Why am I up this early on a Saturday?

This is probably the most epic bike ride I’ve gone on. Not so much because the difficulty of the terrain or that it was a billion miles. More so in the fact that it was a very involved ride; waking up early, biking in 20 degree weather and riding other forms of transit. This whole ride began a few weeks ago when my friend Jeff asked if I’d go with him and a few people to help put up East Coast Greenway signs along an interim route through Bucks County. 

What is early? Well, it’s waking up at 6:40 to catch a 7:30 train. Jeff can back me up on the fact when I read 7:30am train that I wanted to punch him in the face. I don’t even wake up at 7:30 during the weekday, it’s one of the benefits of being unemployed. Why was it 20 degree weather? You’re going to have to ask Mother Nature because she’s punking us right now. Spring my ass. Regardless, I made it out the door all bundled up like I was biking among frecking igloos.When I got to 30^th Street where Jeff graciously and appropriately bought me a coffee. 

Here are the stats for this ride, including my short jaunt to 30^th Street Station and Jeff and mine mini bike ride from the Yardley train station to Yardley proper to meet up with our other bikers. This ride was outside of my preset map so I made another map to show the routes, as always the biking is in yellow but the train ride out and the drive back are in purple. 

http://www.dailymile.com/people/Jerome9883/entries/6126562

Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
21.1	111	11.4	1,323

Now for all of those who don’t know what the East Coast Greenway is, it’s a traffic free bicycle trail that will eventually span from Maine to Key West, FL. It is planned and coordinated by a non-profit founded 20 years ago. The route is fully mapped on interim routes, and approx. 20-30% of the route is on a car free trail.  The interim route through Bucks County follows the Pennsylvania Bicycle Route E, administered by PennDOT. According to their website there are several PA bike routes, but very little information about them. Hmm…good enough for government work I suppose. 

This ride was the first time I took a bike on SEPTA, it’s an experience trying to get a bike up on the platform and then down the train aisle. Maybe it was the 7:30 start time. After Jeff and I got off the train in Yardley we biked down Main Street towards downtown/uptown, to the Wawa to meet up with Andy. Andy is the head of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the East Coast Greenway and a board member of the national board. He also had the signs, the route, and a car to drive us to our starting point. However a few sidenotes before I continue with the ride. 1) SEPTA has no business changing their regional rail scheme again when they haven’t even replaced the R3 sign. 2) Yardley is just adorable, maybe it was the morning sun. 

Andy drove us to some odd look strip mall in Morrisville and there we met up with another biking buddy, Chris from DVRPC. It was a plannertastic bike ride just by the people. From there we loaded up bikes with signs and tools and then headed to the beginning of the trail. For whatever reason I didn’t realize the beginning would be the state line. So I was all confused when I saw Trenton and the Delaware River. However it was a pretty awesome view with an old steel truss bridge in the foreground of the river and the Trenton “skyline”.

That was probably the most charming area of our entire ride. I assume due to political reasons the East Coast Greenway has to follow Route E. Well the Pennsylvania bike routes are only on state roads otherwise known as state highways. So that’s what most of the ride ended up being, wide shoulders, ridiculous turning radii and cars going in excess of 50 mph. It was a great bike ride for Jeff as it was his first in like 2 years. 

As we continued into Bucks County we entered a lot townships one being Fairless Hills whose name I find hilarious. These townships started to look like a lot of really old suburbs, with small or cozy houses lining roads that have large front yards and a small strip of sidewalk. 

The further we biked the house became more similar to each other and older, kind of like a 1950s suburb.  Then I realized we were biking through Levittown. Pardon me while I geek out about biking through Levittown, it’s a classic case study in planning. Levittown is considered one of the first suburban developments in the country, by far the most influential. While Levittown, Pennsylvania is not the first, the first being on Long Island, it is the same type of master planned community and is larger than it counterpart; 10 square miles. The developer, Levitt & Sons, purchased the land in 1952 and planned a community of over 17,000 houses, shopping centers, schools and park spaces. Most of the houses are tucked off of the main roads (hence why I don’t have many pictures) on a curvilinear street system. 

There are a few things I never realized about Levittown. Apparently it’s not a town or city, it’s a census designated place, meaning that it is worth identifying in the national census even though the place lacks its own municipal government. Levittown is actually FOUR different municipalities: Falls Township, Middletown Township, Bristol Town ship, and Tullytown (borough). Additionally, Levittown is divided into several sections, and they are actually called sections.Which reminds me of a communist settlement; surprising for a development that was built at the height of McCarthyism.   

The only pictures I have are in and around Middletown Township Park. The park is located at the intersection of Trenton Ave. and State Route 413 one of the worst spots for a park. It did have lion statues. 

Thanks for the geek out time, back to the bike ride.  After finding the lions, we biked down State Route 413 or Veterans Highway. A highway it was, not only did people zip pass us on this two lane expressway, the shoulder was made up of some of the worst pavement that I’ve ever biked on. Therefore it was often necessary to bike on the line dividing the shoulder from the vehicle lane, sometimes in it. Not cool.  

Jeff and I took a break for some Burger King and Andy and Chris continued to put up signs a few miles down. The Burger King was necessary. However I accidently tossed my Rango sheriffs badge from my kid’s meal.  I did get an apple juice though.

After eating we tried to cross the road. Now I’m not sure why we thought we could “jaywalk” across the road but we tried several times.We eventually biked all the way down to the turnpike bridge and turned around. Near the largest Wawa I’ve ever seen, it had to be on a plot of land that was the size of a Center City block. From there we biked back along our route putting up more signs and eventually getting back to the car. After some pizza courtesy of Andy, Jeff and I got a much needed ride back to the city courtesy of Chris.