Cyclist riding from Houlton to Key West faces hurricane obstacles

HOULTON, Maine — Dov Shlachter flew from Washington State to Bangor before lugging his boxed, unassembled bike and gear a mile to the Maine Cyr Bus headed for Houlton about 10 days ago.

It was the start of a long planned 4,500-mile, three-month pilgrimage from Houlton to Key West, for the 32-year-old Google engineer.

“I’ve got three months blocked out, from Oct. 1 to Jan.1. I need to average 50 miles a day without zeros. It’s going to be a hell of an endeavor,” Shlachter said on Tuesday night after wrapping up a day that started at 7 a.m on a trail in Rangeley.

Everything was pretty frosty and brisk with a clear sky on a trail that follows consecutive lake shores for about 30 miles, he said via email, which is easier since it’s hard to make calls from the trail.

“This was an absolutely marvelous day,” he added. “The pavement eventually gives way to packed dirt, but it’s about as pleasant and smooth as dirt can be.”

Schlacter is riding on the relatively new 5,900-mile Eastern Divide Trail that runs from Cape Spear, Newfoundland to Key West and is the longest contiguous off-road bikepacking route in the U.S. It winds through numerous state and national forests as well as mountains along the Eastern Continental Divide. He chose to start his trek in Maine.

By Wednesday night he had already racked up 455 miles since leaving Houlton and was in Twin Mountain, New Hampshire.

Little did Shlachter know that when he headed out from a Houlton AirBnB on Oct. 1 he would face the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton along a route that gets pretty jumbled up starting in North Carolina.

Now he needs to modify his plan because reports indicate it may take a year to clean up western North Carolina and Florida’s infrastructure could also be in bad shape, he said.

“My vague plan for reroute is to catch a train or a bus in Virginia and bypass North Carolina entirely. This would drop me off in Alabama and then send me onto the Florida panhandle,” he said. “This is all very preliminary, and I want to see what damage Milton does to the Tampa Bay area, but I’d like to do as much of the trail as possible via reroutes instead of just ending early.”

This is Shlachter’s second big ride, with the first in 2018 when he rode the Great Divide Trail northbound.

The 698-mile Great Divide Trail is a wilderness trail in the Canadian Rockies that closely follows the continental divide between Alberta and British Columbia.

“In 2018 I learned a lot about cycle touring, traveling across America, my own comfort zones, and the thrill of the open road,” he said. “After finishing I was instantly fired up and full of cycle touring energy.”

The pandemic quashed plans in 2020 to ride the rugged 2,139- mile Wild West Trail and Shlachter said he fell out of cycling for a bit during that time.

But his interest was reignited after his wife, Karen Altergott, hiked the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail and the idea of riding the U.S. portion of the 5,500 mile Eastern Divide Trail took shape.

Shlachter hadn’t spent much time east of the Rocky Mountains and had never been to Maine. The curiosity of seeing that part of the country was one of the reasons for picking the Eastern Divide Trail, he said.

Houlton is the first town in the U.S. portion of the Eastern Divide Trail. The first two parts of the trail go through Maritime Canada and cross at the border just west of Houlton.

“I was completely charmed by the town and by the surroundings,” he said. “The weather tentatively looked like it would be decent during the autumn, so I figured that if I started out moving quickly I could follow the autumn south.”

Shlachter is riding a rigid mountain bike with wide tires that he calls Pony Trekker and every component is selected for durability and ease of field repair, he said.

“I am absolutely going to wear out at least one set of tires, mostly because of riding on pavement,” he said. “Mountain bike tires use a softer, stickier rubber compound than road tires, and asphalt really takes a toll on them.”

He details his ride in daily logs , referencing towns, routes and challenges, like his final leg out of Maine.

“Holy hell was Jefferson Notch an ordeal. A total of 1,600 feet of climbing over five miles with grades up to 20 percent in places,” he wrote. “My knees were starting to hurt by the time I’d climbed 400 feet, so I got off and did a bike push for the remaining 1,200 feet.”

Shlachter said that early on in a ride the physical and psychological challenges are greater until his mind and body get used to the rigors of pedaling in rough terrain. “Later on, once you get into shape the physical challenges definitely diminish, but early in a trip the physical and emotional trials feed into each other,” he said. “A big, steep hill wears down your morale just as much as it drains your legs.”

He admits it’s fairly late in the year for cycle touring, and he hopes it gets easier, safer and warmer when he hits southern sections in November and December.

Correction: A previous version of the story misstated the mileage of the Eastern Divide Trail.