Nerds Across America Bike Tour

A quick summary of the trip till now! We bikes over 1500 miles and made it to Miami. Tyler had to go home from Myrtle Beach. BJ and Savanah had to go home from Miami.

Posting here is Greg. I’m still going, but really not guaranteeing I’ll keep this site up to date. As of now (12/6) I’m in st Petersburg and heading to Tallahassee tomorrow, as I continue the adventure west. Wish me luck out there!

October 9th-11th, 2014
Millsboro, DE

Our time in Delaware had two excursions that made for nice breaks from the house.

The first full day there, we went on the Dogfish Head Brewery tour! If you’re ever in this part of Delaware and you like beer, definitely take the tour. Our guide took us through the buildings, explained how the company got its humble start, and described the special brewing processes behind some of their more “off-center” beers. The tour concluded back at the in-house bar where we were each treated to four free samples of our choosing, which lead to some arm-wrestling between Greg and Tyler. To round out the experience, there was a food truck just outside serving a few brats and condiments, each made with a different beer.

The other outing involved the parents. We all went to the local Grotto’s Pizza for digital poker. Greg, who had never played poker before, totally slaughtered everyone, making those of us who have been playing for years feel pretty inept.

The rest of the time, we worked a little and ate a lot.

October 8th, 2014
Rio Grande, NJ - Millsboro, DE
34 miles (18 biking)

Upon leaving the campsite, we were almost immediately put on to the beautiful semi-secluded Cold Spring Bike Path. It was a lovely 3-mile ride through some trees with plenty of sunshine and the perfect breeze. Then we hopped onto Route 9 for another few easy miles until we reached our next destination. The ease of the ride so far and the ideal weather made everyone extra excited for the upcoming chunk of the day, the Cape May-Lewes Ferry! This ferry ride was something that we had all been looking forward to for days. To us, it meant a break in the cycling for a scenic, relaxing, 85-minute boat ride. After buying our tickets, we rode around the parking lot in circles like a proper bike gang, making friends with a touring motorcycle rider in the process.

Right after the ferry left port, we saw a couple of dolphins in front of it. What followed was a quick lunch and some games, and then a bit of sunshine on the deck. We met an older couple who had done a lot of cycle touring and they told us about a bunch of places to visit.

After getting off the ferry, we hopped back on Route 9 and left our maps behind, choosing instead to follow Will as he guided us to his parents’ house purely by memory. Unfortunately, Greg seemed to be going much slower than normal. We all thought it was from dehydration or fatigue. What we didn’t notice until later that night was that it was a bike problem. The racks on the ferry didn’t treat Greg’s bike too well. His rear brakes got pushed to one side and were constantly rubbing on the back wheel, which meant a slow, arduous ride for him. We all realized that we need to check our bikes every day, because even a little thing that’s off could mean a huge difference in riding difficulty, and little things gone unnoticed can stack up and make big problems.

Fortunately, the last part of the day was a gorgeous, sun-filled ride down Route 24 (different than the map picture), and we made it to the Stallwood house well before dark. The parents took us out for pizza and ice cream, and then we settled back at home for a few rounds of Bang and other card games before falling asleep in nice, cozy beds.

October 6th-7th, 2014
Margate City, NJ - Rio Grande, NJ
35 miles

The major decision of the day was how to get down to Cape May. Do we take Route 9 or the coastal road? We decided on the coast, since we would get some beach views and a nice ocean breeze. Bad idea. That nice ocean breeze turned out to be a wind so strong that while crossing a bridge, we had to pedal to go downhill. Coasting was no longer an option. Although, except for the several bridges we had to cross, the majority of the ride was pretty straight and flat. A welcome difference from the frequent hills of central Jersey.

We went though a lot of beach towns, which look pretty weird in the off season. There were very few people and almost everything was closed. It was eerie. Even eerier were the benches along the beach promenade in Sea Isle City. Every single one had a few short lines like “We loved Rose as much as she loved the sea” on them. Memorial benches for miles.

For dinner, we stopped at a local restaurant in Avalon, which seemed to be the only thing open. That was one of a few breaks we had to take on an endless road with unfortunately high winds but a nice wide bike lane. The road really did seem to go on forever, which was disconcerting and disheartening. It was, thankfully, broken up by other nice sights like a bird sanctuary and a few tiny bridges over sprawling wetlands. We stopped atop one of them for a group selfie in front of a colorful sunset. What you can’t see is that just off-screen there is a port-a-potty.

We reached the campsite near Cape May after dark and were just about the only people there. The night finished up with a bonfire, an almost full moon, and an overall good mood.

Upon waking and eating in the morning, we decided to stay another night at the campsite. We took a group outing to lunch at Five Guys, then to Wal-Mart and the grocery for supplies and food. There was much better wifi at the Starbucks there, so we took advantage of it and worked/gamed a bit. Later that night, we lit another, better fire and cooked hot dogs and marshmallows on sticks and drank wine. Some of us planned on waking up early to see the lunar eclipse, but there was a surprise rain storm as we went to sleep, which canceled that idea.

October 3rd-5th, 2014
Margate City, NJ

Our stay in Margate pretty much consisted of sore muscles, grilling, and crappy Starbucks wifi.

There was one excursion to a GameStop to buy a 3DS and Super Smash Bros that ended up in a day-long adventure in Atlantic City. We went to the Caesar casino and spent $4 on the penny slots and got new ideas for video games. There were delicious boardwalk burgers and a huge candy store, and as we ate on the beach, two dudes tried to sell us weed and insisted we “try the local strange.” While we waited for the bus, we escaped the chill in a Rainforest Cafe with animal bar stools, an arching fish tank, and a mock-thunderstorm.

The boys got some work done. Greg and Tyler on the Coin Crypt trailer, Will on prototyping a new game called 16 Seconds. The stay’s overall feeling was that of pride and exhaustion. We were all pretty impressed with ourselves for having biked so far on the first day, but we also learned that we probably never wanted to do that again. Our next few bike stints will be under 40 miles, that’s for sure.

Next stop, Beachcomber Camping Resort in Cape May (well, Rio Grande).

October 2nd, 2014
Philadelphia, PA - Margate City, NJ
67 miles

The journey began this morning, leaving from South Philly at 11am with Greg’s mom filming questions like “What are you looking forward to?” and “Why did you decide to do this?”. Our lightheartedness in the video masked the fear and sadness we all had about leaving Philadelphia behind. Packing was a long, arduous process and saying goodbye to everyone was even harder. But then we were on the road, and our concerns went from homelessness to heavy bikes. The first tackle was crossing the Ben Franklin bridge, and then we were in New Jersey! Although not that far or difficult, it felt like our trip had officially begun. We were euphoric, whooping and hollering and singing songs all the way through Camden, drawing looks from the pedestrians we passed. 

Our first big hurdle was when part of a bungee cord got stuck in Greg’s rear gears. We tried to fix it in a nearby parking lot, but it soon became apparent that we would have to remove the wheel and would need a wrench to do it. We carefully hobbled a few miles to the closest Home Depot, and brought the wheel in with us. Sitting in the wrench aisle, we fixed it right there in the store. What looked like a trip-ending mishap ended in a fun adventure, and then we were on our way, hands greasy and spirits high! 

Down the road a bit, we were getting hungry and the healthy snacks weren’t cutting it anymore, so we found a seriously local Italian restaurant named Funzy’s Place, got chocolate wine (also local) at the shop next door, and ate our food in style. Everyone in there knew each other and the owner was a constant presence in his bright orange jack-o-lantern shirt, planting a kiss on the cheek of every lady present. 

Leaving dinner was a turning point in the trip. We thought we were close, which sent us gleefully on our way, but it got dark so quickly and it turned out that we had almost three hours of riding at a pretty good pace left before us. Everyone sort of got quiet for a while, as we all fell into our own fears of the amount of road we had to cover. Google took us on a long, windy, forest road with almost no cars and we went through it at a pretty high pace for several miles, trying to escape our anxiety. There was a point at which we were dead tired in the middle of the woods, plagued with muscle cramps and asthma attacks and fatigue, when we honestly didn’t know if we could make it all the way to Margate. But we were miles and miles away from any campsites, and we all knew that even if we stopped there was no way our legs could carry us the rest of the way in the morning. We had to push on, tired as we were. 

Finally, we made it to the waterway! We could see Atlantic City from the shoreline, and it reinvigorated everyone. We reached AC and tried to hit up a McDonald’s drive-thru, only to be turned away because we weren’t in motor vehicles, despite Savannah being a Carr. The road from there to Margate was long and flat and almost totally smooth, a welcome respite from the hilly, bumpy back roads of NJ. We reached the beach house at 11pm and collapsed in complete and utter exhaustion, our bikes dropped and our bodies broken. 

We are going to stay here for a few days to recover, do some work, and enjoy the beach and AC. Next stop, Cape May. We are probably going to stop at a campsite just outside of the city for a night so the next day we have time to explore.