Here We Go Again – Welcome to Season 2!

Welcome back to loyal readers of the Shifting Gears blog and welcome to new readers!

Mark and Heather, 2021

Last fall, Heather and I cycled, by ourselves with paniers on our bikes, from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL. The close to 3,000 miles journey took 46 days from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. We cycled a daily average of 72 miles on 41 days and rested 5 days. We faced many challenges and hardships including severe heat of 108°, dehydration, steep long climbing over the Continental Divide, painful “chip & seal” roads in Texas, hand numbness, saddle sores, and dog chases, to name some. Yet it was all worth it as there were so many incredible highlights including meeting extraordinary people and experiencing their kindness. It was everything we could have hoped for and even more!

[The original motivation for epic rides came from spectacular scenic week-long rides in Nova Scotia (culturally unique Cabot Trail, 2018) and in Newfoundland (Viking Trail, 2019) that inspired us to step back from working full time so we could pursue greater adventures while we were in good health. For new readers, you can enjoy full details in last year’s blog entry titled: The Backstory – how did this come to be. And you can retrace our story starting with last September’s entries.]

So, with nervous excitement, we are ready to launch our next adventure. On Friday 9/9/22 we start riding south from Bar Harbor, Maine to Key West, Florida. We will ride through ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, (maybe DE), MD, DC, VA, NC, SC, GA & FL. We aim to finish 7 weeks later, around October 31st.  Surprisingly, riding down the coast from the northeast to the most southern point in the continental USA is a very similar distance to our ride across the southern part of the continent – close to 3,000 miles!    

We will use a combination of routes from two organizations: the East Coast Greenway (ECG) and the Adventure Cycling Association’s (ACA) Atlantic Coast. 

The ECG is a 3,000-mile pedestrian and bicycle trail in development from Calais, Maine, on the Canadian border with New Brunswick, to Key West. The ECG vision is to complete a protected trail the full distance – to date about a third is protected trails. 

Local training on ECG in Rye, NY

The ACA has several cross-country routes including their Southern Tier we followed last year. Their Atlantic Coast route begins in Bar Harbor (112 miles south of the ECG starting point in Calais) and is 2,655 miles to Key West. 

ACA Atlantic Coast

Since we will use different parts of these 2 routes plus adapt at times using google maps, we guesstimate our total ride will be about 2,800 miles.

Here is our present best guess as to the route we follow. Our route may vary significantly according to weather, bike issues, fatigue or other unexpected plot twists. 

The expected route

We look forward to small towns in the middle of seemingly nowhere, and the random encounters that breathe the most life into this type of journey. If you know anybody along our path with whom we should connect, feel free to send us their contact info. Or if you know of great sweet snacks that must be tried- let us know of those as well! We’ve already been told we must try Holy Donuts in Portland, Maine! What will be this year’s Dateland? 

Enjoying an elite shake on route! 

I chronicled the highlights and low moments of last year’s odyssey in this blog. At the end of each day, I was exhausted, and on many days, blogging was in fact more tiring than pedaling. Heather would go to bed at 8:30PM and I was envious though stayed awake late typing a blog into my phone and on a few occasions fell asleep typing in a chair. On one of those sleeps, I accidentally erased hours of typing. I was so ticked off in the morning until Heather googled how I could recover it. I was reluctant to take on the commitment of blogging again. Beyond the exhaustion, there is pressure to produce new content regularly. But just as the ride had immense challenges, yet overall was worth it enough for us to tackle a similar goal again, the pleasures of blogging also on balance exceeded the demands. The relationships that developed between me and readers, in some cases re-connecting with old friends and acquaintances, energized me and helped me with the on-road riding challenges. I already have friends telling me they look forward to reading about what milkshakes I will discover this year. How can I let them down? 

I will again attempt to lower the bar and warn not to expect high prose. I also may write more by events that occur than daily – still to be determined. Hopefully I can again help you feel like you get to experience our journey with us! 

Lastly, a huge thanks to our daughter Sydney for again managing the technical side of this blog, allowing me to email her my copy and photos that she will drop in to format. I could not do that from the road. Ok to be honest, I probably could not do it from home, either. Thanks Syd.

We look forward to hearing from you - questions, suggestions and comments. 

Thank you for reading!

Mark 

© Copyright Mark Segal 2022