Author: Eric

Day 4, 58 miles, Middlesex, NJ, to Philadelphia

Here’s something I love about riding bike long distance: You see everything like you can’t in a car. You feel the place under your tires, every single bump, rise and depression. You hear the sounds, of bugs and birds and people, cars and machinery. You smell the smells, of wild vegetation, cooking meat and oil, people living together, must and rot, and of course, exhaust, lots of exhaust.

Your senses are filled with the space through which you’re rolling.

Today, Day 4 of my 70 day xUS bike tour, was filled with sensory contrasts. I rolled out of Middlesex, NJ, about 9 a.m. and traversed some beautiful rural roads (who knew? Jersey) for a couple hours before climbing up into Princeton. This is the consummate American privilege, blue blood town, similar to Cambridge, MA, Hanover, NH, and some other high brow college towns. Grand, spectacular houses and buildings, quaint coffee and sushi shops, manicured gardens and lawns. I stopped for a tea at Small World Coffee.

I rode out of Princeton and not half an hour later I’m rolling through the streets of Trenton, NJ. These two towns are such a study in contrast it’s jarring to nearly juxtapose them. One is glitz, the other is pure grit. Princeton dresses itself up for the grand ball while Trenton is getting all slutty for a back alley dirty dancing rave.

I came away from the experience without a preference for either, rather an appreciation for what each contrasting town offered. Princeton is nice, cushy. But Trenton is real, man.

My ride next led to another wonderful bike path, the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath.

I’ve been getting lucky with some nice bike paths, I hope it continues once I’m out of the northeast. This one is gorgeous, with these exquisite trees (not sure what they are, they looked like lilacs) reflected in the water, long, peaceful backwoods stretches with no traffic, and lots of wildlife. I watched a spectacular crane flying along the canal. And a couple times, stopped to watch irresistible baby geese waddling behind their parents. (View a brief video on Insta.)

After nearly 20 miles of loving the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath, I got dumped out onto Route 13 heading into Philadelphia. Culture shock. I was thankful for the huge shoulder to ride on because traffic was explosive and constant. Trucks, delivery vans, motorcycles, construction vehicles, all passing by at top speed. Lots of highway entrances/exits, always a moment for high alert and potential pissed off drivers as they wait for me to cross the entrance lane so they can hurry onto the highway.

The last 10 miles today was city riding. Philadelphia does a decent job of painting in a bike lane, for that I was thankful. But I swear I was hitting every red light and there are a lot of them. Most the time I could slow down and ride through but had to stop and wait many times. Frustrating. (Btw, for those of you who bristle when you see a cyclist riding through red lights, consider: it takes some good momentum to start up a bike – let alone one with 35 extra lbs. – from a complete stop. Stopping, unclipping your shoes from the pedal locks and waiting for the light to turn, then push starting, clipping shoes back in and ramping up to speed takes a lot of energy and time. I know running red lights breaks traffic rules and can be unsafe. But please hop on a bike and ride through a city to see what it’s like before heckling the next biker you seeing doing this. My PSA for the day.)

After 4 straight riding days averaging 68 miles/day, it’s time for a day’s rest in the City of Brotherly Love. By “rest,” I mean “work.”

Day 3, 65 miles, Mamaroneck, NY, to Middlesex, NJ
Day 2, 55 miles, Milford, CT, to Mamaroneck, NY

One of the reasons I started this blog, about adventure and adventurism, is that I believe every day is an adventure, and should be celebrated as such. Adventure, to me, is where life is lived. It’s experiencing the 2s and 3s, yes, but also the 8s and 9s. Sitting in front of my desk at home yields days full of 4s, 5s, 6s, sometimes 7s.

Today, Day 3 of my 70-day xUS bike trip, defined my philosophy. It was an adventure in every sense. The highs, the lows, the drudgery of challenge, the ecstasy of triumph.

Riding a bike into and through New York City is always an adventure. Doing it with 35 pounds of stuff attached to the bike only accentuates the thrill of the unknown.

Today’s ride began with four miles on Route 1 in Mamaroneck. It’s a quick wakeup call when Monday morning traffic is squeezing you off the road. One good thing about New York City riding is that the bike culture is prevalent and seems accepted. Bikes weave in and through traffic as needed, treating red lights as reason only to slow down and make sure traffic isn’t coming before riding through.

Riding the Grand Concourse in the Bronx was an adventure in itself. Construction, cars pulling in and out of the parking lane, weaving through backed up traffic at the never-ending stoplights, negotiating the sizable potholes and bumpy asphalt patches, constantly on the lookout for an SUV veering in front of you.

And yet…I love riding in NYC, just as I love driving there. It keeps you on your toes, on high alert. It’s exciting, non-stop, adrelanine-pumping adventure.

From the Bronx, navigation led me to the High Bridge, which I’d never taken. A gorgeous, old bridge, the oldest in New York, towering a couple hundred feet over the Harlem River with a view of the New York skyline in the distance (foggy on this day), and ushering me into Manhattan. From there, across Manhattan to the Hudson River Greenway.

I crossed the Hudson via ferry from Battery Pier over to Liberty Park, Jersey City, not a pretty town. Nor, for that matter, is Newark, though it did present me with some of the most intense and harrowing traffic so far, including some bridge crossings and a highway crossing that I at first thought was simply impossible (I took a breath and went for it, and lived. Enough said.).

At one point I hit a road rut so big that my 14-lb. pannier flew off my bike and landed, forlornly, in the shoulder. A group of construction workers leered as I retrieved it and refastened it to the bike.

It’s a circumstance I’m getting used to, being leered at. Bikes aren’t typically decked out with every available space being used to carry something. It’s cool. It reminds me of my travels in China in the early 1990s – being openly stared at.

Following Newark, my day of adventure mellowed into the calm, reasonable ultra-suburbs of Perth Amboy and towns south, with modest houses in peaceful neighborhoods, smooth, untrammeled streets, smells of barbecue and families tossing balls in the yard. I love the suburbs, for bike trips anyway.

But, then the rain started coming down. It was a fitting end to a harrowing, but ultimately electrifying, day.

On to Philly.

Day 1, 86 miles, Easthampton, MA, to Milford, CT

In almost every adventure I’ve embarked on, Day 1s have been awesome. Day 1s are full of hope, possibility, optimism and energy.

This Day 1 was no different.

I headed south out of Easthampton, on the Manhan Bike Path, at 7:30 a.m. A cold, gusty wind smacked me in the face most the morning, and my fully loaded panniers and bags act like a sail, catching every breeze.

But it didn’t matter. I was on my way to the unknown. I mean, not completely unknown because I do have a route and a plan. But I mean the unknown as in the day-to-day: who I might meet, what I might see, amazing and weird scenes I’ll happen across, and, inevitably, setbacks and triumphs.

A couple hours later I crossed into Connecticut, on the Farmington River Greenway bike path that starts in Westfield and goes all the way to Farmington. The sun was out (wind still blowing hard!) and I was making good time. By noon I crossed the Farmington River and it was turning into a gorgeous afternoon.

For this route, you get off the Farmington River bike path and ride on roads through Southington, CT, which is a nice town but has an eyesore stretch of road with every fast food and big box chain you can think of, and a lot of traffic. The payoff to surviving that turnoff is the New Haven-Northampton Railroad Canal Line, an awesome bike path that runs from Southington to Yale U. in New Haven. I definitely recommend this bike path– very smooth, lots of good restaurants right alongside, wonderful atmosphere.

I left the trail and headed through downtown New Haven, then out to West Haven for a great stop at the beach and a freezing plunge into Long Island Sound. The idea here is a Day 1 plunge in Long Island Sound, then a much more pleasant plunge into Long Beach to finish. Get it? Long Island, Long Beach? (It’s the little things.)

So after about a year of planning and a few months of cold rides on nearly every road in the Valley and beyond, this Day 1 was a welcome end of the preamble and a beginning of the actual journey.

One thing I’ve learned though: you can’t depend on Day 1s. They’ll trick you into believing the entire adventure will be like the start, and that you’ll always have the energy for it that you do today. We adventurers well know that is not the case. There will be slogs in the future, of that I’m certain.

So I’m saving this Day 1, and hoping to extend the feeling as long as possible.

Time to get started with the adventure already!

Launching May 1: 70 Days AcrossUS by Bike

This is a bike trip from American coast to coast. I’ll depart from Easthampton, Massachusetts, on Saturday, May 1 (7 a.m., he says optimistically), and touch water (maybe plunge in…?) of the Atlantic Ocean (Long Island Sound) at the coast of Connecticut, Day 1. Then, if all goes according to plan, I’ll arrive in Long Beach (L.A.), California, somewhere around July 12 and touch the water of the Pacific. Is that 70 days? Close to it anyway.

View a map of my route

Along the way, I’ll post my progress here, and keep you informed about the (literal) ups and downs, the high and low points, the agony, the ecstasy and everything in between. At times, I’ll laugh (I hope), I’ll cry (for sure), and I’ll share my experiences and images with you.

I hope to hear from you on my trip. In fact, I’m counting on it. As a solo adventurer, things can get rather lonely. I’ll need your comments and questions to keep me company, so let me know what you’re thinking in the comments.

See you on the road!

Thank you for visiting and for your interest in aging with adventure and finding adventure in aging!

I am Eric Weld, aka the Aging Adventurist. I live and love everything adventure – taking adventures, studying about adventure, writing about adventure, and helping others experience adventure in their lives.

Aging Adventurist? Yes, I’m talking about you. And everyone.

Every single person alive is aging, obvs. And I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy adventure. Adventure, that is, as in travel, exotic excursions, daring achievements and challenging forays, yes. But also just the adventure of life. The adventure of living, learning, growing, failing, getting up and trying again, and the endeavor of attempting to enjoy it all.

You might notice I call myself the Aging Adventurist as opposed to Adventurer. That’s intentional. Because this blog will be not only a documentation of adventures close to and far from home. It will also be a study of adventure: adventurism—what it is, who does it (hint: we all do), where we go, when, and foremost, why. Heck, we’ll even discuss Adventures in Aging.

It’s all adventure.

So thanks for visiting my blog and sharing the adventure of life!