Đại úy Chuck and the NCOIC, Part 9

June 12 – Day 8

Williamsport to Brunswick

If it hasn’t been said before, can’t too much food. The day began a hundred yards from the Red Roof at Waffle House and two All Star breakfasts; eggs, hash browns or grits, “breakfast meat”, waffle and toast.

Đại úy has ridden many supported tours and has not had to solve the logistical problems that can arise when riding unsupported. When a very large tree blocked the Trail it posed a potentially serious problem. A couple who had departed Williamsport earlier had just finished getting through the Trail blockage and offered assistance motivated out of honest concern, but also from a belief that a blind guy was not adequate to the challenge. Without additional assistance Đại úy Chuck and the NCOIC had the Co-Motion clear of the blockage, packed and ready to proceed in less than 45 minutes.



Also inconvenienced by the fallen tree was a fellow-traveller on the final leg of a ride from San Diego to northern Virginia.


Eventually the canal returned to its proper position and we resumed a more normal state of riding readiness until meeting an area of “Road Work Ahead” where gravel was being moved and smoothed and packed to repair or improve a section of the Trail that appeared to have suffered some serious erosion. Gravel was being brought to the worksite in a small dump truck that we had the misfortune to encounter at a point where turning around was impossible for the truck (that now seemed to be not nearly so small) and almost impossible for the Co-Motion. The truck driver pulled as close to the canal edge as possible while Đại úy Chuck and the NCOIC stood as close as possible to the precipice overlooking the Potomac. The picture below shows how close to the canal’s edge the driver positioned the inside tire of the truck’s dual rear wheels. As for Đại úy Chuck and the NCOIC? “He just scraped the pannier,” said Đại úy, with remarkable calm, as the vehicle edged past.


One of Đại úy Chuck's goals is to walk the Appalachian Trail and anyone who doubts his sincerity and ability is badly mistaken. Visiting Harper’s Ferry for its historical value and its AT fame was a goal, but making it happen was compromised by a too casual description of how to get to town. “Just cross the bridge . . .” would require ascending the locally and AT famous spiral stairway; a minor inconvenience for someone hundreds of miles into at AT but well outside reasonable for the Co-Motion and gear. So, keep moving on.


There were more backpackers than riders on this short section when C&O and AT meet. One walker, whose Trail name was Ophi, or Ofi or some variation on that sound, shared a wealth of information including that he’d lost more than thirty pounds since departing Springer Mountain.


A stationary freight train blocked access to the other side of the tracks and a chance to visit the International Youth Hostel favored by many through hikers. Another keep moving” decision. The Co-Motion was aimed toward Brunswick and the city owned Brunswick Family Campground. It’s difficult to not draw comparisons and contrasts between GAP and C&O and the same ones arise regularly; both are interesting, water is more plentiful along C&O, but taste is an issue and GAP towns are much more committed to the GAP. Like many other parts of the trip, adjustments had to be made and this place was one of them. The place was clean and we were offered use of a pavilion to counter the rain that had just commenced.


A bivouac or Ravens’ fans posed a potential problem; noise. Playing the Veterans card, stating that the best rivalry in football is the Steelers and Ravens and asking that they keep an eye on our gear assured a positive response later. Food (and lots of it) was found at Potomac Street Grill in Brunswick. The recommendation by locals was excellent.

Serious rain never happened and the Ravens’ fans settled surprisingly early. What could have been a not-so-good day became a day with events and just another day on the road.

4th Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge; The Finale

The 4th Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge is over and 7 weekends, 7 cups of coffee, 7 different places way to spend some riding time. Thanks is due Mary of Chasing Mailboxes  for making it happen and I'm guessing that anyone participating did so with a smile on his or her face. I mean, bikes and coffee? How can you not smile . . . seriously!

For me the schedule was easy at least for the first few weeks with Haile Plantation's Village a place I go every Saturday, so planning the first few destinations was much easier than my ride up the East Coast a few years back. Below are my destinations and some relevant pictures.

Cup #1; October 4, 2.5 miles, Tree City Coffee Roasters
Tree City (soon to be called Flagship) is not in Memphis, but the young lady from whom I purchased my first Challenge Cup is Memphis.

It’s hard to match the freshness of coffee roasted by Andrew on Thursday and sold on Saturday; that is exactly the way it works when I visit the Farmers’ Market in Haile Plantation’s Village each Saturday morning.
Memphis filled my cup with Tree City’s Breakfast Blend and I took along a pound of Full City Roast (medium) Natural (Nicaragua – Selva Negra) for $12. A fine way to start a weekend morning!

Cup #2; October 11, 2.5 miles, PattiCakes
PattiCakes is also located in Haile Plantation’s Village and, as the name implies, specializes in cakes of the cup variety; very suitable to accompany a cup of coffee.


PattiCakes brews locally roasted Rembrandt Coffee in a neighborhood friendly environment where locals kibitz, chat and relax. Their house blend was even better when coupled with one of their cupcakes.

Cup #3; October 19, 1.65 miles, Barnie’s
Franchise coffee places are not my favorite places, but the local Barnie’s is more neighborhood then franchise and is a comfortable place to spend a few Sunday morning hours checking email and reading online news. The coffee of the moment was Mocha Java and it required a Danish to help overcome the UF Gator’s loss to Missouri’s Tigers.

Cup #4; October 25, 4.5 Miles, Starbuck’s
I’d talked about bike parking along G’ville’s highly commercial Archer Road and one of the establishments with adequate through remote racks was Starbuck’s. Since then they have relocated to the other side of the street and I decided to check their bike security along with getting the Cup #4.

Like any Starbuck’s in town it was full of young patrons, virtually all of whom were virtually connected to some virtual part of the virtual world. Like any Starbuck’s in town there was a steady din of conversation. The coffee d’jour was satisfactory and the donut I chose was above average.

The new location offers adequate bike racks and reasonable security, but with the drive-through passing within inches of the racks extra care is required when coming and going .


Cup #5; November 1, 2.5 miles, Limerock Road Neighborhood Grill (LRNG)
A place featuring adult beverages might be excuse for the quality of its coffee, but when you call a tavern a “grill” and serve meaningful meals, the coffee should be as good as the meal. LRNG doesn’t serve mediocre coffee. Order a cup and you get some of G’ville’s best; Tree City.

I settled at the bar on an unseasonably chilly, blustery morning when the recently completed extension of Archer Braid Trail (ABT) through Haile Plantation was being officially acknowledged. Bike riders in their brightly colored kits mingled with the usual Saturday morning Farmers’ Market patrons, enjoyed some music, collected a few freebies and sampled munchables from LRNG.



The ABT extension makes Haile’s Village very bicycle-accessible which fits well with the New Urbanist development’s concept. The Trail now extends nearly nine miles from the west trailhead in the small community of Archer to its current terminus at well-maintained Kanapaha Park and will eventually connect with other existing and planned trails. Ample parking at Kanapaha Park makes it an ideal place for families to enjoy the Trail and the 2.5 mile ride to The Village. Cup #5 blended all the things that’re good about riding a bike in Gainesville and the Challenge simply added another good reason to be in the saddle.


Cup #6; November 8, 7.5 miles, Maude’s Classic Café (A Gourmet Coffee Shop)
With the last weeks of the Challenge at hand Cup #6 could be had in conjunction with the Fall Arts Festival in downtown G’ville. Whata deal! Maude’s was the right place to have a cup and a muffin before plunging into the crowd drawn by the Festival perfect weather; neither too hot nor too chilly.

A cursory study of Maude’s could cause it to be viewed as a hipster café, but it’s neither more nor less so than the other trendy coffee shops in G’ville. A cup of Sweetwater Organic Coffee, also a G’ville roasted brand, and a muffin while watching the eclectic mix of people made it a good way to prepare for the larger than usual crowd of Festival-goers.


Cup #7; November 16, 2.8 miles, Waffle House, Archer Road
America might run on Dunkin’ but in the South there’re a lot of people who’ll have their coffee at Waffle House so I decided to make the Southern Tradition the place for my final cup.


The coffee at WH isn’t exceptional, but it comes in a heavy cup that keeps it hot and you’ll get the question, “need some more hon’?” until you pay and leave. It’s hard to beat the value and even more difficult to ignore the Southern Diner ambiance; that’s one of the reasons to go there. Another reason? Waffles, of course. And then there’s the show put on by the grill operators on a Sunday morning.

Meeting the requirements of the 4th Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge was well worthwhile and helped put my disappointment from the Bicycle Challenge into proper perspective. Serious bicycle riding has little to do with kits and carbon fiber and centuries. It’s about caring about yourself and your community and enjoying the ability to get around on two wheels powered by your own effort.

Racks and Hard Places; The Archer Road Tour, Part 1

Stuff happens along Archer Road in Gainesville. Eateries and places to buy things are the basic fiber of the area with Butler Plaza being the center of this retail universe. For many people coming to the area for the first time or just passing through on I-75, Archer Road is Gainesville. Residents of the area live with the dichotomy of feelings generated by what is there and the too-often heavy traffic. Riders are able to skirt and avoid the congestion, but must be perpetually alert for inattentive drivers. It’s just the way it is. Evenings can be especially dangerous as date-night activity can easily supersede driving skill and traffic awareness.

This isn’t about drivers or danger on wheels. It’s about what riders do with their bikes if they want to use the abundance of eateries and places to buy things? As noted in the previous entry, good locks (the HOW) are one part of the security thing. The other part is the WHERE.

Some business owners blame landlords for the lack of bicycle racks. Some claim “rules” prohibiting them. Few deny the need, though it may be nothing more than momentary lip service. Large, old, eccentric Vietnam veterans have a way of sometimes stirring contradictory comments. The cost purchase and install a satisfactory bike rack is less than $500. The actual cost depends upon the rack choice, site, preparation of the site and installation. An in-depth examination of bicycle usage and parking can be seen at bicyclinginfo.org.

Back to Archer Road, specifically the south side across from sprawling Butler Plaza . . .

We’ll start on the south side of Archer Road, across the street from Butler Plaza near the intersection with I-75 and begin looking at bicycle security accommodations. This is not a scholarly examination. It’s one guy’s perspective and will be far too subjective at times, maybe objective occasionally and probably tainted by some personal bias. The things that matter to me include proximity, accessibility, quality of racks, existence of racks and visibility.

Burger King

As noted previously, the Burger King on NW 16^th Avenue has a well placed, sturdy rack. The Archer Road establishment does not. It doesn’t even have a rack. It does have a lamp post. It’s not designed nor designated as a place to fasten a bike, but it works. A U-Lock cannot be used and a chain or cable has to be long enough to encircle the post.

This is one of those places where flyparking is probably ok, mostly because of visibility and proximity. It’s a busy place, the post is at the front door and the area can be seen easily from inside. The Archer Road BK doesn’t score for taking bikes into consideration, but its “facilities” are useable.

Burger King, SW Archer Road

Waffle House

Across the street from Burger King is a Waffle House that has neither a rack nor useable flyparking places for securing a bike. As with all Houses you can easily see into the parking lot, so leaning a bike against the building would keep it in sight, but not secured. Lack of a place to secure a bike is disappointing because I like Waffle House. Of course, one could affect the I’m-a-Waffle-House-regular-so-don’t-mess-with-me attitude. The pragmatic side is that Waffle House severs are extremely protective of and loyal to their regular customers. Thus, a regular’s bike might be safer leaning against the wall outside than chained anywhere else. Actually, anyone visiting Waffle House could expect that the servers would be or could be made aware of a bike parked outside.

Lacking Waffle House regular status, bike parking there is less than satisfactory. Visibility is good and the bike could be kept in close proximity, but security would still be limited.

Waffle House, SW Archer Road

Kerr's Wing House

Kerr's Wing House, Archer Road

Formerly Denny’s, the Wing House is a busy place in its early days of existence. When it was remodeled no provisions were added for bike security. Flyparking is possible, but potentially conflicts with take-out and handicapped patrons. Seating in the open air section would permit easy visibility of a bike fastened to the fencing.

Chaining my bike to the fence would not be a choice I’d be likely to make. Surely there is a wing place offering better bike accommodations

Want to compete with to-go and handicapped parking?

Adequate provisions at the Pita Pit

Pita Pit, Mochi, Chipotle, Brass Tap, and whatever else is there

The strip with its back to Archer Road houses several popular eateries. There is one set of bike racks outside Pita Pit that are readily visible from both inside and the open air section. A second rack is behind Brass Tap at the other end of the strip. Patrons of Mochi, Chipotle choosing that smaller, less conspicuous rack would need to feel less secure. It is visible to the parking area, but because of its location near some utility cabinets does not stand-out as does the larger one near Pita Pit.

You’d probably feel pretty secure at Pita Pit. From Chipotle you can see the rack behind Brass Tap, so that might make it ok. There is a railing along the east side of Chipotle, also, where a bike can be secured and viewed while dining. Visibility from any of the other places is lacking. Activity in and around the businesses could lower risk or, unfortunately increase invisibility.

The Brass Tap's parking is out of the way

Useable by Chipotle, the Tap's rack is out back.

There are a few subjective observations about bike security along Archer Road. Maybe you’ll find ‘em to be useful.