Bike touring in New England spins a history lesson for any rider
who gives a second thought to the passing scenery, natural and manmade --
Colonial-era houses, stone walls criss-crossing woods that used to be farmland,
giant mills harnessing powerful rivers.
So Al Marder thinks
"it's a natural" to combine cycling and history along Connecticut's Freedom
Trail. Marder is president of the Amistad Committee, which is working with the
Connecticut Historical Commission and state tourism officials to promote the
"trail," a collection of 78 sites with significance in African-American history.
The roads that connect the historical sites include many scenic
country miles, Marder said, so he asked the Connecticut Bicycle Coalition for ways to
encourage cyclists to take to the trail.
The coalition was
quick to run -- well, pedal -- with the idea, and the result is the Connecticut
Freedom Trail Bicycle Tour, scheduled for Sept. 19 and 20. From each of the 78
historical sites, a different cyclist will bike to Hartford, carrying a quilt
square depicting the site.
During the following week, quilters
will stitch the squares together, and the whole quilt will be presented to the
state Sept. 27. Then it will be displayed in four pieces (the whole thing is too
big for one wall) in the Connecticut State Museum, Marder said.
On Sept. 20, the day all the cyclists converge on the capital, there will also
be a six-mile family bike tour with stops at eight of the historical sites in
the Hartford area.
Art Snyder has signed up to bike in from the
Thomas Taylor grave in Putnam, a total of 88 miles in two days.
"I really need something to keep me motivated through the season," said Snyder,
a runner who first turned to cycling when his back gave him trouble.
The Freedom Trail piqued his curiosity, and he rented the movie
"Amistad," about the aftermath of a slave rebellion on the ship Amistad, to
begin learning some pertinent background. "I'll learn about some of the
Connecticut history as I go," he said. "That's what I'm in it for."
Thomas Taylor, buried in Putnam, was a black sailor who fought
aboard the Union ironclad Monitor against the Confederate frigate Merrimack in
the Civil War. He died in 1932 at age 84, the last survivor of that famous
battle, which ended in a draw and revolutionized naval warfare.
Snyder's next stop will be Canterbury, where another rider, David Dunn, is
assigned to pick up a quilt piece from the Prudence Crandall House. Crandall, a
white teacher, opened a school for black girls in 1832 that immediately became
the target of violence from white townspeople. The hostility eventually forced
Crandall to close the school. Her first black student, Sarah (Harris)
Fayerweather, went on to become an antislavery leader in Kingston, R.I., and she
named her first child Prudence Crandall Fayerweather.
Down the
road, Snyder and Dunn will be joined by other riders assigned to historical
sites in Griswold and Norwich, and they'll stop for the night in Colchester,
then bike 29 miles to Hartford the next day.
Dunn, a board
member of the bicycle coalition and a rider with the recreational club Yankee
Pedalers, is mapping the bike routes for all 78 cyclists. His master map "has
about six different tentacles" snaking toward Hartford. The couriers with the
longest routes will spend Saturday night at hotels and reach Hartford on Sunday,
while riders assigned to sites closer to Hartford will just ride Sunday.
Each rider will get a custom-designed bike jersey for the ride.
"The jerseys just say "FREEDOM,' across the back and the front," said Eloy
Toppin, another bicycle coalition board member. "What more do we need to say?"
Last September, Toppin and friends from the Octagon Cycling
Club did a one-day Freedom Trail ride to Hartford from Randall's Ordinary, an
inn in North Stonington that was on the Underground Railroad, hiding fugitive
slaves under the dining room floorboards.
"For next year, we'll
develop these routes into more doable loops, distances that people could bike in
a day, that'll encompass these historical sites," Dunn said.
About 30 more riders are needed for the Freedom Trail tour, said Patrick Gavin
of the bicycle coalition. Riders are asked to contribute $100 each, out of
pocket or from sponsors, to pay for the jersey and other expenses. The coalition
is also raising money to sponsor youth riders.
For more
information on the statewide tour or the family ride in Hartford, contact the Connecticut Bicycle Coalition (860 527-5200).
~~~
Speaking of black history and cycling, the Major Taylor Bikeway, Mill
Street in Worcester, will be rededicated to the 1899 world champion cyclist
during the Tatnuck Watershed Festival on Sept. 12 at Coes Pond. The pond side of
Mill Street will be closed to cars from June Street to the Price Chopper, and
there will be bike safety inspections and traffic safety and skills sessions.
Proceeds from $5 bike helmet sales during the festival will go
to the Major Taylor Humanitarian Association, which aims to put up a statue of
Taylor in Worcester, where he lived during the height of his cycling career. The
Worcester Black Choir Festival, Oct. 17 at Clark University, also will benefit
the Major Taylor effort.
For more information on bike
activities at the Tatnuck Watershed Festival, call Dick McNamara, (508)
753-4471.
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