Why Aren’t You Bike Trekking on the ECG?

Why aren’t I?

I have stress fracture thoughts…

I have surgically-reconstructed knee swelling galore…

I had a surfeit of Bike MISERY…

I was not enjoying myself…

Mostly, I was following a tour of the East Coast Greenway (ECG) that was not riding on the East Coast Greenway…

I was not enjoying the 8am to 4pm regularity of “working” within the structure of the tour — I knew this would be my greatest challenge going in to this group endeavor. And it proved to be my Achilles…

I knew that as an early riser — I’m usually up at 4:30 am and ready to go at 6 am (especially during these nearly 14-hour long spring/summer days) — I was very impatient and unhappy not being able to leave until 8-8:30 am when everyone was done with breakfast and washing the group gear.

I knew as someone who likes to ride late into the day (6-7 pm) — in order to take longer breaks during the day and do longer mileage if necessary — that having to be in camp by 4-5 pm, so all the shared gear might be put to use in cooking dinner, would make my day feel rushed and confining.

I knew these were my challenges going in, and I tried my hardest to live within these parameters… but I just don’t believe that bike touring should be (or at least feel like) a forced march. 

Then, add the inability to reschedule a riding day due to schedule inflexibility that required us to bike during one of the worst recent nor’easters in the region — a few of us were in the verge of hypothermia, nearly hit by careless, half-blinded by rain, drivers on bike-unfriendly roads, and on difficult terrain — and you have the recipe for a mass exodus. 

A near mutiny, according to one of the co-leaders of the tour.

Four riders out of the original twelve have left the tour for various reasons. Most, I would say, due to the inflexibility to reschedule around severe weather (this wasn’t a mere passing thunderstorm—it was a historic storm), deviation from the declared route, and difficulty of terrain.

That’s a high attrition rate (33%) for such a small group. No one thought it would be easy — but no one thought there would be so much thoughtlessness about it.

As you will note above, my right knee (left of frame) is chronically swollen, but I’ve dealt with that for years after reconstructive surgery. Not major though, but quite uncomfortable especially when first starting to pedal. One just swallows the pain, and copious amounts of ibuprofen daily.

What became more problematic was an ostensible stress fracture in my left foot. Over the course of a few nights I had shooting / stabbing pain, keeping me sleepless, radiating out of one of the metatarsals. 

Then after the 82-mile day (the 9 bonus miles where my fault) into Providence I was certain something was wrong when I woke up to this:

I was just swallowing the pain (and the ibuprofen) but when I saw this I was taken aback. And then we proceeded to bike 56 and 33 successive mile days in deteriorating weather and terrain — away from the ECG — and I hit my limit.

Especially when I found out that we were deviating hundreds of miles away from the ECG.

My intention was to ride the ECG from Key West, Florida to the Canadian border at Calais, Maine. We were not going to do that. 

I was bummed. I was pissed. I was dazed, pained and confused. In short I was out.

I was thrown for a loop and loopy!

So were Jim, Glenn, and Dave. 

Best of luck to the 8 remaining riders and their trek to Washington, DC.

I will: reasses, recover, recoup, and finish the ECG this year!

I have yet to pedal the 1,328 miles from Georgetown, South Carolina to Putnam, Connecticut; as well as the 32 miles from Ellsworth, Maine to Searsport, Maine that I’ve never pedaled.

If I subtract the roughly 50 non-ECG miles I pedaled from Putnam to Stafford, Connecticut, I have covered 1,364 miles of the ECG this year. So I’m just a hair over half-way done. 

I intend to cover those remaining 1,328 miles this riding season. I’d like to be one of the hundred or so that have finished the trail in a calendar year.

I will do it. I’m halfway done. I’m better off as a lone trekking cyclist.

1,364 Miles on East Coast Greenway
February 28, 2025 — May 22, 2025

1,360 Remaining Miles To Pedal on the ECG
Coming sometime this Summer / Fall of 2025

What I’m Reading:

In April and May of 2024, hundreds and hundreds of students gathered on campuses across the country to demand their schools divest from companies that manufacture weapons used by Israel in its decades-long apartheid regime over Palestine. In response, university officials and state governments turned their weapons—fitted in riot gear and armed with batons, mace, and assault rifles—against the students. This is but a microcosmic example of how an empire such the U.S. weaponizes its military and utilizes propaganda against its own citizens, just as it does to those abroad . . . The purpose of an empire’s propaganda is to affirm and then re-affirm the empire’s continued existence.

— Aaron Boehmer / “Defying Empire: On the Perennially Relevant Political Message of Wicked” / Lithub.com