Author: Mark

It wa always my intention to be in Boston by Easter Sunday, the day before the grand spectacle of the Boston Marathon. My run of amazing weather continued to the last day of my trip and I was able to leave Providence in glorious cycling conditions. People were telling me it had been cold and grey until just a couple of days before. I told them I had brought the sunshine with me. Sometimes I start to believe that it is more than just good luck. In fact, to be fair, perhaps it was in this instance. You can call it good planning if you like, but I always felt that riding north from Florida from March into April would give me my best chance of great weather in every state, and so it proved. I hope the same applies in reverse in late summer when I return to take on the northern section of North America’s east coast. The weather can make all the difference. Over the years I have done remarkably well in all of my cycling adventures. I’d like to think that can continue.

I had left myself just under fifty miles to reach the marathon finish line, which Scott, my Boston host and a college friend of Clayton, had suggested would make a very appropriate end to my ride today. I had set expectations with my welcoming committee that I might make it there by around 3pm, but I should have known better. Giving myself a deadline like this means I am always riding against the clock, and I prefer not to have that pressure. It also relies on me getting a prompt start, which – as usual – I didn’t quite manage. One reason for this was the sharing of a family ritual on Easter Sunday morning to decorate the shells of boiled eggs with wax crayons. My hosts Justin and Jen were keen to give it a go, and we did a nice job between us. Then I made a detour (following local advice) to see the historic buildings of Brown University in Providence. I’m glad I did – they were beautiful – but all the time my cycling window was closing.

I could still have made it easily enough were it not for my second puncture of the trip. I don’t know what caused it, but I had to use my new inner tube within a day of buying it! It is an occupational hazard, and one puncture per thousand miles of cycling is not a bad average. But it meant I would have to put back my arrival time. I optimistically pitched for 3.45pm at the finish line and hoped for the best.

Providence gave way seamlessly to Pawtucket, an attractive riverside town with a collection of old mills, churches and other good buildings. And from there I seemed to follow smaller, quiet roads for most of the way to the edge of Boston. It was an enjoyable few hours. I was heading in a roughly straight line north east, and I finally reached the suburbs and picked up Washington Street. This was a great way straight in to the city centre and it rolled up and down a few hills until, from the crest of the last hill, the Boston skyline was spread out before me. It looked closer than it was, but it gave me renewed faith in my arrival prediction. For the final few miles, I was back on cycle paths along Boston’s south west corridor, riding alongside a suburban railway line making for downtown. A well chosen left turn on Massachusetts Avenue took me past the world headquarters of the Christian Science church and out into the finishing straight of the marathon course on Boylston Street. A couple of blocks later, and a block short of the finish line, I had to dismount due to the volume of people all filling the wide street and having their photos takes.

A voice from the crowd said “Are you Mark?”. It was another Jen, Scott’s wife, who had come out to meet me. Together we located my brother, Paul, his wife, Elspeth, and their Boston dwelling friends. I was on time! Photos were taken and then the focus of attention switched to Elspeth, who would be running the marathon the next morning. She has been collecting the world’s big six marathons and this would be her fourth after London, Berlin and Chicago. The forecast was excellent and we made our plans to join in as spectators tomorrow, before heading our separate ways. Scott and Jen were superb hosts and their city centre apartment, five blocks from the finish, had the most spectacular roof garden. Over dinner we compared remarkably similar stories of world travel from our earlier lives, and I felt once again that I couldn’t have landed anywhere more perfect for my last two nights in the USA.

And so, my bike and I had made it all the way here from Key West, the small matter of 2,000 miles away. I made more stops along the way than in previous trips, because there were places to see – cities especially – and family to visit that I didn’t want to miss. But I had enough time to do all that and still not feel rushed. I cycled for three days out of every four, actually riding for 28 days in total. It fit beautifully into the time I had given myself, which in turn had come about as much by accident as anything, as these things typically do for me. I had pedalled my way up through Miami, St Augustine, Savannah, Charleston, Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York City, and now here I was in Boston, ending my trip in style and with family. It all felt just like I hoped it would. Better, in fact, in the end. A job well done, even if it was really only half done. But the second half would have to wait. It was time to go home and enjoy the English spring. I hadn’t been there for almost three months and I was ready to return. I could relax and enjoy the marathon and then look forward to seeing my own surroundings, family and friends for a few months. And then…

One of my main motivations for deciding to cycle the length of Long Island over the coast of Connecticut was the opportunity to ride a ferry at the far end to take me back to the mainland. I rarely pass up a ferry opportunity and I was excited to be able to add another to my growing collection. The vehicle ferry from Orient Point to New London took about 90 minutes and left every hour, but to get all the way to Providence, Rhode Island today I had to be on the 11am sailing. Counting backwards that meant an 8.30am start from Clayton’s lovely home for a morning ride of 22 miles up the bay. I was lucky to be accompanied for this first section by Clayton himself, and doubly so because we had a following breeze on another bright, sunny day. For once, I didn’t have to think about my route and I could just let him lead me to the right place.

It was a pleasant ride indeed across the furthest reaches of Long Island in this outlying part of the peninsula. The road ended at the ferry and we made it with room to spare. I boarded along with the waiting cars and Clayton turned back into the wind for a rather more taxing return ride. He had single handedly transformed the last week of my adventure and I remain ever grateful. I hope we meet again. I feel pretty confident we will.

I ate lunch on the boat, including an Easter cookie that looked better than it tasted. Soon enough we were sailing into the estuary of the Thames River (pronounced as it is spelt, not the English way), and we docked in the historic Connecticut port town of New London, which today plays host to the US nuclear submarine fleet. They also build the new ones here on the north bank of the river, which is linked to the town centre by a high bridge carrying the Interstate highway. I knew this was my best and perhaps only chance today to replenish my stocks of inner tubes, and after yesterday I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. This meant a small detour through the town centre to a small independent bike shop, where I bumped into Bud, an 80 year old retired submariner on an electric bicycle. He was quite a character and kept me company for a good hour as we crossed the bridge together. My cycling exploits seemed of great interest to him, and in return he shared many stories with me about a life in journalism since the 1970s, and his views on the current political chaos engulfing the US. I came to think of him as a cycling version of Bernie Sanders, and it was a pleasure to have made his acquaintance; but it cost me time.

Nevertheless, the ride to Providence proved to be enjoyable and direct, along route 184 and then RI route 3, neither of which was busy. I was momentarily delayed by a roadside ice cream shop that sold 24 different flavours of soft serve. I went for coconut, which was divine. Other options included just about every imaginable kind of fruit, and Crème de Menthe. I made the mistake of asking for a medium sized cone and it was enormous. More time.

When things finally began to get a little more built up I found myself in mill country. It was like being near Stockport or Halifax, with a whole series of tall, brick mills by the side of the river, each with its own distinctive tower. Most seemed in good repair and it all had a strangely familiar feel to it. Threading its way in between these large buildings was a smooth new bike path, the “Washington Secondary Trail”, on an old railway bed that ran from a town called Coventry almost into the centre of Providence. It was a delight to cycle along, completely free from traffic on a wide, smooth, level and freshly marked out tarmac surface. It was as good as a bike path gets, and I flew along here, confident that I couldn’t make a wrong turn. In fact in eleven miles there were no turns to make until suddenly and without warning, it just stopped dead in a scruffy bit of industrial land. That left me to pick my way through the last few miles into downtown Providence, which is a delightful small city: big enough to feel important but small enough to be manageable.

Hopkinton, RI

I arrived in the early evening and was immediately impressed. I crossed the small river from the modest collection of taller buildings, old and new, and found myself on a bluff on the north bank following a quiet street of delightful old colonial era houses and churches, with old fashioned street lights and large trees lining the street. It was like stepping back two hundred years, and it all seemed perfectly preserved. The next street back up a fiendishly steep – if short – hill, was even more lovely and it afforded a splendid view across town to the sumptuously domed state Capitol building, its white stone glowing in the golden evening light. It was all most impressive. And it was here, a few yards up the next steep road, that I found my home for the night, with a different part of Clayton’s extended family. More incredible hospitality from delightful cycling people followed. What a privilege.

We walked into the city to try out a new Indian restaurant and then visited a very cool new pedestrian bridge over the river that stands where there was once a busy highway. It is now a destination for visitors to this delightful town. I once again went to bed a happy man, not quite believing my good fortune after an amazing day. Including the 18 mile ferry ride I had covered 128 miles today. Not bad. Boston now lay within easy reach, and I had a day to get there ahead of the marathon. My plan had worked.

After the early morning photo shoot with Joel, I got myself moving and followed a combination of long, residential streets and slightly busier main routes heading north east. For the most part I was following the Long Island commuter railway, passing regular stations as I went, and even the occasional train, which always adds to the fun. Things stayed pretty flat in mostly developed suburban surroundings until a couple of hours in to my ride. Then, at last, open, green spaces began to appear. It was around this point where I finally succumbed to my first puncture of the whole trip. And to be fair, it was a big one. I somehow rode over a nail that went right through my back tyre. I knew my tyre was coming towards the end of its life; but this would have gone through pretty much any tyre. I had bought some new tyre levers in Staten Island, and they got put straight to use, along with the inner tube I had been carrying with me all the way. And off I went again.

It took until early afternoon to find anywhere on my route that looked like a good place for lunch. Finally, I found a Tap Room in a brand new development by the train station in a town called Ronkonkoma and sat at a sunny table to enjoy a beer and a burger. I seemed to have left behind, for now at least, the America of the small family diner, but things then steadily became more rural as the afternoon wore on. I even began to see a couple of other cyclists out in the lovely weather this Good Friday. I passed through the attractive town of Riverhead and suddenly discovered that I was skirting along the coastline. The last couple of wind assisted hours of my journey were a delight, as I passed small boats moored in sheltered docks and glimpses of beaches. I was now out on the more northerly of the two long fingers of land that wrap either side of Great Peconic Bay at the eastern tip of Long Island, across the water from the desirable Hamptons. This was now a country of rushes and sand dunes and quiet coastal lanes. It put me in mind of the coast of East Anglia, which may be the reason for the naming of my final destination today, New Suffolk. Either way, it was a most delightful and very peaceful spot, with eagles and ospreys flying sround.

I rode right past the house I had been invited to stay in, but a voice shouted to me along the quiet lane and I turned back to meet Clayton, a fellow cyclist, and three generations of the most lovely, welcoming, interesting and well-travelled family you could wish to know. I was a total stranger to them, but you would never have known it. I have a bad feeling that one the daughters slept on the sofa to give me a bed for the night, but I don’t think they would have had it any other way. And so, for the second night in a row, I was treated better than I could have hoped and wined and dined in the best company possible. There is a lot wrong with the world, but experiences like this help to restore my faith in all that is good about this country.

Not satisfied with helping me for just tonight, Clayton then made arrangements so that I could benefit in a similar way for the next three nights. My trip was coming towards its end, but I was going out on a high. I went to bed feeling even luckier than usual tonight. Which is saying something.

I could have stayed for a very long time in New York City. There is nowhere quite like it. I took a day off and spent the whole day seeing just a tiny fraction of what was on offer. It was a steely, grey sort of day – not at all warm – but you could see for forty miles in every direction from the top of One World Trade Center, an experience I thoroughly recommend. Everything is spread out before you, far below. It is the tallest skyscraper in America and stands near the bottom of Manhattan Island, very close to where the twin towers once stood.

You realise quite quickly that New York is not just one high rise city, but several. Tall, new looking skyscrapers are grouped in several separate locations: here close to Wall Street, across the Hudson River in Jersey City, across the East River in both Brooklyn and Long Island City, and higher up Manhattan between midtown and Central Park. Any of these other clusters would look impressive on their own anywhere else. The overall effect is almost too much to take in at once. 

And then there are the bridges, islands and the many boats scuttling back and forth across the broad stretches of water. From above it is a bewildering hive of human activity, too much by far to attempt to describe in detail. So I will stop there and simply say that it is a place you should experience. And today, a very good way to do that is by bicycle, for which an impressively comprehensive network of dedicated routes now exists, linked together by a variety of ferry routes. It is a unique world awaiting exploration, with interest and stunning views at every turn. You really should try it.

But in the end, I had to leave, and I did so by crossing the high level cycle and pedestrian lane of the Williamsburg Bridge across the East River, high above the trains, the traffic and the water beneath. The local residents fly across on e-bikes and other speedy scooters and the like, all in a hurry to get somewhere or make a delivery. But I had time to stop and take it all in one last time before plunging at speed myself into mile upon mile of endless suburbs. 

I wasn’t aiming to get a long way today, but I was ultimately committed to crossing Long Island all the way to a ferry crossing at its eastern tip over 100 miles away, and I had the offer of two free nights of accommodation. I wasn’t to know it, but this was the start of a remarkable run of kind hospitality that took me all the way to Boston and the end of my trip. It all stemmed from a single enquiry made using the Warm Showers App that brings cyclists together around the globe. I have used it before, but wasn’t having much luck in the early part of this journey in the South, and I had almost given up. I’m so glad I gave it another chance.

So tonight I was aiming for the home of a cyclist in his mid seventies who could easily pass for sixty, and who was a part time model in healthcare commercials! This opportunity came about because his niece’s husband made a call on my behalf. It turned into that sort of adventure. Joel was a gracious host, and I was able to pay him back in a very small way by helping him with an early morning photo shoot in his back garden, for a modelling job application in the US Virgin Islands. The sun was shining brightly on the pink blossom and the birds were singing loudly. It was all rather perfect.

Princeton is a small town with a large, prestigious university and it is a pretty place, made all the more so by the present displays of cherry blossom in today’s sunshine. It is trying, quite effectively, to look like Oxford. Ornate stone buildings with fancy towers surround grassy quadrangles, and the high street is full of upmarket shops selling brands like Barbour. It is only a few miles distant, but well heeled Princeton felt like a world away from its downtrodden neighbour, Trenton. They are two separate microcosms of a deeply divided society.

I try to be nothing if not open minded, and so Princeton was an ideal place to enjoy green eggs and ham, a brunch option I selected in the trendy little cafe where I stopped. And, yes, it turns out that I do like green eggs and ham, Sam I am, alongside a good cup of tea. It felt like Princeton, of all places, would be able to provide that, and the results were more than acceptable.

After Princeton I was treated to a couple of hours following a well made path along the side of the D&R canal, no longer operational but still full of water and ideal for canoes and the like. It made for a long and cycle friendly green corridor that advanced me towards the edge of the New Jersey overspill of the New York urban sprawl. Long, residential streets finally gave way to a modern suspension bridge that took me across onto Staten Island, the most suburban of New York city’s five boroughs.

From the bridge, across the container port, I caught my first distant view of the Manhattan skyline. It seemed rather incongruous when viewed through wire mesh, a gaggle of crane derricks and piles of shipping containers, but that is unmistakably what I saw. New York’s hinterland is not the prettiest.

Several miles later, I also saw the towers of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge rising above the horizon at the entrance to New York bay. It remains the United States’ longest single span suspension bridge and marks the entrance to the open sea. My nearby Airbnb was in the basement of a house on an unassuming residential street. I was about a fifteen minute cycle from the Staten Island to Manhattan ferry terminal, but it felt out of reach for me tonight. That treat – and a day off in New York City – lay in wait for me tomorrow.

The sun returned in a timely fashion just as I set out again – after three cold and damp days off – to cycle the first of two days that would take me to within a short ferry ride of New York City. Today I would be riding right into, and then out of, the huge urban sprawl that is the city of Philadelphia. In truth, that would be almost a full day in itself from where I began, and I would just about have time to press on a little further into New Jersey and stop a few miles short of the university town of Princeton.

I said my goodbyes and thank yous to my family and enjoyed an hour of quiet roads and bike paths that took me some of the way in. The earlier suburbs were pleasant enough. Then I reached Woodland Avenue, a very long, very straight road that led all the way in to the city centre, by way of countless traffic lights and intersections. For most of the way it was pretty run down. I certainly saw no woodland. There was a lot of starting and stopping and trying to arrive at each set of lights when they were green, but that is not easy. Eventually the distant skyscrapers began to loom much larger and I crossed some kind of invisible line that meant everything suddenly felt like the middle of a big, important city.

Philadelphia really is huge. The first area of large buildings was a group of modern hospitals, which then merged into the somewhat older and more genteel surroundings of The University of Pennsylvania. But I wasn’t yet in the middle of the city. I crossed the Schuylkill River by the huge and lovely 30th Street train station with its massive Greek columns, and then cycled the length of Market Street, the main commercial artery. It led me between impressive buildings of increasing height until l reached the elaborate clock tower and central landmark of Philadelphia City Hall, with the statue of William Penn perched on top. This building is a late nineteenth century architectural masterpiece, and one day I would like to return and take a tour up to the observation deck, high up the clock tower. From here you would be able to look across to the spires and towers of the nearby modern skyscrapers. There seem to be more of them every time I visit.

But today I satisfied myself with lunch outdoors in the square next to the many dancing fountains that emerge from the floor and squirt water to different heights. Delighted children were running about in between, and sometimes through, the jets and inevitably getting quite wet. It wasn’t really warm enough to be wearing wet clothes, so I hope they came prepared. An hour somehow slipped past without me getting very much further, and I knew that I would have a similarly disrupted journey away from the city, so I felt it was time to move. I paid my respects to Independence Hall and then set out along a cycle path that showed some promise of following the bank of the Delaware River. But things got rather industrial quite soon, so I found myself on another long, straight road with endless traffic lights. At one point I had the option of following a road that contained what looked like miles of elevated railway above it. It filled the street and stretched away like an endless metal bunk bed. But the road underneath was very congested, so I found another option and pressed on until a small roadside ice cream shop caught my attention. Cyclists need fuel.

The rest of the day was spent on quiet roads that took me along, and at times within sight of, the Delaware River, once known as the workshop of the world. There were some more attractive stretches and I was particularly taken with the small riverside town of Bristol, PA. But eventually I reached the point where the river had to be crossed,. I did so as I entered the city of Trenton and the state of New Jersey by passing gingerly over a metal grilled bridge surface. Trenton is the state capital of New Jersey and I could see the small gold dome of the Capitol shining in the late sunshine. I like to tick these off as I reach them, and there were a collection of large, official looking buildings all grouped together on raised ground. However, just one street away a very different Trenton presented itself, and I began to see why people had been encouraging me to give it a miss. It was truly a depressing place with little to restore any feeling of hope or enthusiasm. I have possibly not seen anywhere so completely run down and depressing in all my travels throughout this country, and I was ultimately glad to leave it behind. It felt like a place on its knees, where everyone had more or less given up. Some of the worst deprivation was right in the centre of town, within a stone’s throw of the seat of government. I wonder how much time the state lawmakers spend looking beyond their own polished front door. Not much, based on the evidence before me.

My final excitement for the day was to discover that my hotel room had been cancelled. The hotel was right on busy route one and Vanessa, the receptionist, told me that they were overbooked. I wasn’t having this. No one had informed me and, in any case, I had nowhere else to go and only a bicycle for transport, a fact which I made clear. Vanessa then found me a room – a lucky recent cancellation by another guest she said – and all was well that ended well. She even rang Expedia for me to complain, but I wasn’t in the mood for a long argument with them. No one wanted to claim responsibility, each party blaming the other, but I pointed out that their arguments between themselves were of no interest to me. I got a refund and an apology. Hmm.

There is no getting away from the fact that hills make a difference, and big hills make a big difference. When you add in 92 miles of cycling, that’s a full working day on a loaded bicycle. Tough, but just about within range on a cold, cloudy day like today. Critically, it didn’t rain. With bad weather just ahead in the forecast, it was important to get this ride completed.

The journey from Baltimore to Philadelphia was always going to involve time on bigger roads because about half way there you have to cross the very broad Susquahanna River, and there are few bridges. Realistically, there was only one serious option and that was on route 30, which skirts as close as it can to the edge of Chesapeake Bay. The next bridge upstream, on route one, would be making the ride too long. And so my best way to a few days rest with my American family more or less chose itself. Route 30 is always at lest two lanes of fast moving traffic in each direction, but it also has a very wide shoulder to ride on, and it is signed as a bike route. It feels safe enough, but it isn’t much fun. There are huge trucks and constant, noisy traffic. So it was with some relief that I spotted the old Highway to Philadelphia, now Maryland route 7, running parallel to it for about 25 miles. This much smaller road runs through a series of forgettable towns, and while not an ideal cycling option, was the best thing on offer. So I took it as soon as I had threaded my way for an hour out of the clutches of Baltimore.

Baltimore is a gritty story of place. My Airbnb host Tyler, a Baltimore native, had told me that you wanted to be in either the north or south part of the city (his lovely home was to the south), and definitely not in the east or the west. My journey today took me north east, so I saw a mixed bag; but plenty of places that I would not want to live myself. There were several blocks where all the housing seemed to be boarded up as if awaiting demolition. Some other areas were not a great deal better. The high rise downtown area was large and seemed prosperous enough, and the inner harbour was very pleasant, with tall ships, a luxury yacht, and water taxis. A nice area for strolling around in warmer weather, no doubt. But today a chill breeze made it somewhere not to get delayed for too long.

None of the roads I followed today were flat. The hills were not tall, but they were relentlessly rolling and at times quite long and fairly steep. I don’t mind hills, but it inevitably affected my average speed, making today’s already long journey that much longer. Nevertheless, a cyclist needs fuel, and I had to take time out three times to eat, drink and rest. My first two stops were in gas station convenience stores, and my final stop came after about fifty miles in the quaint small town of North East. An hour before that I reached the Susquahanna River, whose crossing turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected.

I reached the approach to the long route 30 bridge from a side road, having detoured briefly to see Havre de Grace, a small town on Chesapeake Bay that claimed to have been named America’s Best Small Town. Obviously I couldn’t miss that. And it was nice enough, despite its Main Street being dug up as part of a facelift. I think I have seen nicer places, though, and was reflecting on this when I pulled up behind two police cars on the bridge ramp, their lights flashing, each blocking one of the two lanes of traffic. A sizeable queue was already starting to form. We seemed to be waiting for a group of construction workers to clear the road of cones and other equipment. While we waited, I noticed a sign saying no bicycles on the bridge Monday to Friday. If that was true, I was trapped here. So much for signed cycle routes! I pretended I hadn’t seen it.

After maybe ten minutes the road was clear and the two police cars pulled away in parallel, leading the convoy of traffic across. I decided this was the best escort over the bridge I could ever wish for, and followed, at a distance. It was a little hairy because there was no shoulder, but the traffic, including a series of big trucks, was respectful and kept to the left lane until it was past me. The bridge was long, perhaps a mile, but I kept moving. Regular signs told the traffic to share the road with bikes. No days of the week were mentioned. And then I was across, the police cars had gone, the wide shoulder was restored, and everything was back to its normal self.

The final forty miles of my journey were a fairly direct diagonal line away from the coast to my final destination of Glen Mills, PA, an old village which now marks the western edge of the Philadelphia urban sprawl. This is the home of my wife Jenni’s family: my bother and sister in law, and – down the road – my mother in law. I was looking forward to three days off cycling there, where I know I am always very welcome. It was approaching 4pm on a grey day, and I was hoping I wouldn’t need my lights. I was wrong. The landscape did not allow rapid progress to be made except on the downhill sections. Despite the dull, cold weather, this whole rural section of the ride was delightful and the small roads passed through some very pretty sections of Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, which were impossible to tell apart. For the first time, I was coming into contact with old rural buildings like stone churches and old mills that seemed to have been here more than 200 years. I even crossed a covered bridge, which is something I have only ever seen in this part of America. My rural roads took me straight across its wooden planks, under the long, red painted wooden arch.

The hills continued right to the end, and it was getting towards the wrong side of dusk when I finally rolled in to my relatives’ driveway a little after 8pm, flashing like a lit up Christmas tree. An hour later the rain began, and I think it lasted a full night and day. But I was able to watch it safely from inside a warm house. Timing is everything.

I allowed myself the whole morning to take in the spectacular sights of Washington DC. Anything less would have been an injustice. And there is enough of that taking place in this town already right now. Nevertheless, it remains a stupendous piece of town planning and a capital worthy of the distinction. The national mall is huge. It is an elongated cross shape with the magnificently domed Capitol raised up at one end and the Parthenon-like Lincoln Memorial facing it at the opposite end, far, far away. In between, at the crossing point sits the tall white obelisk that is the Washington Monument, dwarfing the circle of American flags that ring its base. At the ends of the crossing pieces are the White House – which you can’t get near – and the Jefferson Memorial, which stands across the water of the tidal basin.

The scale of all this is epic. All down both sides of the grass covered mall between the Capitol and the crossing piece are a series of grand buildings housing a variety of world class museums, making up the Smithsonian Institution. There are Art Museums, a museum of space, the strikingly modern museum of African American History, and several others each in its own palatial building with gardens around them. My favourite was the national archive, whose garden contained a lake with fountains and sculptures, including a mick up of a Parisian metro station. And at various intervals in the spaces in between were a collection of elaborate memorials to wars fought by US military personnel (Korea, Vietnam, etc) whee all the soldiers names are carved in to the stone walls. Facing the Jefferson Memorial across the water is a larger than life statue of Rev Martin Luther King Jr, emerging from a huge block of roughly hewn stone, alongside a series of quotes from his speeches. It was as if so much American history had been gathered together to be commemorated in one single place.

As huge as they individually are, many of these monuments are still lost in the vastness of the whole space. A bicycle was therefore ideal for exploring all of this, which you can easily do without worrying about traffic. You do have to stay on the lookout for large school parties and oblivious tourists, but they are mostly benign. In the time I had available I was able to get around to everything I wanted to see and take many photos on this crisp, bright, clear sunny day. Walking it would have taken a very long time. The famous cherry blossom seemed to be over for the year, which was a slight disappointment to me, since it was a special memory from my very first visit here at Easter 1986, when I was in the early throes of a trans continental love affair, that later became a marriage of decades (and still counting). But that – like the scaffolding on the Lincoln Memorial – was a minor blemish on an otherwise fantastic morning. I felt privileged to be here in these exceptional surroundings.

But the trans continental adventure cyclist’s work is seldom done, so after lunch in the French metro station I returned to collect my bags, change my shoes and start the second part of my day, which involved cycling 50 miles to Baltimore. This began really well with a good 90 minutes of riding along dedicated cycle paths by a river on the “north east branch”. Despite adding a couple of extra miles through poor navigation, I finally broke into Maryland and followed a rather mixed route for the remaining thirty miles or so into downtown Baltimore. If I am honest I wasn’t terribly taken with this part of the day, finding a combination of dodgy road surfaces, narrow roads, busy traffic and scruffy neighbourhoods less to my liking. But my Airbnb was in a delightful and the historic part of central Baltimore, close to the new looking baseball stadium and walking distance to excellent food and drink options. I felt I had used this beautiful day well.

I awoke to heavy rain and high winds over breakfast in Thornburg, with more of the same forecast for the rest of the day. There was no fun to be had out in this. Instead, I wisely elected for an extra night in my very comfortable hotel room. Sometimes decisions are easy. I passed the day in a restful way, mindful that an early start would be required if I wanted to see Washington DC now. I would ride with the sunrise. It would be cold, clear and sunny. That would be better. For now, I watched a movie and caught up on some admin.

I got up at first light, which is always an achievement for me. But the promised sun was late to arrive and outside it was freezing cold. I put on all my warm cycling gear, so far unused, and was very glad of it. I was still in shorts, but I had sleeves, a gilet, a waterproof jacket, neoprene overshoes and full gloves, and I needed them. I set off into a stiff, cold wind and realised that my ears were painfully cold. So on went a buff, covering my ears for the first couple of hours until the sun broke through properly. This was a dramatic change in the weather, sun or no sun, and it just shows how important it is to be prepared.

My first section in the early morning took me further along busy route one as far as Fredericksburg, where I headed for the historic town centre and an inviting coffee shop. I was served by a young woman who didn’t sound at all local. When I heard her say “Ay Up” I thought I would ask where she came from. The answer was Cleethorpes. I often cycle there from home. It makes a great day ride of about 100 miles and you have a train home every hour when you reach the seaside. She was surprised that someone from so nearby (I grew up even closer) was here in Fredericksburg. I suppose it was fairly unlikely that either of us would be there, let alone cross paths in the same small cafe. These encounters do occur from time to time, and today it was to my advantage, because I knew that, for once, I could expect a really good cup of tea. And that is exactly what I got, in a large china mug. With cold milk. And boiling water. It was the best I’d had in weeks.

Buoyed by this experience, and the pleasant old tree-lined, brick streets of Fredericksburg, I crossed a bridge out of town and embarked on the most pleasant couple of hours of cycling that day. The small roads were quiet and pretty, and I avoided a lot of traffic elsewhere. My route took me close to the edges of the Potomac River, although I seldom saw it. At one point, I visited Government Island, just off the rather exclusive old residential streets of Aquia Harbor. It was purchased by the federal government to source freestone locally for the building of the new capital city.

Soon afterwards, however, I was back on the shoulder of big roads all the way into the city of Alexandria, which faces Washington across the water. I liked Alexandria. It was cycle friendly and developed so that none of the buildings were too tall. There was a big new area under development, almost a whole new quarter of the city, which was being built in brick around circles and courtyards. I thought it had an almost European feeling to it.

From there I picked up a cycle path that took me all the way to the National Mall across the Potomac. Despite the sun, I still had all my warm clothes on, and all the cyclists crossing the choppy Potomac by the long bridge were blasted by a strong, icy wind. It was a relief to get to the other side and spend the last hour or so of my ride being a tourist and riding slowly past the monuments and museums of this magnificent capital city. It’s scale is immense. There was clearly great foresight shown by the town planners of the late eighteenth century. I would return tomorrow to see everything again along the mall, but I took my time and drank it all in nonetheless. I think the last time I was here – and not in a car – would be Easter 1986. It was my very first trip to America, that I paid for from my very first job (selling kitchen design appointments by telephone in the evenings) in Nottingham when I was a student. Almost an adult lifetime ago in fact.

I was staying tonight in a house turned hostel in the Capitol Hill district, behind the hugely impressive Capitol building, whose dome shone in the late afternoon sunshine. It was remarkably good value for somewhere located so close to all the action. But after my exertions today, I only made it out this chilly evening in my wool hat to an Indian restaurant a few streets away, in a trendy area off Pennsylvania Avenue. It had been a long, cold day of cycling into the wind and I was feeling it. In the morning I would get up and be a cycle tourist, leaving my bags behind here until I had no more time to spare. Until then, sleep came easily.

What a difference a day makes. It was quite distinct from yesterday in a number of ways, all of which I enjoyed. Not that yesterday wasn’t also fun, because it was. But it is very nice to have a change, and there have been quite a few days recently where things have not been dramatically different from what came before.

The morning was not so different. It was hot and sunny and I found a combination of small rural roads and a big highway with some sections of bike lane to get me safely in to downtown Richmond, the state capital of Virginia. You enter over a bridge that crosses the James River, looking across the wide, shallow water at a fairly unremarkable collection of not especially high rise buildings of varying vintage.

But once I got amongst them, it got interesting. The Virginia State Capitol building is a Classical Greek style building painted in a resplendent white and surrounded by gardens, which included my first tulips of the year. It was very pleasant, if a little hemmed in and dwarfed by bigger, less attractive buildings.

But then I started to make my way through the other side of the city and found myself in a kind of arts district with lots of funky shops and studios. I had lunch here and was generally impressed by the whole neighbourhood. It had a good feel. The main road I followed, Broad St, was also home to a busway that occupied the two central lanes of the road, which was surfaced in a bright red colour of tarmac. Buses were few and far apart this Sunday and it was instead favoured by cyclists, so I gave it a go. It worked very well.

I was able to follow cycle route 1 all the way out of the city, through pleasant, leafy suburbs, and into the countryside along very pleasant small roads. Someone has clearly given this a lot of thought and it works. It was also really well signed all afternoon. I only passed though one other place of note all day on cycle route one, but the undulating roads contained plenty of interest. This was a different, more affluent Virginia unlike yesterday’s offering. Bigger homes, partly concealed by trees, and none of the mobile homes or countless abandoned vehicles in their yards. I was just getting ready for a break when the small and very pleasant town of Ashland came along.

Ashland is defined by its railway line, which effectively cuts it in two. My approach road ran either side of the unfenced tracks, each part a one way street, with periodic crossing points. For a mile before I reached the centre, it was flanked on both sides by the most gorgeous American style period homes, which are delightfully colourful and stylish, with porches and the odd turret. When I reached a row of businesses, I could see people gathered outside one in the sun, so I knew it must be good. It turned out to be a microbrewery and so, feeling thirsty, I stopped and went inside. After a good chat about beer with the man who served me, I was offered a second beer by a man waiting in line. I felt it would be rude to refuse, and then followed him outside to meet his wife and small children. We spoke at length about beer, football and – bizarrely – Swindon, where he has a friend. He knew of the infamous Magic Roundabout in Swindon (Google it), which led us to a conversation about the children’s TV programme Magic Roundabout, which I left him to watch on YouTube. Then another guy, in his seventies, showed interest in my bike and my trip, and got talking about walking the Appalachian Trail in sections with his grandchildren. I mentioned hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and we bonded. I was aware that I would now be struggling for daylight, but I didn’t want to leave this spot or these friendly people, either. He resolved the situation by getting a twenty dollar bill out and putting it in my hand, saying that tonight’s beer would be on him. How kind.

The rest of the ride was equally enjoyable, and I saw nowhere else to stop or get refreshment, so quiet were the country roads. I had the thrill of a passenger train coming in to Ashland as I left, but thereafter, as predicted, it was a race against the daylight. I won, but it was a very close run thing. I’m staying in a delightful modern hotel by an interstate junction, and it is everything that last night’s dive in a Petersburg wasn’t. If I could stay somewhere like this every night, I would. I relaxed my muscles with a dip in the small indoor pool and helped myself to lots of free coffee. Breakfast tomorrow morning is included, too. Excellent value.

Speaking of tomorrow, I’m expecting a significant change in the weather. The ride from Ashland onwards today took a sudden cooler turn – actually very refreshing, but a big change. The forecast is saying tomorrow could be pretty damp and cool. I have about seventy miles of cycling to reach Washington DC. I may need to use some of the cycling clothes that have so far not emerged from my panniers. Time will tell. Then the sun should return for my day off, albeit with much cooler temperatures, dipping to freezing overnight. It should at least clear the very high pollen count of the last few days. It hasn’t bothered me, but everything – including my clothes and bike – has been coated in a light green layer of dust the like of which I have never seem before. So I suppose I have been inadvertently helping nature’s reproduction process.