This years “excellent adventure” was a two week bikepacking trip through central Vermont and southeastern New England. This is Part 3 of the trip (Part 1 was the solo ride from Wellfleet to Burlington, Part 2 was a guided version of the Green Mountain Gravel Growler route), that I call the Tour de Family as I rode through all the places in southeastern New England where I still have family. It might just be age induced nostalgia and/or the glow from feeling like I’m in the home stretch of a long journey, no doubt heightened by the beautiful summer weather, but this was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

At the end of Part 2, Charles drove me from Burlington to Boston on his way home and dropped me, my bike and my gear at my sister’s house in Wellesley just in time for her 35th anniversary party. I’m so glad I was able to get there in time as I was able to visit with her, her kids and her extended family whom I have not seen together in some time (as well as neighbors and work colleagues I did not know) and celebrate her and Hans.

It was a lot of fun but the next day, I was again feeling the itch to get on the road. It’s interesting that when you get into this rhythm it counterintuitively feels unsettling to stop for very long. The next day – this was riding day 12 (Strava) – I packed up, put my father’s address into Google Maps bicycling directions and got what ended up being a fantastic route through the southwest Boston suburbs and some semi rural areas north of New Bedford. Jenny suited up and rode with me for about the first 20 miles – the route largely used for the Pan Mass Challenge she has done a number times and is her usual day ride route – at which point I continued on solo. 

The night before was full of summer thunderstorms and torrential rain, but the front had passed and it was sunny, cool and dry with a nice northwest tailwind. It really doesn’t get much better than that. The Google Maps directions were excellent routing me on very little traveled streets and country roads; I kept the volume on my phone up and even in my top tube bag I could hear “Siri” talking me down. It worked out really well and since I had a general idea of the area, I didn’t feel like I needed to plan a detailed turn by turn route on RideWithGPS as I usually do. This was a good lesson.

It took me through Dover, Medfield, Norfolk, Wrentham, Norton, Dighton, Freetown, Acushnet, North Dartmouth and into New Bedford. The route was in a way too good in that I never came across a place to get liquids or food (ie a convenience store or gas station) until I got to the north end of New Bedford, where I got some gatorade and gummies quickly as I was really hungry. But that’s the nice thing about bikepacking (compared to an effort like Mount Baldy) it’s an endurance effort that burns fat so as long as you are going easy (and if you have lots of fat like me!) you can go much farther without bonking.

I worked my way through New Bedford just enjoying the nostalgia tour, especially through a part of the city I don’t see all that often. I arrived at my father’s house the first time ever by bike in the late afternoon after about 66 miles and a little over 4 hours pedaling. I quickly unpacked, took a shower and enjoyed spending the rest of the day and the next with GrandPline and Roseann.

Once again, I was antsy to get moving and enjoy the open road solo. Riding day 13 (Strava) was from New Bedford MA to Newport RI to see Lexi and Andres. I know this route pretty well, but again used Google Maps cycling directions with some explicit wandering through my favorite local riding areas of South Dartmouth and Westport, notably Horseneck Beach. Again, another spectacular day in southeastern new England which only fueled my age induced nostalgia!

Continuing west, I went through Adamsville, Little Compton, Tiverton and over the Sakonnet River on an awesome shared use path that I’ve seen from the highway and always wondered how it was.

The rest of the ride to Newport was down Aquidneck Island through Portsmouth and Middletown which is frankly, mostly crappy to ride on as few low stress roads go through and you continuously get dumped out onto RI 138 or RI 114 (STROADS). Once in Newport however, I had a fair amount of time so I did the tour of the beaches, Ocean Drive, the mansions of Bellevue Ave and a stop at the Cliffwalk, all places that are best done via bike. All totaled it was again about 66 miles and a little short of 5 hours pedaling. I got to Lexi’s, showered and the three of us went and had a nice dinner together.

I got up really early the next morning – yet another spectacular day for riding day 14 (Strava) – as I had to ride to Providence and catch my Amtrak train to BWI at 11am, not really knowing how long it would take to ride the 30+ miles to the station in East Providence. I worked my way up the east side of Aquidneck Island more or less along the Old Colony Railroad right of way. The line exists in places but is essentially abandoned. The state REALLY needs to make a rail trail that spans the entire length of the island. This would be such a bike tourist generator!

The worst part of the trip and the one that made me the most anxious was the Mt Hope Bridge that connects Aquidneck Island to Bristol. I’ve driven over it a number of times and it’s a high, narrow two lane bridge with a really bumpy surface and it seemed a bit sketch to ride over (“sorry officer, I never saw the no bicycles signs”). It turned out not to feel as steep as I thought it would and it only took me about 2 minutes to get up the hill at 13 mph and I flew with traffic on the way down.

Once that was out of the way, it was smooth riding from Bristol all the way up the East Bay Bike Path along the eastern side of Narragansett Bay and the Providence River through Bristol, Warren, Barrington, Riverside and into East Providence. This is a fantastic path and appears well used by locals.

From the end of the path at India Point Park to the Amtrak station was an easy few miles and I arrived with a little over an hour to departure. This gave me some time to get the lay of the land, change into more comfortable clothes and grab a sandwich for the ride.

I had watched a few videos of how to work the bike rack on the train so I was prepared. I removed my rear and front bags from the bike so was ready to put the bike in the rack. Based on advice, I left the front wheel on until after boarding. There was a decent amount of dwell time once aboard so I got the wheel off and the bike into the rack before we departed, then got myself situated for the 7 hour interlude.

The train ride was very pleasant. It’s been a long time since I have done the trip by train (once we took the kids instead of flying and that was a failed experiment). After 7 hours, we left the Baltimore station and I removed the bike, put my bags on and was ready to roll off at BWI 10 minutes later. I know there is very little dwell time there so wanted to be ready. At 6pm arrival I was really smelling the barn and virtually did a cyclocross mount right out of the station and cranked down the familiar BWi/B&A trails and over the Severn River Bridge into West Annapolis right up to the house for a total of 56 miles and 4 hours pedaling for the two pieces on either side of the train ride. Home!

All in all, it was maybe the best “Excellent Adventure” to date; certainly the most challenging.

The totals for the trip from Wellfleet on Cape Cod to Burlington VT and back to Annapolis:

• 17 days
• 14 riding days
• 767 miles
• 58 hours pedaling
• 8 nights camping
• 3 family members visited
• 1 three hour car ride
• 1 seven hour train ride
• Base fitness attained: priceless!

I’ll wrap this whole thing up with some thoughts on how this “test” for whether I think I can handle a cross country ride went in the next post “Am I kidding myself”.