By the Ghost of Roger Angell

As usual on a nice summer day, Tom Conroy got up at about 5:30 a.m. It was going to be a sunny morning in July, and he was thinking about going for a paddle in Long Island Sound. The tide was right, and even though it was Saturday, there would not be too many boats heading out from the harbor in his town of Guilford in Connecticut that early. He had paddled each of the previous three days and his outrigger canoe was still on top of his car. He made coffee and checked the time for the start of that day’s Tour de France stage. The Tour broadcast of Stage 8 was starting at 6:30 a.,m. He put on the coffee and made a snap decision to ride his bike down to the water rather than paddle. It would be a relatively quiet ride at that time on a Saturday, with few drivers heading to work. Bluebirds were nesting in a box in the backyard, and he knew that the nestlings would be fledging any day now. He looked out the window to see a bluebird bringing some bug or other to the nestlings, who were old enough now that he could see their open mouths at the nest hole when a parent arrived with food. Assured that no nest mishap had occurred overnight, he put on bike clothes, shoes and helmet and headed out on the ride. With his Rapha bib shorts, a Trek Travel jersey from his rides in Europe, a Garmin GPS computer that uploaded ride data wirelessly, and riding a Specialized Roubaix carbon bike that had been the choice of a Paris-Roubaix winner, he was well equipped. He zipped along south on his street toward the water.

Whenever he set out on these early rides to the Sound, he would always see how far he would ride before a car overtook and passed him. Sometimes he would get about a mile down the road to a stop sign before he got passed. He passed a ”Your Speed” digital readout sign by the side of the road, which indicated he was traveling 19 mph. His 10-year-old bike had just gotten a new chain, cassette, and chainrings to replace worn-out parts, as well as a new rear wheel, and his drivetrain felt super smooth. He got to the stop sign without being passed. The road remained quiet as he zipped along. To his surprise, he made it under the bridge carrying Interstate 95 over the road and reached the traffic light at U.S. Route 1, at the heart of his town’s traffic, without a car overtaking him. Crossing Route 1, he rode around the Guilford Green, with its shops, churches, and town hall. It was still quiet and he got through the Green without seeing a car. This was unprecedented and he thought he had an outside chance of getting to the water unpassed. It was certainly unlikely. People were always driving down to the town beach and the marina, and he could never remember cycling this stretch without several cars going by him, no matter how early in the morning. Having gotten as far as he had, he decided to maximize his chance for success. He got in the drops and shifted to his big chainring and hammered along as if he were in a solo breakway in a Tour stage. He got out of the saddle, rather than downshift, to get over the “hill” made by the bridge that took the road over the train tracks. Remarkably, he made it to the turn onto the beach road unscathed and sped to the beach. He turned into the beach parking lot at the end of the road and stopped on the boardwalk. He had done it. Five and three-quarter miles from home to the water without a vehicle passing him. It was a historic moment in Guilford cycling history.

Leaving the beach, he rolled over to the nearby town marina and then headed back toward the Green (the largest town green in New England). After cycling by the Green and reaching a red light at Route 1, he still hadn’t been passed. While waiting at the light, he heard a vehicle stop behind him. The light turned green and he crossed Route 1. He hoped the vehicle behind him was going to turn, but no dice. A pickup truck passed him, went a couple of hundred yards and then turned off the road. If he had reached the light when it was green, he would not have been passed. Still, he had made it more than seven miles with his lane to himself.

He continued on toward home and wasn’t passed by another vehicle until the 11-mile mark. Having been passed, he zipped down the hill that went past his house and rode around the block, adding a couple of miles to his ride.

”I remember it like it was this morning,” he said to me when I reached out to him after hearing through the cycling grapevine about his accomplishment (I contacted him on the day of the ride, which was July 16, 2022). ”I never thought it would happen, even after I had made the last turn onto the beach road. There were a couple of people on the beach, but of course none of them were aware of what I had just done. I thought it was just going be one of those things that I would always be striving for, but never reaching.”

What next? Could he see himself ever getting to the water and back home without being passed? “That would be very special, but I don’t even think I would dream about that. It’s a lot more time on the bike. You could get passed on the way home by someone who hadn’t even gone downtown earlier. The best shot would be on a Sunday morning, but I would have to start even earlier, probably at 5 a.m. I will have to find my bike headlight and charge it. I would definitely want to be using that as well as the taillight.”

ADDENDUM

On Sunday, July 7, 2024, Conroy made a second attempt on getting to the water without being passed by a car. He began his ride just before 6 a.m. He figured the Sunday at the end of the Fourth of July holiday was a great day to make the attempt. He cruised along on roads that were so quiet that he made it past the Town Green having only seen a road rider going in the other direction. He had not seen a moving car the entire way . He continued on and made it to the beach without getting overtaken by a car. The only car he saw passed him in the other direction at about the five-mile mark. He wheeled from the beach over to the marina and then headed home. Incredibly, he made it 8.6 miles before a pickup truck went by him. On the rest of his 15-mile ride, which included going around the block after passing his house, no vehicles overtook him.