NYC -2- ATL

Where to even start? My father is an experienced adventure cyclist. In the last 30 years, he has ridden a little more than 158,000 miles on his bicycles. He’s ridden a recumbent bike for the last 25 years or so. He averages more than 5,000 miles per year and always rides his age in miles on his birthday in December! He rides daily from home when the weather permits and leaves town on longer bike journeys every year or so.

His long rides have always impressed me. He has biked from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL. He has biked most of the length of the Mississippi River. He’s biked down the Pacific Coast from Oregon past Los Angeles. He has done the East Coast Greenway, from Calais, ME to Key West, FL… twice! He’s ridden alone, with friends, with groups of strangers (many of whom are now friends), and often with my mom, who is quite the cyclist in her own right.

Over the years, I have lived his many adventures vicariously though post cards, phone calls, blogs and maps. I remember setting up a system for one of his early rides where he would call into a phone number and record a two minute message about where he was and what his day was like, and that would be automatically published out to a blog with an RSS feed—like an early form of podcasting.

Adventure is just adversity fondly described.

- Myron Skott

I’ve always loved biking. Even before my dad became a seasoned cyclist, we seemed to always be around bikes. We took long rides on vacations, and when I was in high school, the whole family rode the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia for several summers.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in early 2020 and began biking more often as I needed to get more exercise. When the pandemic hit, I really started riding the bike as much as I could. I had recently acquired a new pedal assist e-bike and was constantly out trying to push the range.

A year later (April 4th, 2021 to be exact), I was out on my second long bike ride of the weekend with my dad. I found out that the contract I had been working on would be ending soon. I had generally been thinking through all of my options and what I should work on next. That’s when it hit me, and I said something like “Hey Dad… Maybe we should go out on one of your bike tours together.”

I could tell almost instantly that he was cautiously excited. We mulled the idea over for the next 30 miles or so, and it all seemed to make for pretty good timing. When I got home, I confessed the burgeoning idea to my wife and to my delight, she offered her blessing and support. When I called over to my parents, my mom shared her enthusiasm and pledged to help out while we were away.

As this journey would absolutely not be possible without their express permission and support, I hereby declare both Corinne and Cathy our first official platinum-level ride sponsors!

The Best Laid Plans 📋

Our little idea grew into a well-formed plan in seemingly no time. Dad thought of all of his other journeys and offered the sage wisdom that one’s first major trek should be from somewhere towards home. Even the toughest days of our journey will be moving us closer to our goal, our families, our beds, our home.

I decided that the right amount of time for me would be somewhere in the range of four to six weeks. So from there we looked at the map, talked about previous routes and trails he had already ventured, and our course began to take shape. We will leave in early May, from New York City, and ride the bikes to our homes outside of Atlanta, GA. Wow. I’m impressed just reading it.

We figure this should be somewhere around 1,300 miles and take us about 30 days on the bikes. We plan for a few days of travel to New York, a few rest days along the way, potentially a few rain delays, and it should put us back home in about five weeks. All of this will vary as we decide where we want to go along the way. A big part of our plan is not having too many plans. That is to say, we will be flexible about when and where we stay each night.

We plan to stay mostly in hotels and eat in restaurants. We will likely cross the East Coast Greenway several times, but are generally planning on a more coastal route from New York down to Charleston, through the Outer Banks. From there, we’ll head inland towards Atlanta.

Why the website? 🌐

Well, I’m a full stack web developer by trade. Most recently I built super fast web sites for popular national brands via a large advertising agency. I have used open source static site generators and JAMstack technologies for years, but for the last year, I’ve been expanding my capabilities in this realm.

More specifically, I’m very interested in NuxtJS, the Vue based application framework, and using it’s content module as a git-based headless CMS. I’m hosting my code in Github and publishing the site with a free Netlify account. I’m also using Netlify CMS to quickly add and edit content.

Moreover, I’ve recently become fascinated with Tailwind CSS, the declarative style framework. If you don’t understand what any of this means, don’t fret. These are all just web technologies that I enjoy working with. Playing around with them on a personal project like this will allow me to keep a tight control on my content and exactly what I want to display here, while keeping up with the latest and best practices in web development.

And when I’m done, I’ll be looking for my next gig. So hire me (in a few months).