Lads on tour… on bikes. Holmes, Dowds & Reid cycle across the USA.

Day 2 – Across the Chesapeake Bay

Here are your options for crossing the Chesapeake bay when you’ve decided to start a bike tour on a peninsula:

The Bay Bridge
We drove over this from DC. Cycling over it would be illegal and a fairly bad idea for anyone who doesn’t want to become a hood ornament for an 18-wheeler.

Bay Tunnel
Right down to the south of the Delmarva peninsula there is a tunnel. A big tunnel. A very big tunnel. Unlike the bay bridge above, there would be no sides to fall off of, but there would be a significant lack of visibility and manouverability.

Ferry from Crisfield, MD to Reedville, VA
A relaxed ferry cruise setting off late enough in the day that you can have some breakfast first, changing over to another ferry at Tangier Island in the middle of the bay. Not only that, but Callum absolutely loved the fact that 1) the ferry did exist (read day 1) and 2) it went from Chris-field to Reid-ville. When I first told dowds about this ferry I hadn’t noticed and he thought I was joking because of the names.

So, based on the names of the ports, the existence of the ferry and the convenient fact that we were in Crisfield to catch a ferry… we caught the ferry. $45 each with bikes which we thought was v reasonable.

On the way there we spoke to a guy about our trip and he told us some stuff about Tangier Island. Apparently a load of mercenaries from Somerset, UK were brought there back in the civil war. They were stranded on the island and the commander decided he had no contractual obligation to pick them up again, so he didn’t. Contract law – screwing people over in a very clean, neat way for centuries. Apparently if you speak to he old people on the island they still have a slight West Country accent. Since I don’t think we gave him the website, I think it’s worth noting that the guy sounded like Big Bird from Sesame Street which made his anecdotes all the more interesting. Callum loved the sound of this and decided that during the changeover he would find an American Bristolian.

Instead, he boarded the second ferry, laid down and fell asleep. Priorities.

Arrived in Reedville expecting a town full of Callum Reid’s where the mayor is a dog and the water towers are filled with cider but it ended up being one of the poshest places we’d seen. Boat captain said that at one point it had the highest income per capita in all the USA.

We planned to do a short ride to a campground in Sunnybank but the boat captain very kindly let us stay on the yard behind the boathouse which had a shower and restrooms and everything like that. This saved he a bit of cash so we thank him greatly. For anyone else in the area, it’s a very nice trip on some nice boats with good tour guide info. The first boat was called the Steven Thomas and the second was the Chesapeake Bay Breeze.

Nipped out to the shops before setting up camp and met some retired couples boating around the coast. It seems that a popular pastime for well-off retired people over here is to just boat around and drink lots of wine each night. Sounds like a hard life.

Day 1 – Across the Delmarva (77.7 miles)

Took the wheel dip photo this morning which was more difficult than expected; fully loaded bikes aren’t the easiest things to carry down a sand bank. Ended up with a couple of good photos and it had to be done really.

Started off on the first ride of tour and headed off down some very long, straight roads for Crisfield, MD. A few miles after Indiantown (really just an intersection) Cal stopped to ask for water from a guy out gardening. We ended up with the whole family out there and they sorted us out with cold water and bananas. Result. Bloody nice folks.

Made v good time to Crisfield although me and Reidy were flagging towards the end. Kind of a different climate to the UK; they have sunshine over here – it’s… unfamiliar. Hopefully it won’t take too long to acclimatize. If we get used to doing this sort of pace we can get the miles out of the way in the morning and just lounge around in the afternoon.

Stopped in at a little restaurant at the end and absolutely destroyed some ribs, chicken and Pepsi. The soft drink refill idea isn’t good business sense when you’ve got three guys who just cycled 70 miles in sweltering heat.

Headed over to Janes Island state park to find a camp site and they sorted us one out straight away for a good price. Nice place, and there was a nice breeze which kept all the mozzies away.

We set up tents and headed out into town to find some wifi and some… beer and found a nice place called Racks. Asked the owner and some of the regulars about the ferry service across the bay and they said they didn’t think there was one! Callum was worried but I wasn’t because if you can’t trust Google’s opinion that there was a boat across, who can you trust?

Callum has taken laziness to a new level. He doesn’t even get out of his tent to have a piss, he simply opens the side door, kneels down with cock in hand and pisses. The fact that he also likes to keep his blindfold on means I now pitch my tent a few feet away.

Day 0 – Assateague Island

Trying to keep the website updated is pretty difficult when you’re scrounging WiFi from random places with an iPod touch. When we next get to a PC we can catch up on all the posts but for the moment we’ll just say that we haven’t been shot at yet and Reidy hasn’t been arrested either – unbelievable yes, but everything is going good. First night after driving out to Ocean City was spent at Assateague Island where we got destroyed by the mozzies and flies. There wasn’t actually space at the campground but they obviously took pity on us and sorted us out with a site for the night. A few hours later after we had shown Cal how to pitch a tent without it collapsing in the middle, we were on the beach chilling out by a campfire with an American family (originally from Iceland) on vacation. We couldn’t have imagined a better first night to start our trip – free beer, really cool people, smores (fantastic), the sound of the waves crashing on thd beach and the sort of night sky you wouldn’t get in the UK unless you were out somewhere in the middle of absolutely nowhere, like Yarm I guess.

After that, had a pretty rubbish nights sleep and got up fairly early to do the cliché wheel dip and set off for Crisfield, MD.

Day (-1) Washington DC Hostel

Got to washington last night after an eventful flight.

We were last to the plane so chris’ seat was taken, being the polite person he is he sat in between fat stanley from the office and a moose. To say he didn’t look best pleased would be an understatement! Whilst trying to contain our laughter, we watched Chris get upgraded to “Premium Economy”.
Chris: I don’t think I’ve ever been so filled with rage. Just because you have a little squealing baby it doesn’t mean you can ignore your seating reservation, but you can’t exactly tell them to move because they have the little bloody baby. If they want to be with their baby regardless of seat reservations stick them in the baggage hold. I was looking forward SO much to my nice extra leg room seat and I got booted back in between two…oversized individuals. Then the stewardess sorted it all out because of health and safety and the number of air masks – kicked the guy back into my seat, and bumped me up a class. I have never been so happy. Justice.

Also it didn’t help that they looked like complete dweebs – the woman looked like Steve Coogan with **** hair.

Callum had toothache but the in flight doctor spoke our language and prescribed him two bottles of brandy and some paracetemol. Callum’s asian vegetarian dietary requirements didn’t prove to be too much of a problem, except for the fact that he was expected to eat a cold vegetable korma for pudding. Maybe it would have gone better with ice cream?

We took a cab to Washington after being raped by customs and arrived here at about 9.30 pm. The hostel is pretty nice inside, looks like a dump from the outside. Had some weird guy moaning at us before bed but other than that slept like a baby. We woke up ridiculously early and now about to go round Barry Obamas for breakfast. apparantley he has cooked us a full English, I doubt he has the proper bacon tho. Maybe he will let us play with his Nukes at some point.

Go time.

4.15pm today we will depart Blighty. Arrive around 7.30pm in US of A.