Cross-Country: Atlantic Coast Bike Tour

Atlantic Coast Cross-Country Bike Tour Details

As urban as this part of the country can be, you wouldn’t know it from the lesser-traveled roads we cycle. We follow the route expertly designed by Adventure Cycling. When we get close to larger cities, we’re able to hop on the myriad of bike paths developed during the past couple of decades to keep us off the streets entirely.

We’ll start in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, hugging the coast as we make our way north. We’ll stop in quaint beach towns and then head into the Deep South past cotton and tobacco plantations. Then it’s onto Virginia, where you can visit Colonial Williamsburg during our layover day.

We’ve planned our next layover day in Alexandria, where you can take the paved Mount Vernon Trail to the monuments of Washington, D.C., and to one of the free museums that make up the Smithsonian Institution. We’ll skirt the city of Philadelphia and then head into New England in time for spring. We’ll finish the route in Bar Harbor by Acadia National Park.

If you’re a history buff, this is the bike tour for you. History happened all along our route: from St. Augustine, the oldest city in the nation, to Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began, to Valley Forge and its key role in the American Revolution. We'll cycle near such important waterways as the Potomac River, Delaware River, Connecticut River, and the Chesapeake Bay and cross the Walkway Over The Hudson River, the longest pedestrian bridge in the world.

If you’re a state counter, you’ll be excited to know that our route passes through 14 states plus the District of Columbia, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

If you’ve completed our Northern Tier or Southern Tier tours, our overnights in St. Augustine and Bar Harbor should bring sweet memories.

We will run this bike tour like our other cross-country tours. There will be hotels, hot showers, and home-cooked meals every night. Two vehicles will carry your luggage and support you all the way. We’ll average 48 beautiful miles per day.

Day 1: We begin the bike tour in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. With an easily accessible airport, it is also well out of the way of the traffic of southern Florida. We’ll meet for an orientation at 1:00 pm, followed by a bike prep session. There will be an optional fix-a-flat workshop out in the parking lot. In the evening, we’ll celebrate our upcoming adventure with an opening banquet. 0 miles.

Days 2-55: We will start early with a light, nutritionally balanced buffet breakfast, pack our bike bags with snacks of raisins, nuts, and peanut butter sandwiches, and make sure we have an extra layer of clothing and perhaps a rain jacket with us. We leave on our own, usually between 7 and 8 a.m. 

Our days will quickly fall into a comfortable rhythm. We follow the electronic cues that have been meticulously created for us.

We each ride at our own pace, sometimes alone and sometimes in small groups. We stop where we want along the way to photograph a historical site, a flowering dogwood, or a humorous misspelled sign. Sometimes, we’ll stop at a diner for homemade pie, a café for cold iced tea, or a farm stand for fresh fruit and local news.

About every 15 - 20 miles, we’ll meet our SAG vehicle. It holds water, snacks, tire repair tools, and a first aid kit. Even if we don’t need anything, we’ll stop to chat and talk about the wonderful tailwind or the panoramic view. If we’re too tired to bike anymore, we’ll take a ride in the SAG vehicle to our hotel for the night. The SAG makes sure everyone is in safely at the end of the day.

We soon realize that some of the women on the tour intend to ride every mile, while others are more concerned with seeing the country. Some chose the tour to take a break from their daily routines, others are attracted by the challenge, and still others just want to meet other women who love bicycling.

We range in age from 30 to 80, but the majority of us are in our 60s.

Once at our hotel, we find our luggage (delivered earlier by the WomanTours van and trailer,) check-in to our room, and meet our roommate. We rotate roommates every night we change lodging unless you’ve requested the upgrade for a single room or have a specific roommate. There’s time to shower before dinner and perhaps take a dip in the hotel pool. Most of our lodgings will be at chain hotels, such as Best Westerns or Holiday Inns, and most of us will be in double occupancy rooms.

If anyone has experienced bike problems during the day, we’ll use the time before dinner to work with the guide to fix it. She can adjust brakes and shifting, fix flat tires, and do other simple repairs. If it’s a more complicated repair, the bike will go to a trained mechanic at a nearby bike shop.

The WomanTours van and trailer carry spare tires, tubes, and a large tool case. We’ll learn to work together to help everyone fix her own flat tires, as we’ll probably each get a couple during the trip.

Day 56: You can choose to start our last day early with an optional ride to the top of Cadillac Mountain. There, you can witness the spectacular sunrise every morning in the USA.  Then, pack your bicycle for shipping or taking it home with you. You can fly out of the Bangor airport or take a bus to the Portland or Boston airports and fly home from there. 

TO JOIN: To register for the Atlantic Coast Tour, we require a non-refundable $300 deposit. The first payment of $2000 is due by November 1, 2024, and is nonrefundable and nontransferable. A second payment of $4000 is due December 15, 2024. The balance of the trip fee is due January 15th, 2025. If you cancel after you’ve made your second payment but before January 15, then $2000 is refundable. There are no refunds after January 15. 

DISCOUNTS: Sign up by August 31, 2024 and save $400. Sign up for a domestic week-long WomanTours trip when you register for the cross-country tour, and receive a 10% discount on the shorter tour. You can also save 2% if you make your payments by check or Zelle.

CANCELLATION & REFUNDS: The $300 registration fee and the first payment of $2000, due November 1, 2024, are nonrefundable and nontransferable. Once the balance is paid on January 15th, there will be no refunds or credits.

TRIP INSURANCE: We strongly recommend trip cancellation and interruption insurance, especially for a trip of this magnitude.

TOUR DETAILS: After you register, we will provide you with a detailed packing list, advice on clothing, a sample training schedule, and a series of Prep Talk newsletters to help you prepare for the tour.