Somerset, NJ to Philadelphia to Valley Forge - 86 miles - 2111 ft of elevation gain

We made it! Portland, ME to Valley Forge, PA in 7.1 cycling days for a grand total of 554 miles and 18,334 feet of elevation gain. Before I get into the ride as a whole, allow me to breakdown the final ride day.

We left Somerset, NJ at 7am to help to lessen the amount of time we’d be in the heat (knowing that it was going to be a hot afternoon and there was no avoiding the heat with the miles we needed to cover). Picking hotels is sometimes a gamble, I try for affordability and location. This last hotel was a dud, unfortunately. No breakfast meant we had to bike to find food. This actually turned into a great thing, because 4.8 miles from the hotel (along our route) was a bagel and deli shop. My bacon, egg, and cheese croissant was awesome! While eating breakfast the rain started to drip, by the time we were almost ready to mount our bikes the sky opened up a little more. So we tucked under the umbrellas outside and waited a few minutes and it blew over.

The route had us on country roads for the first part of the ride. Then we crossed over to PA and were supposed to join a bike trail south through Bristol. The entrance to the path was closed, so my bike computer routed us around on roads. We could have picked up the trail, but it was crushed red stones, so we stuck to the road a little longer. The other group ahead of us took the trail. Our second water stop was at a WaWa, but being in PA WaWa stores are at every corner, so we passed a few before we found the right one. My group took the end of the gravel trail so we didn’t miss the WaWa (it was hot and we were downing the water).

As we approached Philly, we were on a city road with a nice wide bike lane. As we looked ahead you could begin to see the city skyline, and notice that all of the lights were synchronized to changed at the same time. Right as we were turning off of the light synchronizing road, I felt like my bike was responding to the road funny, turns out I picked up a tiny staple. After trying to get my tire seated in the rim, we gave up and called Al for a van pick-up. We were 1.5 miles from the lunch stop, and the tire was not going to get on with 3 broken tools used to try to fix it along the street. This is the second time in all of my years of riding that I’ve needed a ride because of a flat. Thankfully Al and Eric were able to fix my tire with the correct tools, while I was getting lunch for everyone.

From lunch it was just 6 miles to the Museum of Art. The road from lunch was in the process of being resurfaced, so it’s current milled state was less than ideal for cycling, but it was a broad road which gave us lots of room for navigating. We then jumped on a bike path around the eastern part of the city, before taking a straight 2 mile shot on the road directly to the Museum. This was another wide street with a dedicated bike lane.

Once at the Museum of Art (also known as the Rocky Steps), we gathered for a picture. Then the boys grabbed their bikes and took off running up the stairs as I filmed them. At the top there may have been some splashing water from the fountain, more pictures taken, and then everyone was ready to complete the final 22 miles to our extraction point.

One more picture in front of the Rocky statue, and then we were off on the Schuylkill River Trail towards Valley Forge. This was my second time on the trail, but first time heading out of the city. I love biking by water! Parents were waiting in the parking lot with cow bells and cheers for their sons. It was a nice greeting and a lovely spot to end the trip (even if it required a hill climb to get there).

I told the boys one morning to reflect on what it must be like growing up in some of the areas we biked through, how did young men ride bikes there, were their options for them to get on country roads. We are so blessed in Lancaster County with many great roads for riding bikes, and we get to look at green surroundings and even have the occasional wildlife sighting. In many of these areas we biked through it would take lots of effort to get to remote riding. Our route followed some of the East Coast Greenway path from Maine to Florida, which is a prescribed route that many follow. We met a mother and daughter on the road in NJ doing a section the the ECG. And when I look at Strava there are so many “segments” (recorded portions of a road for comparing times with others) on our entire route which indicates it’s a known path for cyclists. I added up the Strava segments and there were 445 segments over the course of the 554 miles, that means there are a lot of people riding these same roads.

I loved the variety of our route. It was a great opportunity to see how people ride in urban, suburban, and rural areas. We got to ride along the ocean, near lakes, rivers, and ponds. We had flat roads and rolling roads, draw bridges and tall bridges, there were paved trails and unpaved sections, and it all combined to be a challenging and rewarding ride. We rode through, around, or on the outskirts of Portland, Boston, Providence, Hartford, NYC, Trenton, and Philadelphia. We saw part of Rutgers, Yale, Benjamin Franklin, and Princeton campuses. It was a diverse route with lots of interesting things to see along the way. I’m again thankful for the opportunity to ride a bike far, to provide a different kind of riding experience for the boys and for them to see new sights, and for the health to be able to complete long days in the saddle.

Thank you for following along and supporting this journey by either lending us your son, giving support to Lifecycles, and/or praying for us while we were out on the road. Until the next adventure…