At long last, the day has arrived when I started my bike ride across America. I am full of hope for a wonderful adventure. I’ve packed what I need and minimized as much as I dare. Still my gear weighs 46 pounds (without any water). While I can think of hundreds of things that might go wrong, I have faith that God will watch over me and bless this adventure.
Yesterday, Elizabeth and I drove up to Lewes, Delaware and stayed at a hotel on the ocean. The weather forecast was calling for rain in the morning, but I had already committed to this day to start.
The rain gave way just before 9:00am. Elizabeth and I went down to the beach to get the requisite starting picture of me and my bike with the rear tire in the Atlantic Ocean.
The route started with a nice bike lane through town, followed by a few miles on the Georgetown Lewes bike trail.
I was soon biking on country roads across Delaware. Komoot put me on some great roads. The busier ones had very wide shoulders, and the roads without shoulders were very lightly traveled. I even took a few gravel roads.
I tried to stop for anything interesting, just to get off the bike for a while, but mostly I just followed the blue line on my cell phone and watched the miles pass by.
Somewhere on these remote back roads I crossed into the state of Maryland. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a sign that I saw, so no picture. 🙁
About 50 miles in, at about 2:00 I rolled into the town of Denton, Maryland needing a good lunch. I opened up Google Maps and found an area of town with several restaurants not far from my route. I asked some people on the street for a recommendation and decided to go to a local restaurant called The Pub. Had a nice lunch and they refilled my water bottles. I talked with another cyclist who stopped to comment about my bike and all the gear.
From there the route put me on a 4-lane divided highway. There was a very wide shoulder to bike on, so I felt safe, but it was very noisy and not very scenic. And then it started to rain. 🙁
After the rain started, a car flagged me down. I thought they were going to see if I needed a ride, but they just wanted directions. It was an older lady and I guess she felt that any cyclist would be a local who knew the roads – she was wrong on both counts. She had a smart phone attached to her dashboard, so I asked her why she didn’t use that to navigate where she wanted. She said that she didn’t know how to use her cellphone that way. So, I pulled my cellphone off my bike and gave her directions to where she was going. I wasn’t up to a full cellphone lesson standing there in the rain.
After 10 miles on that divided highway I was back on the back roads for a while. It stopped raining and after another stretch on a divided highway I was on the Cross Island bike trail for the last ten miles.
On the day I biked just over 84 miles and 860 feet of climbing (it was pretty flat). For most of the ride I was feeling very thankful for the opportunity to attempt this adventure. I really tried to stay in the moment and enjoy the scenery. But it was a lot for me to bike that far. Not sure I’ll have that big of a day the rest of the trip.
Elizabeth picked me up from the end of the ride and we had a nice dinner. Tomorrow she will drive me over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (you can’t ride your bike across it), and I will be on my own. I’m very thankful for Elizabeth’s support.
Sounds like a wonderful first day! Throughly enjoyed reading about your 1st day adventure
And the adventure begins! Wish I was with you, Dad.
Great recap of a very interesting day. Love the person who can’t use her cell phone for directions. Now I need to get the atlas out to follow your daily progress.
What a fun adventure. I wish you safe travels and fair weather. Love you.
Great first day pictures Jim!