First Dispatch

The View From September

Greetings loved ones, and welcome to the first installment of Abnormal Conditions! We’ve been on the road for a little over a month now, so we figured it was time to beam our first dispatch. The project’s name, Abnormal Conditions, came to us during our first week on the road when we encountered construction signage indicating a landslide. We expect to face many not-so-normal conditions along our route, so it seems like a fitting name!

Regarding newsletter structure, Maeve will curate photos to give you a sense of what we’re seeing, Cam will write about specific experiences that define each section of the trip, and we’ll both share our monthly stats. Thanks for following along on our journey—it means the world to us. We hope you’ll reach out to let us know what you’d enjoy seeing or reading about in upcoming editions <3 xoxo ttyl <3

Route Report (8/29-9/30)

We set out from Brooklyn, NY (best place on earth) and spent a dreamy week biking north along the Hudson River (peaceful and beautiful) with our dear friend Stacey, mostly sticking to the Empire State and Champlain bike trails. After Stacey turned around in Burlington, VT (wholesome and idyllic), we cruised the farm roads up to Montreal, QC (energetic and punk), where we enjoyed a cold, rainy weekend full of good food and live music with friends.

The route to Portland, ME (fancy and touristy) wasn’t the best—please refer to this meme Cam made—but the coastal roads along the Atlantic Ocean were well worth it. Boston, MA (overrun by undergrads) was a hodge-podge of infrastructure, so we decided to expedite our exodus from New England and take a train back to NYC. After a couple days of bliss with friends, Stacey, Katie, and Kapp biked and ferried with us to New Jersey (industrial and gray). From there to Philly, PA (patriotic and stressful), we faced a deluge of fast-moving traffic and debris-filled shoulders.

Northern Maryland (relaxed and friendly) provided a much-needed respite before depositing us into Baltimore (a surprise favorite stop!), but the roads between DC (yuppy and political) and Richmond, VA (cool but severely redlined) were a fresh hell of congestion, fickle weather, and swarming bugs. The tropical storms from Hurricane Helene hit during our ride toward North Carolina (lush and muggy), so it was punctuated by flash floods and felled tree branches, but the roads returned to open stretches of rural farmland and kudzu-covered forests. See where we’ve ridden →

• Odometer: 1,706 miles

• Day count: 32 days on the road

• Border count: New York, Vermont, Quebec, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina

• Flat tire count: Cam - 2, Maeve - 3

• Multi-modal report: 2 ferries (Grand Isle, VT→Plattsburgh, NY; Manhattan, NY→Staten Island, NY); 1 train (Boston, MA→Manhattan, NY)

• What we’re listening to: Maeve’s September Playlist

• What we’re reading: “A Study in Scarlet” - Arthur Conan Doyle (both); “Against the Loveless World” - Susan Abulhawa, “Tropic of Cancer” - Henry Miller, “Blue Sisters” - Coco Mellors (Cam); “Son” - Lois Lowry (Maeve)

• What we’re watching: “No Country for Old Men,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”

• Flavors of the month: Both - salted peanuts; Cam - beef jerky, sugar cookies, Arizona tea, magnesium supplements; Maeve - laffy taffy, peanut butter tortillas, baked beans, sour gushers

• Things we’ve lost: Cam - 1 camo fanny pack full of supplies (recovered by Talia and Stacey via car, thank god), 1 adidas sneaker (knocked loose after a minor tumble off the bike), 1 crank brothers multi-tool (lost from a bag that wasn’t closed properly), 1 bag of peanuts (popped out of a feed bag on a bumpy stretch of road); Maeve - 1 razor (left in a friend’s shower)

• Sounds we’ve heard: 

  

  

How to Find a Campsite on Bike Tour

On a long bike tour, you realize quickly that legitimate campsites are sparser than you expected. No problem! 

If you’re riding on bike paths, you can keep an eye out for pedestrian bridges, which you’ll scramble beneath at sunset to set up camp. If you have the foresight to put your bike under the shelter of the bridge before bed, some of your belongings may not be totally soaked by the storm that rolls through in the middle of the night. 

If you happen across a friendly looking church, you can fill up your water bottles at the spigots and pitch your tent on the back lawn. When you’re awoken in the night by high-pitched screams, you’ll reach for your phone to google “Adirondacks predators” and “bobcat sounds.” Fortunately, a friend camping with you will remember their mom’s practical advice: Clap loudly to scare off animals. This will work like a charm, and you’ll all go back to sleep. When you leave the next day, you’ll bike past smiling women in linen pants arriving for a church bake sale, and they’ll say a cheerful “good morning” as you ride away.

If you’re turned away from an unreserved campsite at a state park due to “wasp danger,” you can ride a half-mile away to stealthily pitch your tent in a permitted hunting area. You’ll hope your tent is brightly colored enough to fend off rogue gunmen, and you’ll sleep fitfully as every animal sound imaginable emerges from the surrounding woods during the night.

If you come across an abandoned sanatorium, you can avoid the on-duty guard by biking a few extra miles to approach from the back. You’ll set up camp in a strange crop circle surrounded by dilapidated buildings, an old cathedral, and spooky statues of Catholic icons. Trust that when you wake up in the morning, your surroundings won’t seem half as haunted.

If you’re riding in Quebec, you can look out for friendly bikepackers from Montreal who will encourage you to camp wherever you are when the sun sets—Canadians don’t have guns to run you off their property. You’ll take this advice to heart and set up in a sparse ring of trees beside a small farm, where you’ll wake up to the thick morning dew soaking through your tent and all your belongings.

If it’s too cold or too urban or there are tropical storms in the forecast, forgo the campsite search to stay with friends, book a motel, or find a host on Warmshowers. This fool-proof formula will deliver you into sleep’s embrace night after night. Bike touring is so easy!

Special thanks to all the friends who have hosted us along the way: Arrow, Mona, Flint, Maverick, Russell, Emma, Cam, Who Girl, Sarah, Morgan, Kelly, Molly, Shreya & family, Nancy, Emanuel, Sara, Cedric, Marius, Shannon, Maarten, Stacey, Katie, Gina, Nikki, Matt, Reagan, Ben, Audrey, Erin, Yoni, and Jordana. 

Extra-special shoutout to Stacey, who joined us for the entire first week of the tour. We miss them dearly and would love for other friends to link up along our route—whether to bike along or just to stay together in one of the many cities we’ll be passing through! Here’s a map of where we’re headed in the coming months. Please (pretty please) reach out if you want to scheme a meetup!