A Bridge Too High

My past experience with bridges has been documented in an earlier post, but mostly because I had no choice, I went up and over. Today, fear won out. I like to think sensibility did too. My ride up from Dover was actually very pleasant. Delaware is still flat and I made good time, with a goal of getting to Philadelphia today. I didn’t need to get there for schedule purposes, but there’s more to see and do so I thought I‘d give it a go. I hit the little village of Port Penn by about 11am and had about 45 miles left. From Port Penn, the “main route“ per the Adventure Cycling map is about 10 miles long to get to the town of Delaware City. Upon closer review, I could chop out about 6 miles by going straight and crossing the C&D (Chesapeake & Delaware) Canal. I got a couple miles down the road and saw it. At first, as I was approaching, it just looked like the road went straight up and disappeared into the sky. As I kept riding, the “Oh shit” moment hit. It did go straight up, but it didn’t disappear into the sky, it disappeared around a curve, after which, it continued to go straight up. I got to the base of the bridge where two other vehicles were also pulled over. There were two emergency vehicles coming down the other side. I figured they were just trying to get in position for when I went up and over. I thought ”just keep your head down and stare at the road”. I started up and made it perhaps 100 yards. That was the point I told myself this was not the hill I wanted to die on! I turned around and retreated. My 6-mile shortcut turned into a 4-mile detour but at least I’m still alive to write about it. As I was taking the “main route”, the rain started. By the time I got around to Delaware City, I’d lost all desire to push to Philly today and just changed my target to Wilmington, which was the original plan anyway.

No one will ever confuse Delaware City with other similarly named places like New York City or even Oklahoma City. The town has signs pointing to you to the Historic District with restaurants and shops. All of which are closed. Fortunately, one gentleman was walking by and I stopped him and asked him if there were any restaurants open in town. After telling me I was going to get wet, he gave me directions to Kathy’s Crab House. The food was very average, but the conversation was good and the proprietor (and cook), Kathy, was a bike rider. She mentioned that she had not only ridden over the big nasty bridge, but she had run over it as well. It was still raining so I just hung out for awhile before I reluctantly got back on and finished my ride.

They apparently farm these in Delaware

DON’T MESS WITH DELAWARE!

The big, nasty bridge (AKA the Reedy Point Bridge to the locals)

The not quite so big and nasty alternative. Complete with a discarded tree in the bike lane.

Not exactly the sweet spot for a bike. Two highways merging. I was on the shoulder of the left one. My shoulder ran out.

Can you guess where the detour was?