Category: Bicycle Travel

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 6, 7 & 8: Lewes, DE – Snow Hill, MD – Cape Charles, VA

Long post today playing catch up!

Day 6 – Lewes, DE – Snow Hill, MD (54 miles)

After getting the ferry from Cape May, I arrived in Lewes, DE around 90 minutes later. Passing through, it was a similar story to Cape May. I’m sure in season it’s buzzing, but in mid-November, on a weekday, it was really quiet.

To be honest, it wasn’t the most enjoyable start to the day. My legs were pretty achey and the places I was cycling through in Delaware (after Lewes) weren’t welcoming. There were a lot of “Get the hell out of here” looks. No way was I going to be attempting to stay overnight stealth-style as it didn’t feel out of the question to wake up to an angry farmer with a shotgun in my face. It became a race to make fast progress at this point.

And then I crossed the Delaware border into Maryland. Ah, thanks Maryland! It’s amazing how quickly the atmosphere of a place can change in such a short distance.

Pulled into Berlin, MD, around 6.00pm, and was hit by the quaint, homely feel of the town. Met a bunch of cool people on the main street (Hi Terry, Shelly & Billy – that’s a lot of y’s). It’s like a model town. Plus it was dinner time, which is always a joy after spending hours on the saddle. Got a burrito in a local Mexican eatery, and then set off to cycle on. But I probably got about 200 metres down the road, until spotting Rayne’s Reef, an amazing looking diner place, and went in for a coke. What I love about this trip so far is spontaneously meeting people. Bumped in to these cheeky lot in Rayne’s Roof, it was a lot of fun and turned an okay day into a great one.

After a good time in Berlin, I pedalled on through the night, arriving at the historical Snow Hill at around 10.00pm. There wasn’t anywhere obvious to stealth it that I could see. A few people before this trip began mentioned sleeping at churches & fire stations, so upon passing the Snow Hill Volunteer Fire Service, I decided to give it a try. But no-one was in. So I went into ‘discreet mode’ i.e. no tent, and settled for the night in between some very well sculptured trees in the Fire Station garden, waking up at first light to keep heading south. Luxury, eh? The morning after the night before:

Day 7 – Snow Hill, MD – Cape Charles, VA (80 miles)

First light. The first time I’ve been up and ready to go at the start of the day. Perfect opportunity to get a full day in. It was cold, so the layers came out to warm up. The day started off with really nice riding. Flat roads through amazing autumnal forest landscapes.

After a couple of hours I wheeled in to Pocomoke City, just above the border into Virginia, or on the outskirts at least. Lethargy on the bike hasn’t been an issue until this point. Pulled into an eatery and just zoned out for about an hour and half. Half sleep, half awake, a bit bizarre. It was good to refill water bottles and charge the bike light. The staff were entertained by my English accent, requesting many times ‘Sorry, could you say that again?’ just for amusement purposes.

Made the border of Virginia shortly after that, and ended up cycling in samey-looking farmland for 2 hours, until reaching Accomack as the light was at its best, where I fell off into a ditch, forgetting to unclip. Classy. Said ditch:

It was a strange day in terms of taking a lot of long-ish breaks, but really stretching the day out starting from early to late.

Pulled into Cape Charles around 11.00pm again (seems to be a recurring theme), after cycling through the dark for a few hours. Friday night and it was totally quiet at the harbour area, but windy so not the best place to sleep. So I looked on the GPS and saw that there was a massive park really close, so cycled over there, and found a really un-subtle place to stay by the side of the river. Decided to try to be as discreet as possible by bivying (no tent) on the grass, and hide the bike down nearer to the edge of the river, setting up alarms that would give off a piercing tone if anyone moved it. (Needn’t have been concerned though as three people in Cape Charles have mentioned that there is no crime here whatsoever).

Quick thoughts on night riding / attempting this project in winter:

Day 8 – Cape Charles, VA (0 miles)

The alarm clock on my phone went off at 6.15am, ready to move on and head for the Chesapeake tunnel bridge before being discovered. Yesterday must have taken it’s toll, as the first thing I did when the alarm clock buzzed was to turn it off, and continue to sleep until 10.

Continued to pack up the sleeping kit and went to put the panniers back on the bike. Had a little moment:

Ah no the bike alarm! Totally forgot about it, I’ve just moved the bike and now it’s going off at roughly a million decibels, it’s not helping add to the discreetness of the situation.

Silenced the alarm after some frantic moments, and went on to explore, going down to the beach (amazing to be blasted by the Atlantic breeze) and bumping into the mayor of Cape Charles, Dora, who is amazing and contagiously positive. A snippet below:

Chilling out now in Cape Charles. After a week on the saddle, today will be the first full day off, time to rest and catch up on sleep before setting out again tomorrow. I was at a lunch place earlier and bumped into a great guy called Ned who manages the very snazzy Hotel Cape Charles. It closes in a couple of weeks once the fishing season finishes. He told some great stories about Cape Charles at one point, around WW2, being the railroad hub of the Northern US and that it buzzed all year round with people, as it does now in the summer, but no longer does in winter. Incredible generosity once again, as he is providing a room for the night. Kind of mind-blowing really. Looking forward to washing clothes, getting clean and starting fresh tomorrow.

In terms of how body and bike are doing after a week – fine to be honest. No punctures or mechanical issues so far, bike is still running smoothly. Body is okay too. Saddle no longer an issue, it’s gone from a pain to more of a comfort – I didn’t believe the reports (who does?) but Brooks saddles really are comfy! The only thing is slightly sore legs after the bigger days, but it’s only a numb soreness and goes away quickly once setting off.

Oh yeah, one last thing, the guy from Hustle now has a new job apparently:

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 5: Carneys Point, NJ to… Cape May, NJ!

Change of plan again yesterday. Couldn’t cross the bridge by bike at Carneys Point, so re-jigged the route a little bit / a lot, and made my way right around the coast, to Cape May, NJ. Ended up being the biggest day so far at 81 miles.

Another cracking day weather wise, cold but incredibly sunny all day. It started off from Carneys Point, going through farmland, until Pennsville. Stopped for apple juice and bumped into Dave, an ex-dairy farmer who has a couple of Elvis’s driving licences. Friendly guy who shared a couple of stories of his brother being stationed in the UK in the war, who loved it there.

And Umesh, who’s been living in Pennsville for 4 years after moving from Nepal, who sent this photo over:

It was pretty flat the whole way, no sustained up hill or down hill. One of those days where you just pedal and don’t really think about the mileage. Still really interested in setting off at first light and seeing what mileage is possible in a day.

Passed by a quirky looking fruit market, so popped in to get some lunch. Quite amusing seeing all the descriptions- “Jersey Apples – sweet and crunchy, goes well with cereal”. Nothing wrong with that, in fact as far as fruit descriptions go it’s quite well thought about. The ‘Apple Pears’ description wasn’t as original.

Going through Gloucester County and Cumberland County was refreshing, the air being seaside-like. A lot of crab shacks, and fishing bait shops that were closed until next year, so it was a bit eerily quiet for a couple of hours. But amazing roads for most of the day.

Click on image to view full panorama.

Pulled into Cape May, an interesting port town. It’s really empty at the moment, a lot of shops closed for the season, a bunch of holiday homes going unused. I arrived quite late, and had missed the last ferry, so went to grab some wifi at a local well-known fast food establishment until closing. It’s warmer inside than out, after all. So at about 11.30pm, it was time to find somewhere to sleep.

It’s probably quite tricky to find a place to camp in ‘the season’, but out of season, it seems like no-one cares that much. So after a few minutes of looking for a place to stay that was hidden, it became obvious that actually it doesn’t need to be that difficult. So I set up camp in the corner of the towns football pitch and had a good nights kip to be up early to board the hour-and-a-half ferry ride to Lewes, Delaware.

Farewell New Jersey (again). Next post from Delaware!

(Sloppy presentation and formatting today but the ferry’s here so must dash!)

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 4: Cherry Hill, NJ to Carneys Point, NJ.

Another light day today. 35 miles. Not intentionally, just the start of the day took ages.

Getting out of Cherry Hill, combined with finding a place that sold batteries, took a fair while. It’s funny really when you have everything you need strapped to your bike, it becomes something that you don’t want to leave if you can’t see it. Even if you lock it up, it’s still a potentially easy target so selecting where you stop is quite important. I.e. somewhere with a big window out front, railings etc.

After the faff of leaving Cherry Hill, and passing on the outskirts of Camden, I had a bad feeling today might be a look-out-for-traffic-urban-day. But it turned out great a couple of hours later.

I ended up on an awesome road called Kings Highway / New Jersey Route 41, through Clarksboro (Gloucester County). Wow. By this point it was magic hour, and the weather as good as it gets – the sun was dropping and the light was brilliant. The autumn colours and low sun turning everything purple was pretty striking. The houses immense and classic – something like you’d see in The Addams Family. The fields vast and sparse. Probably one of the biggest reasons today wasn’t very mile-heavy was the constant stopping to take photos.

Click the image below to open the full panoramic:

It was awesome to watch a group of about 10 deer jump out of some woods and run across an adjacent field.

Today was also the first time the roads have been suitable for listening to music and audiobooks which is something I’ve been looking forward to. Really makes it easier to pedal for longer stints and increases motivation. Album of the day was Passenger – All The Little Lights. Check it out.

Barked at a few times today (by dogs, not people). Made me think of the stories of people on tour being chased / attacked by dogs. If you’ve done anything similar and have any tricks in managing dog attacks, it’d be great to hear in the comments below. Any states coming up that it’d be worth getting spray for? What’s your avoidance strategy?

Got ‘in the zone’ for the first time, maybe it was the amazing scenery and the cals from last nights dinner, or perhaps it was just getting in to the swing of things, but the cycling was totally enjoyable, the pain non-existent, and there was a strong wish for the light to remain. It was ace. A full day of that would be incredible. This distance-cycling thing’s something special, huh?!

As for the bike and gear, it’s all going pretty well really. Bike’s running smoothly. Still no punctures which is surprising considering the amount of glass in the shoulders over the last couple of days. Saddle pain, after yesterdays light day, was much improved, ready for a full day’s push in the morning. Gotta be due a stint of bad weather soon surely? Seems too good to be true for the last few days.

Ended up in Carneys Point, which is the town on the Delaware River which means tomorrow will be a new state – Delaware, and Maryland in a couple of days. Didn’t ever plan on going down that strip of land but it’s had a lot of recommendations so have adjusted the route a little bit. It was always a Vague Direction anyway. Looking forward to finally joining the ACA route in Virginia most likely.

Kept the main camera in the bag today but was snapping away on the iPhone. Here’s a few snaps that mainly involve a lot of sky.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 2 and 3: Linden, NJ – Burlington, NJ – Cherry Hill, NJ

Day 2 – Linden, NJ to Burlington, NJ (63 miles)

So after day one, I woke up feeling quite sore in the leg department. Didn’t start cycling until around midday, even later than the day before, what a fool.

Set off from Linden, and was quickly on some amazing roads. Massively wide shoulders, fairly level for the most part, cool drivers. It was great to be in more scenic, less urban America.

Oh, the saddle. Before setting off (literally a couple of days before) I got hold of a Brooks Flyer saddle. Everyone seems to accept that once broken in they are insanely comfy, but that the breaking in period can be quite tough. They’re right. It’s not unbearable by any means, but on long downhills it’s a great relief to be able to stand up and get off the saddle. Anyway let’s not get into how to care for this kind of pain (Sudacrem).

Where were we? Oh yes the roads. They passed through some lovely quaint suburbia, one of the first areas being North Brunswick, where I found a little cul-de-sac to have a rest for a few minutes. It was a Sunday and the weather was ace (hot!) so people were at home, hanging outside their houses. I bumped into a father & son, Jim and Martin, who were really friendly and we chatted for a good 45 minutes. Jim is actually a photographer so we nerded out for a little bit, and Martin is in-between school at the moment and has big dreams for adventure hiking. We shot a quick little portrait (aren’t red trees ace?):

After this I cycled for a good few more hours, finally hitting Burlington (via Springfield) at around 9.00pm. For the first time I managed to stealth camp in a secluded section of woodland near the college. Pillow solution could be improved. So that was day 2, another 63 miles according to the odometer which was nice after having set off so late and stopping a lot along the way.

Day 3 – Burlington, NJ to Cherry Hill, NJ (12 miles)

What a brilliant day. I rode all of 12 miles, not because of tiredness / recovery, but because today I’d arranged to meet a into-cycling-couple living in Cherry Hill after they’d finished work.

The little cycling that I did do was pretty rad, once again a great area of New Jersey and nice roads.

And then the coolest part. A chap called Isaac emailed a couple of weeks ago, asking if I’d be interested in going for dinner with him and Sarah, his wife if I was passing through. You bet! So I was hanging out with a Coke outside a cafe in Cherry Hill, and at about 4.00pm a big pickup truck pulls up and Isaac shouts hey from inside.

We bundled the bike into the back of the truck and he drove us to his apartment to meet Sarah, stash some stuff and recharge batteries.

Then we grabbed some dinner at The Cheescake Factory and it was great to hear about their love of cycling, families and general lives.

After dinner, we visited Campbells Soup’s global headquarters. Isaac is a head chef there and he invents some of the products that Campbell’s produce. Pretty awesome to see his work up there on the marketing wall. After this we went back to the apartment to pick up the gear and batteries, and shot a bit of video too. A snippet below:

It was a great experience to be in the company of two of the most hospitable people. After an amazing dinner, they surprised me by organising a suite in a local hotel for the night and a bag of Campbell’s goodies. How incredibly kind is that?!

I haven’t spent much time in the cycling community before this trip, but first impressions are that it’s a network of kind-hearted and welcoming people. Thank you Sarah and Isaac, it was an absolute pleasure and I’m excited to stay in touch with you guys.

Shattered now (apologies if the writing isn’t very clear!) but feeling good after a light days riding and the great company this evening. Roll on tomorrow.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 1: Queens, NY to Linden, NJ

Bit knackered so will keep it quick.

Set off from Jamaica, NY, way later than expected (they had a waffle maker, can’t say no to that). Only managed to get going at about 11.15am. But it’s all a learning curve – from now on days will begin a lot earlier than that and won’t, for the most part, involve waffles.

Goal one was to get to George Washington Bridge, to then get on to the mainland. Getting through New York was slow (Queens – Williamsburg – Manhattan). Stop start due to traffic lights. The actual traffic wasn’t too bad, just a case of keeping your wits about you. Basically like cycling in Manchester, it’s quite well thought out for cyclists in the main part.

Get over George Washington Bridge and it’ll all speed up, right? Oh how expectations can be deceiving. Here’s a video which shows the earlier part of today, leaving NYC. Wrong!

Just to explain, my plan was to leave New York via the fastest SW route (the GPS has a mode to switch to cycle-able roads), to then join the ACA Atlantic Coast route near Ambler, PA in a couple of days, where the roads are friendly and there should be some places to camp.

From GWB it got a bit more complicated. It got dark, so the lights came on to guide the way. Upon entering New Jersey there weren’t many places to stop. It was urban, the whole way. No parks and, unlike the video above indicates, no wooded areas. In a van or a car, being ‘urban discreet’ is easy, you can just park in a corner of a supermarket car park. It’s so tricky to be subtle in an urban environment in a tent with a massive bike though, so I kept on cycling until a good place was found. And it never came. The places I passed through weren’t places that would be conducive to a good nights kip in a tent. So reluctantly, and with the help of an awesome fellow lost-person, Jaquin (quite confident that’s not how you spell her name) finding the zip code on her phone, I used the GPS to point me in the direction of a room. Can’t be a regular thing as the budget isn’t there, but needed in this case. Finished cycling around 8.30pm.

 Anyway now that todays weird route is out of the way, hopefully the next few days will have a real impact on ticking some of the route off. After a late start and the stop-start nature of leaving New York (resulting in a low average speed), and still covering nearly 60 miles, it’d be good to tick off some bigger miles by setting off earlier and having a better plan. It was bloody good fun all in all, now it’s a case of keeping trekking on down the coast.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Departure Day

Today was the day of departure, which involved a flight to Reykjavik (who knew it’s actually called Keflavik?), and then onto New York City JFK.

Leaving family on a trip that’ll last multiple months is always pretty rubbish so this morning I thought the best strategy would be to get the goodbyes done speedily and try not to dwell. And what better way to take your mind off of something than faff about with tired and moody airport staff?

Getting to Manchester airport with loads of time in hand, the bike box, which is absolutely massive, took a long while to sort. After plenty of waiting around, the bike being brushed for dynamite, and some very funny looks, the ample buffer time actually ended up being a mad frantic rush to get on the plane in time.

After the previous couple of days, I was totally shattered so slept like a log for most of the first flight and landed in Iceland around 3.00pm local time for a quick switch onto the America leg.

Looking out of the plane from Iceland to America made the cycling part of the project, for the first time, tangible in my mind.  I think I’d been blocking out the reality of the task before that moment. The expanse just coming over the east coast of Canada and dropping into the US is quite something. I was surprised to feel very anxious about it all. Not about the ride, sure it’s a long trip but it’s simple. More the thought of being away from family and friends for months and coping with that. Theres a lot of ground to cover, a ton of time to think, and it’s most certainly going to be an adventure.

Back to the journey, it was all going so well, until the captain clearly was staying in the air intentionally. He’d earlier said that all was well, they just had to clear snow off the runway for twenty minutes or so. Snow? What snow? They didn’t mention that on the forecast! He swooped down, getting very close to landing, and then suddenly used full throttle to avoid touchdown and begin a rapid ascent. Something was clearly wrong, or he just liked drawing shapes on the trip computer.

There was minimal visibility and poor weather, and landing safely wasn’t going to happen. (EDIT: Turns out the Nor’easter had arrived) Then a tannoy announcement. “Ladies and gentleman, due to deteriorating  weather in New York, we have no alternative but to divert to Washington D.C.”  Shit! This threw a major spanner in the works as the entire trip navigation was waiting at a hostel in NYC. A Magellan GPS and ACA maps. Bugger.

Waiting around at Washington D.C. it was quite unclear whether we’d be going back to JFK, until finally the pilot “wanted another pop at it”. And this time with success, and applauses from the cabin.

After cueing through customs, it was time to collect the bags and bike box. The bags came quickly, and then nothing. It took about an hour after everyone had collected their baggage for a friendly chap to bring the bike box into the collection area. It was quite surprising to see the box in absolute tatters! It made moving it a challenge but thankfully everything is in tact.

Leaving the airport, as they’d said, it was snowing in New York, apparently for the first time this year. Not a whiteout or anything but moderate snow and strong gusts.

After a day of mini-epics, I finally made it to the hostel, bike and bags in tow. In a weird way, I enjoyed the travel issues. It wouldn’t be an adventure if nothing went wrong on day 1 right?

Just one last thing –  a massive shout out to all those who have helped and supported the project in the last few weeks. It’s been amazing, so thank you! It begins!

 
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Bicycle Travel

Bicycle Touring: Spec

This is a post about the bicycle spec. To see more about other touring gear and equipment, see this post.

The bike is finally sorted. It’s changed a lot in the last few weeks, from something which was more ‘cycle-to-the-shop’ than ‘cycle-round-a-continent’ to something, I hope, a little more robust and up for the job.

It’s had a revamp: upgraded wheels, upgraded saddle, upgraded pannier rack.

Took it out for the first time fully loaded yesterday. It’s, umm, quite a shock to the system when it comes to ascending. Down hill and flat, it really doesn’t feel so bad at all. It was surprising how nimble and controllable it is. Up hill is a different kettle of fish altogether though, so that’ll be interesting.

Anyway for those into their gear specs, here it is:

Accessory wise, there’s:

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Bicycle Travel

Bicycle Touring: Gear List

I’m not gonna beat around the bush here, I’m not a gearhead and don’t think it’s as important as people make out. Please don’t let “not having the latest gear” stop you from going out and having an amazing experience. A bin bag makes a great rain coat. But I get that these kind of lists can be useful as a guideline, so this is a post about the gear and equipment I chose to take on a multi-month cycle tour. To see the bike spec, click here.

There’s loads of different ways that people gear up for cycle touring, but if you’re thinking of doing something similar to the Vague Direction project that involves multiple months on the bike, through a variety of seasons, I hope this is a useful resource for you to figure out your own travel solution.

Clearly different times of year and different routes call for different gear lists, but something similar to this should give you enough options to stay warm in temperatures down to around -10ºC and handle fairly extreme weather conditions. (I will only ever recommend gear that I personally enjoy using).

Sleeping System

  • Thermarest
  • Thin Foam Matting (to be used under the tent on hard surfaces)
  • Bergans Compact Light 2-man tent
  • Bergans Senja Ice Sleeping Bag (long version)
  • Bergans Sleeping Bag Cover (for being discreet when putting a tent up wouldn’t be wise)
  • Sea to Summit Silk Liner
Cooking

Clothing System

It comes down to layers, being covered for even the worst weather, and easy temperature control.

  • Glittertind waterproof
  • Isfjorden light insulated jacket
  • Vier fleece jacket
  • Imingem trousers
  • Variety of Merino Wool undergarments and socks
  • Marmot Dri-clime jacket
  • Helly Hansen Balaclava
  • Montane ultra lightweight pertex jacket
  • North Cape thinsulate waist coat
  • Mountain Hardwear lightweight shirt

Specifically for cycling, I’m using:

Baggage

Lighting
Tools / bike maintenance 

Misc

There’s also a variety of filmmaking gear not on the list. All in all, including camera stuff too which isn’t listed, this comes in at around 30 kilograms. Oh yeah, and it all fits in the pannier bags!

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Welcome to Vague Direction

Welcome to the Vague Direction project.

The website has just gone live today, so there’s a lot that’s new to share!

Have a look around, and take a look at some brand new video content:

I’m hoping that this blog eventually becomes a useful resource for all things touring, adventure and filmmaking. It will be a place to find out what’s happening in the Vague Direction project, so previews of featured people, and updates on actually doing the journey and such. There are some great, and very diverse, featured people who will be involved in the project, so stay tuned. But also, the blog will be kept fresh by exploring topics as broad as travel, adventure and documentary through the use of guest posts and video interviews, plus specialist cycling-related areas such as nutrition, injury prevention and techy repairs.

Thank you for your interest in the project!

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Adventure Bicycle Travel Interviews

Interview with Mark Beaumont

Before the Vague Direction project commenced, I met up with Mark Beaumont to discuss several topics that relate to the project.

The obvious one is endurance cycling. In 2008, he smashed the world record for cycling round the world. After that, he cycled from Alaska to Southern Argentina, climbing Denali and Aconcagua along the way. So clearly he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to adventurous cycling expeditions.

But more than that I was intrigued about his career path, why he thinks it’s so important to follow your instinct and pushing your comfort zone.

Hope you enjoy the clip!