APRIL 12, 2021
We have started what we hope will be a roughly five year bicycle tour that will take us around the world. The first 16 months or so we will spend in the United States. As I write this we are currently seven days into the ride. We started riding from Mystic, CT and took the ferry across to Long Island from New London, CT. We went the length of Long Island, staying overnight in Coney Island, then turned north through New York City and up the Hudson River valley. Once we reach Albany, NY we will head west along the Erie Canal Trail to Buffalo, NY. After that we will head to Michigan then down to the St. Louis, MO region to meet up with Jamie's sister and brother-in-law to ride some of the KATY Rail Trail. We'll hitch a ride with them down to Springfield for a good week of rest.
Going up the Hudson River valley has been nice since we have mostly ridden on numerous rail trails that make up the Empire State Trail System. The trail system goes from NYC up to the Canada border, and also includes the Erie Canal Trail system. So far it has been wonderful. The bike is heavy. We are riding a custom built Rodriguez 8-Ball Convertible tandem from Seattle. Some of the highlights are that in uses a Rohloff Speedhub for shifting (internal gears), and a Sturmey Archer drum bake. Those two items alone have provided much needed improvements over our previous tandem. We are hoping it will take us the distance, Heavy loaded touring on a tandem bicycle takes its toll on both people and bike. Here's hoping, but so far so good. We probably will not post too often on this blog, but will occasionally. For more up to date information, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook, just search 2intandem. Until next time...
