Adventure Cycling Association

After gathering in beautiful Bar Harbor, we’ll earn our sea legs with a day of orientation and a shakedown ride along the old carriage paths webbing Acadia National Park. Then we’ll set sail down the Eastern Seaboard, passing through gorgeous coastal towns like Camden and Damariscotta before heading inland through a wooded stretch of rural Maine to skirt around the hustle and bustle of Portland. We’ll spend one night near Sebago Lake, the deepest (more than 300 feet in places) and second-largest lake in the Pine Tree State. Then, back along the coast, we’ll enjoy our last evening in Maine at Wells, founded in 1643 and one of the state’s oldest communities.

We’ll begin our second week on the road by cutting across a very short section of New Hampshire and entering Massachusetts. We will ride through Salem and Boston as we make our way to the ferry to Provincetown, MA where we spend the week riding along Cape Cod and across southeastern Massachusetts where we land in Providence, RI for an indoor stay and a meal out on the town.

We’ll then continue threading our way through the heart of (very) hilly New England by way of Rhode Island and Connecticut, visiting wall-calendar-worthy villages like Thompson and Pleasant Valley. A visit to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Historic Site near Hyde Park, New York, heralds the during this week of our ride through history. Roosevelt once famously said, “All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River.” And when you see that home, known as Springwood, and its setting, you will understand why he felt this way. (Also located not far away on the Hudson is the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, an illustrious example of a “country place” of the gilded age.)

We’ll pedal amid scenic farm-scapes in route to Port Jervis, New York, after which we’ll ride a gorgeous stretch of New Jersey — and no, that’s not an oxymoron — along the Delaware River. Here, in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, the Middle Delaware River makes a run of some 40 miles through a hill country so wild that it might take you by surprise. From the Gap, we will travel along several bike trails down along the river and through Trenton, NJ and onto Philadelphia and our last day of rest in the “City of Brotherly Love”. We can visit sites and attractions like Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the National Constitution Center.

Rested and raring to go for our last few days, we’ll ride through the various metropolitan communities of Philadelphia, Wilmington, DE, Baltimore, MD and Annapolis, MD (the home of the US Naval Academy. A few camping days will be scattered among the many hotel nights where camping is few and far between. Toward mid-week, we’ll reach the nation’s capital, where we can tour the National Mall and visit other famous sites. We finally must say goodbye to new friends.