Post 2 - Bar Harbor to NYC

It was all we could do to not take the bike out on our rest day in Bar Harbor to ride the many carriage paths that we often do whenever we come to Acadia National Park.  But, that was the right thing to do and our legs felt rested and ready to climb out of the hole in Bar Harbor which was at sea level up to Ellsworth and beyond for that day.

We stopped and visited the observatory at the top of the bridge tower for the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.  The bridge observatory, which offers 360 degree views from the top, is 420 ft high which makes it the tallest bridge observatory in the world. It was a great visit, which also  included Fort Knox (the other Fort Knox, not the gold Fort Knox).  This fort used new technology for cannon placement that allowed for cannons to be shot from within the walls, and it's the best preserved fort site in New England.

Penobscot Narrows Bridge Crossing

Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory

We stayed in Belfast Maine that night and the next morning went to Belfast Harbor after breakfast to see the inflatable ducks. The story is that in 2021 one duck appeared in the harbor - a big inflatable duck named Joy but no one knew where it came from or who put it there. The next year the duck was back with a friend named Greater Joy. This year there are three ducks in the harbor with the newest duck named Greatest Joy.  They're viewable from the pedestrian bridge for the East Coast Greenway.  Inflatable Ducks Appear in Harbor

From there, we rode to Rockland Maine and then on to Owl's Head lighthouse. This made our day a little longer, but let us see the lighthouse at sunset and return to Rockland for the night. 

Lunch Camden, ME Harbor

By the time we arrived in Rockland, we had gotten into a pretty good daily rhythm but things turned pretty bleak quickly when John noticed two broken spokes on the drive side of the rear wheel while lubing the chain and pumping up the tires for the next day after dinner.  The spokes are unique and very likely not available at any local bike shop.  The downside that the spokes are not readily available played into our decision whether or not to purchase these wheels about a year ago but all the benefits of the wheels seemed to outweigh the uniqueness of the spokes.  Up until this point, we were very pleased with the wheels after having ridden 5000 miles over the previous year with 2,000 of those miles fully loaded with panniers and much of it on unpaved and sometimes rough trails. To mitigate our risk on a long tour, John contacted the wheel manufacturer and purchased some replacement spokes for such an occurrence.  There was some work that needed to be done to figure out which of the three different length spokes went on which wheel and which side but after some work the spokes were replaced, the wheel was trued, and the bike was back ready to ride by 3:00 a.m.

We set off for Wiscasset,  Headed to Wiscasset where friends had recommended Red's Eats for a lobster rolls. We arrived about an hour before they closed at 5:00. We waited in line for about an hour to get our lobster rolls.  Our friends were correct. Best lobster roll we've ever had and picnic tables along the river made for a great dinner.

The next day we rode to Portland, Maine.  Along the route, we stopped in Freeport, ME, to lay waste to some more lobster rolls and visit LL Bean which we always visit when driving from Boston up to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.  

As the sun was just about to set when were 4 mi from the hotel, we heard what sounded like a gunshot and quickly discovered that the rear tire was flat.  After removing the panniers, rack pack, and rear tire from the bike, we discovered that the tire (brand new when we started our trip) sidewall had a defect and had ripped away from the tire bead allowing the tube to bulge out and pop like a balloon.  Fortunately we had a spare tire to go along with a replacement tube.  Since we were by the water and it was sunset, we got eaten up by mosquitoes but we were on our way again in about 25 minutes.  This made us late getting in, but we still found excellent Chinese food near our hotel.  Our last night in Maine was bittersweet. The state is beautiful and has excellent bikeways but they aren't kidding when they say it's hilly though.  

Portland, ME was very bike centric with lots of bike paths and people riding.  The morning we left Portland we saw a young couple who asked us where we were headed while we were stopped at a red light. We told them we were headed to Key West and the guy shared that he had recently ridden across the United States from Portland to Portland (Oregon to Maine) and told us to crush it on our ride!

Leaving Portland Maine, we stopped at Sunglass Hut in the Maine Mall to pick up John's replacement Oakley sunglasses that he had on order.  Thank you Liz from the Sunglass Hut for coordinating the delivery. 

The East Coast Greenway route from Calais, ME to Key West, FL is comprised of a lot of local trails and roads that were put together to form the longer East Coast Greenway network.

One such trail, The Eastern Trail, leaving Portland, was awesome and we enjoyed the woods and marshes immensely.

Riding the ECG

When we rode into Portsmouth, NH, we discovered there were two Hampton Inns when we went to check in at the one right off the trail.   The Hampton Inn we had reservations at was 3 miles further. Luckily we had had a big lunch at the harbor in Camden, ME and we had grabbed some burritos to eat at our hotel for dinner once we got there so it all worked out fine. 

We were planning to take pictures at each of the state line crossings but discovered that most state line crossings on lower use secondary roads do not have state signs so we gave up on that plan. 

The ride into Danvers, MA was on the Eastern Marsh Trail (the Eastern Trail becomes to Eastern Marsh Trail when it passes from New Hampshire into Massachusetts). It was beautiful, but much of it was unpaved and slower going. Along the way we met a guy on the trail headed the opposite direction that immediately turned around and asked us where we were headed. When talking to him he told us that he saw the Ortlieb panniers and knew that there must be some kind of adventure going on there.  Turns out, he was a former director of the East Coast Greeenway organization and a rider of the ECG who completed the entire ECG by riding a new week-long section every year for 9 years.  

We were glad to get to our hotel in Danvers.  Later that night John found a third broken spoke which he replaced.   

The next day John called the guy that sold us the wheel set and described all of the problems that we were having.  He send six replacement spokes overnight to the hotel two nights ahead on our trip to make sure that if the package was a day late we would still be sure to get them.  

We had an on and off again rainy ride into Boston, with a delicious early dinner at Legal Seafood Harbor side.  Our waitress asked where we were headed when she saw our bike leaning up against the window outside by our table where we could keep an eye on it. When we told her we were going to Key West she told us that she liked to take long runs and told us that she was ashamed to admit it but she would go shopping when she got to the destination town before running back home.  We took the last passenger ferry to Provincetown, MA leaving 5:30p.  

The ferry was much faster and smoother than the ferries we had ridden in Delaware that were much larger car carrying fairies.  The ferry to P-town cruised at 56 miles an hour and with the catamaran style hull was very smooth. We enjoyed the people and some ice cream once we arrived in P-town.  P-town  We then rode a few miles on to our hotel.

In P-town Monday morning we ate breakfast in the Adirondack chairs across the road from the hotel on the beach. 

Then we had a great day of riding into Hyannis, MA on Cape Cod along the Cape Cod Railway path where we rode through the ocean forest, got to see a lot of the coast, and stopped to see the Highland Lighthouse.  

You might expect Cape Cod to be very flat with much of it very near the ocean but there was just over 2,000 ft of climbing while riding 58 miles that day - so pretty hilly, surprisingly.  That night John found a fourth spoke that broke and four other spokes that were loose.  John replaced the fourth broken spoke with his last spare and tightened up the four other loose ones.  At this point it was looking more likely that we might have to abandon the ride if the wheel issue was not resolved quickly because the rate of spoke failures was accelerating.  The next day John called the wheel supplier and provided an update on the worsening condition of the wheel. The supplier offered to send a replacement wheel which we arranged to be drop shipped to an REI store that was able to make the swap for us when we got there in 2 days.  So, the next two days we were very careful of riding over any bumps and we reduced the additional spoke load riding up steep hills so that we could get through the next two days where the wheel would be changed.

From Hyannis, we headed to New Bedford, with more wonderful trails along the water.  Along the way we saw some cranberry bogs.  Now we know how the Thanksgiving cranberries are grown.  They weren't quite ripe yet but you could see they were getting close.  

So some more used repurposed propane tank art and another Lighthouse from the trail. 

The next day we crossed into Rhode Island, and stayed in Warwick at a cute converted factory at the old Pontiac Mills site where Fruit of the Loom was made.  In the morning we rode back up the hill along the ECG to REI so that we were there when they opened.  They very quickly swapped the cassette and rotor from the old wheel onto the new wheel and we were back in business and on our way to Dayville CT, about 40 miles away breathing a sigh of relief. 

Shortly after leaving Dayville, we picked up the Air Line Trail. 

We weren't sure we'd be able to ride it on our loaded tandem, but we made surprisingly good progress in the  beautiful Connecticut woods Air Line Trail until we hit a bad washout in what the locals call "The Hampton Hole" where a short section of trail is closed. The airline trail, being an old converted railroad,  is pretty flat with very moderate grades so the unpaved trail stays in pretty good shape under those conditions.  However, the Hampton Hole is a steep section of trail, which, during heavy rains, there is a lot of erosion that makes the trail impassible.  We took a detour on the road to bypass the Hampton Hole and picked up the trail at the next road crossing. 

 Approaching East Hartford, Connecticut, we picked up the paved Farmington Canal Heritage Trail into East Hartford/Glastonbury.  The trail into Hartford was, by far, the best trail system we had ridden in a city to date.  The trail weaved its way under, around, and over with many ECG dedicated bridges through the congested interstate highway system allowing us to ride without any worry of car traffic into the city. 

In Hartford, we rode through the downtown city park. 

We rode to Hamden, CT on more of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail. The historic markers along the way describing the Farmington Canal, the Farmington Canal Railroad, and the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail were interesting and the pavement mostly smooth.  First came the Farmington Canal, which was replaced by the Farmington Railroad as technology advanced, which eventually became the Farmington Heritage Trail which we enjoyed on our ride.

Our route from Hamden, CT to Stamford, CT led us by the water and through the Yale Campus.  Around lunch time that day we got a flat rear tire. Upon inspecting the tube, tire, and rim it was not evident what might have caused the two small adjacent puncture holes atypical of road debris (due to location on the tube near the rim) or a pinch flat so after much hand wrangling, John installed a new tube and hoped for the best.  Unfortunately, after just another three or four miles, the rear tire went flat again so likely whatever cause the first flat that day had not been resolved.  

With only one more spare tube remaining, the cause of the puncture needed to be determined.  Upon closer inspection John found that the new tire, installed after the tire failure in Portland Maine, had a similar defect in the sidewall and was splitting the same way but more slowly which caused a slower leak rather than the loud pop that happened for the first tire failure.  Having never seen this type of tire failure and the resulting multiple holes in the tube, it was not clear that the tire sidewall failure was causing the holes in the tube but they were located adjacent to each other on the wheel so a new tube and tire were installed on the wheel which got us to our destination after 35 more miles of riding.  Since the second flat occurred so soon after the first flat, the fact that no more flats occurred once the defective tire was replaced that day more strongly confirmed that the defective tire was the likely culprit for the first and second flat that day.  Riding the next day another 47 miles into NYC with no issue all but confirmed that the faulty tire was the cause of the two flat tires the day before.

Vincent, a guy who was on a walk who passed by us once during the beginning of the second flat tire repair returned later on his way back and offered to take us anywhere we needed to go in his pickup to help resolve our problem.  At this point the failed tire had been identified as the likely cause of the second flat so we felt that we would likely not need his help.  Upon thanking him for such a generous offer, he also said that he would come rescue us in his pickup anywhere along our remaining 35 miles of riding that afternoon/evening to help us out if needed and that he knew a police officer in Stamford, CT (our destination) who could help us out.  Meeting such nice and generous people during our trip has been one of the highlights of riding the ECG. 

Our trip from Stamford, CT to NYC included heavy rain most of the day but fortunately no problems with the bike. 

We pulled into our hotel in NYC wet but looking forward to a hot shower to warm is up followed by one of our favorites, Patsy's Pizza for dinner and a rest day the next day. 

On our rest day we saw a lot of bike couriers delivering take-out orders everywhere we went.   Most of the bike couriers installed plastic wrap around the bike frame to protect it. 

Tomorrow we head South to the tip of Manhattan and start the third segment of our ECG ride.  We plan to publish the next blog post on September 30th during our next rest day in Williamsburg, VA. 

John and Sue