awareness for bicycle advocacy, having joined the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA), and that’s led me to become more aware of some of the big bicycle infrastructure projects under way in my own city and beyond.
Hikers have enjoyed the PCT (Pacific Coast Trail) in the West and Appalachian Trail in the East for decades, but no comparable infrastructure has existed for bike touring on the East Coast until now. I’ll save greater detail for another post, but for now you should know that the East Coast Greenway is a currently under development, Maine to Florida biking and walking route that on its completion will be the longest in the US.
The East Coast Greenway connects 15 states, 450 cities and towns, and 3,000 miles of people-powered trails from Maine to Florida —the country’s longest biking and walking route.
But you should also know it’s about 32% complete as of this writing, which means it is full of gaps, narrow shared roads, traffic that’s probably pretty hostile to bikes, and little in the way of the kind of standard infrastructure the established hiking trails have to serve passers by.
So my obvious next thought was – why not jump on my bike and carve out a significant bit of the Greenway that I have no familiarity with whatsoever, and turn that into my first ever bikepacking trip (and a two night bikepacking trip) while I’m at it.
Why this blog exists
What follows from today is equal parts personal journal while bike touring, a way to catalog and remember the decision making points while planning the trip, choosing and configuring gear, deciding where to stay, where to eat, drink, stay safe, and hopefully I’ll pass on some helpful tips for what to fails and what succeeds to anyone else who might be as new and curious about taking a trip like this as I am.
My budget for bike touring is not unlimited, I’m not looking for the glamping experience, I’m not a hard core cyclist that thinks 150 miles is something you can do in a day without breaking a sweat, I have never “raced” anyone, and my bicycle know-how is roughly at ‘google search to see what kind of brakes I have so I can figure out how to tighten them’. So if you’re looking for a beginner’s perspective on bike touring, maybe this will fit your needs.