Today we’re setting off again, picking up the pieces from the aborted No Rest Out West bike tour and beginning a new ride up the eastern seaboard. We’re cycling from home this time, leaving right from the front door after breakfast. I love tours that start and end at home – there’s something about the purity of the route when it doesn’t involve any other mechanised transport, only the power of one’s legs and the bicycle.

We’re going with a much lighter setup this time, partly to avoid the unstable bike setup we had out west and partly to allow us to travel further each day. Whether we can uphold our side of this deal and actually pedal further each day remains to be seen, but we’ll give it our best shot. We’re both champing at the bit to get out there and challenge ourselves again.

The new route we’ve mapped out, documented more elegantly here by my brother, takes us from the capital, Washington DC, inland to Lake Erie, before we turn north east and ride through New York and into New England. If time permits, we’re aiming for Maine, but we’ll see how we go. Our return route will be along the Atlantic coast route, following the coast in places but heading inland as we head further south. I’ve come to love the various parts of the eastern US that I’ve seen, so I’m excited to fill in the gaps and see more of the mountains, lakes and natural beauty of this region.

It’s a loop linking up the following route: C&O canal, GAP trail, Underground Railroad Pittsburgh spur, Northern Tier and Atlantic Coast.

This very rough screen-grab/sketch-map shows our approximate route: