Tom Eddy and Mary Kay Simoni have enjoyed cycling together from the start of their relationship, but e-bikes have allowed them to ride much more now than they could in the past, especially as they have aged.
“We’ve never looked back,” said Mary Kay about their decision to convert their bikes into e-bikes. “We can ride faster and farther. We can haul heavier things.”
Tom and Mary Kay, who live in Chesterland, Ohio, recently finished a challenging multi-day e-bike tour across Florida, their longest ride yet.
“While we used to ride 1,000 miles a year (before e-bikes), on our last trip to Florida we rode 1,000 miles in 18 days,” Mary Kay said. They averaged 60 miles per day, with their longest day being 87 miles.
Tom and Mary Kay are serious e-bike cyclists. Last year, they rode 3,500 miles. That was down from 5,000 miles the previous year but still quite impressive considering Mary Kay had two separate total knee replacement surgeries, one in February and one in August, just five months before their planned Florida ride.
Avid campers, the couple is experienced at doing multi-day bike tours. They carefully pack their bikes, taking advantage of all available space and hauling a small cargo trailer behind Tom’s bike. They bring about 90 percent of their food with them, in part because they are healthy eaters who monitor their nutrition and don’t want to rely on roadside cafes and fast food. Mary Kay is a personal trainer and follows a strict dietary regimen.
For lodging along the route, Tom and Mary Kay did a bit of everything, including tent camping, motels, and staying with friends. They also stayed one night with a Warm Showers host, an organization that matches touring cyclists with homeowners willing to open up their homes for free for a night or two.
Benefits of E-Bike Touring
They both find long e-bike touring enjoyable for different reasons.
“I much prefer to see the world at 18 mph than stopping to see the sites (from a car),” Mary Kay said. “I feel a real sense of accomplishment saying ‘I rode 87 miles today.’ I find that to be challenging.”
Tom, on the other hand, likes the solitude, which is a nice break from his career as a fruit orchard farmer where he interacts with thousands of customers each year, especially during the busy pick-your-own season each fall.
“I have to mix it up with the public. That’s Tom being social and performing for people. This (cycling) is my personal time.”
“I do it because I enjoy it,” Tom said, adding with a grin that “I used to enjoy playing basketball, but I got over that.”
Riding Florida’s Coast-to-Coast Trail
Tom and Mary Kay rode the still-developing Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail earlier this year. When finished, the ambitious multi-use network of trails will provide 250 miles of smooth paved trails stretching from St. Petersburg on the Gulf Coast to Titusville on the East Coast.
The Coast-to-Coast Trail is 80 percent complete, which has encouraged more cyclists like Tom and Mary Kay to attempt the long ride. The problem is with the unfinished portions, referred to as the gaps. They force cyclists to find alternate routes and ride with traffic on highways with little or no shoulders. Florida’s highways are not known for being bike-friendly.
“I don’t want to go across Florida again until there is an established trail,” Tom said. The gaps made him “too nervous,” he said, especially the longest gap west of Orlando between the South Lake/Lake Minneola Trail and the Withlacoochee State Trail. To span portions of this gap, cyclists often ride on busy Highway 50, with a high speed limit and plenty of trucks.
“Looking back on the ride and what we got out of it, it helps us redirect what the next ride is going to be,” Tom said. “If we go to Florida again to ride, we will build from what we learned and our experiences there. There’s a thing or two I would look forward to doing again, and there’s at least a couple of things I don’t want any part of again.”
One of their favorite sections to ride was through Volusia County on the Spring-to-Spring and East Central Florida trails. These trails allow smooth, car-free cycling from Deland to Edgewater, near New Smyrna Beach, passing by scenic parks and at least three popular springs — Blue Spring, Gemini Springs, and Green Springs. Using an alternative route, the East Central Florida Trail also will take cyclists to Titusville, instead of Edgewater.
The Spring-to-Spring and East Central Florida trails are part of an even larger developing cycling route called the St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop, which when complete will offer 260 miles of cycling on paved trails.
“My favorite trail was the Santos (formally called the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway),” Tom said. “Unfortunately, it’s not connected to anything, but I’m hoping for a bigger future for it.”
The Cross Florida Greenway is part of a long-term plan for a 110-mile trail network connecting the St. Johns River with the Gulf of Mexico and offering a variety of trail opportunities for hiking, cycling, mountain biking, and equestrian riding.
This is Tom and Mary Kay’s fourth major ride through Florida and one spot they said they always enjoy is Inverness, along the Withlacoochee State Trail. The trail is one of the state’s longest (46 miles) and most popular for cyclists.
“Along the Withlacoochee we always stop at Inverness,” Tom said. “It’s a very nice stop.”
Inverness is one of the state’s 11 official Trail Towns and has a well-developed trailhead and park. The park includes numerous electric outlets near benches where e-bike cyclists can recharge their bike’s batteries while taking a break or having lunch. It’s a feature Tom said he wished more trails would emulate.
Other trails they enjoyed on this year’s Florida trip included a new connector trail linking the Good Neighbor Trail with the Suncoast Trail. They also enjoyed the wilderness section of the Starkey Trail which connects the Suncoast Trail with the Pinellas Trail, another of the state’s longest and most popular trail for bikers.
A Bike Instead of a Wedding Ring
Cycling has long played a role in Tom and Mary Kay’s life together. When they got married, they bought a tandem bicycle, which is a bicycle built for two riders.
“I got a tandem rather than a wedding ring,” Mary Kay said.
The newly married couple toured and camped with their bike, even going as far as taking a multi-day, 330-mile ride through Arizona. The tandem bike proved challenging. It was difficult to ride up Arizona’s hills and was the source of constant friction between them.
“It (a tandem bike) is a relationship breaker,” Tom said.
“Or a relationship maker,” Mary Kay responded. “If you can survive a tandem, you can survive anything.”
Tom recalled one day when they were disagreeing about the trail route or other details which he’s long forgotten. It brought them to a standstill. Keep in mind this was before the days of GPS navigation, online maps, and smart helmets that allow two cyclists to stay in constant communication with each other.
“I had to stop the bike right alongside the road and the two of us had the settle the issue right then and there. I couldn’t ride another foot until we settled whatever the problem was.”
Seeing the Need for an E-Bike
Once children came along, it wasn’t long until Tom and Mary Kay were introducing them to cycling and camping. As the children grew in age and physical strength, and as Mary Kay’s knees began to ache, she began to fall behind.
“I wanted our kids and us to be a bicycling family,” Mary Kay said. “I pictured myself riding all over the place with the twins in the trailer. Tom could pull the twins easily in the trailer, but the first time I came to a hill, that was it. I couldn’t do it. I had to turn back. There was no such thing as e-bikes back then.”
After the children grew and graduated from being pulled in a trailer, the couple used tag-along bike attachments for them. Tag along designs vary, but they all attach to the parent’s bike and most have their own seats, handlebars, and pedals for the children.
Their first time out, the twins rode 17 miles with their parents using the tag-along attachments.
Once Mary Kay started learning about e-bikes, she knew she wanted one. She called all over the greater Cleveland area and could find only one bike shop that had an e-bike for sale, and they literally only had one e-bike available, which wasn’t right for her. Instead, she bought an e-bike conversion kit for her existing bike.
“Then nobody (in the family) could keep up with me,” Mary Kay said, adding that just one year laster Tom bought an e-bike conversion kit too.
Tom said one advantage of e-bikes is that they allow couples to ride more easily together even when one has greater cycling ability than the other.
“The e-bike is an equalizer for people of different strengths, endurances, and stamina,” Tom said. “We can ride together and get along together much better.”
One-Night Stands
Back home in Ohio, while Tom and Mary Kay both have busy careers and a family to care for, they ride their bikes as often as possible. One of their favorite activities is to do what Mary Kay jokingly refers to as “one-night stands.”
“We will ride anywhere from 16 to 50 miles to a park, camp for the evening, have dinner, and then ride home the next day,” Mary Kay said. “We like the term ‘one-night stands.’ It’s nice to get away, even for one night.”
Future Cycling Plans
This summer, Tom and Mary Kay are hoping to ride one of America’s most legendary long bike trails, the combined Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Trail and the C&O Canal Towpath through Pennsylvania and Maryland. This popular cycling route goes from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., covering 334 miles. That’s a major “bucket list” ride for many serious cyclists in the U.S.
Could they do long bike trips like these without their e-bikes, especially with the heavy cargo they carry for touring?
“We did and we could, but we couldn’t go as fast or as far,” Mary Kay said.
* * * * *
Also see:
This is a well-written article and almost makes me want to go out and buy an e-bike conversion kit. I’m not quite there yet, but getting closer…