Pedaling one milestone at a time
by Steve Sheppard • Independent Writer

Coof Café is a regular column that forces

Independent staffers to lurch blindly from their comfort zones into island encounters that they have never tried before.We welcome suggestions for new experiences. Email: don@nantucketindependent.com. We've all seen them on our way back to town, those who are determined, those who are grim, struggling up Bean Hill, wondering why they hadn't asked about the wind before pedaling all the way out to 'Sconset in the first place.

Perhaps I was a bit humbled by my good friend David Lodemore's participation in August's Pan-Mass Challenge, where he biked 192 miles from Sturbridge to Provincetown to benefit the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Or maybe it was my recent discussion with Ed Toole, who'd finished first in his division at the Louisville Iron Man Triathlon - one of 12 triathlons he's taken part in.

Or it simply could have been that I, too, had seen all those people biking out to 'Sconset over the years and had never experienced the thrill of victory the trip would foster in my soul.

The 'Sconset bike path, as you know, was for years the only bike path on the island. It is one of the oldest bike paths in the nation and was the first in Massachusetts to be built with state funds. Introduced as groundbreaking legislation on Beacon Hill by visionary Nantucket Representative Bob Mooney, the bike path was christened in 1958 by none other than renowned cardiologist and bike enthusiast Dr. Paul Dudley White, Ike's physician. It was for historic purposes, then, that I decided to undertake the journey. I've been to 'Sconset before, and I've ridden a bike before, but I'd never combined the two. Unlike some visitors whose first Nantucket experience is cycling out to the east end, I'd never ridden the bicycle path to 'Sconset.

I made it! Now, the ride back to town. ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

Until now.

My bicycle has been parked alongside the old scallop shanty (now my wife's weaving studio) all summer, waiting for a rider. The tires need air, though, and one of the pedals is kind of broken, so I borrowed my wife's bicycle, something I never would have done as a kid because it's a girl's bike and besides, I didn't know my wife back then. With age comes perspective, however, and I didn't care if I looked like a whale riding a girl's bike. Come Saturday morning, I packed a water bottle in the handy water bottle holder and was off.

I didn't think it was a good sign when my shoelace got caught in the bicycle chain less than a mile in, but I made it to the celebrated (and historic) 'Sconset bike path. I was alone at first, but I soon approached a runner at the incline near the airport road. He wanted me to pass him, but, hey, he was going at a good pace. Why push it, right?

The milestones prompted me and goaded me. Gliding by the second milestone, for instance, I knew it was only a mile to number three. All I want to know is, since when did miles get so far apart? The smells of early autumn were enticing, however, especially those of the garbage trucks that zipped beside me on the Milestone Road. Before I could reach the Tom Nevers turnoff, a NRTA bus passed me. Just by chance I happened to remember the buses left 'Sconset every hour on the quarter of the hour.

Anyway, at the top of Bean Hill, near the fifth milestone, you feel you've made it. Only two miles to go. Looking out over the cranberry bog (once the world's largest contiguous bog, but since displaced by one in Wisconsin, I believe) I looked out to Sankaty Light and, prompted by Chris Larsen's query two nights before, wondered how the view from this outlook will change when it's moved to its new base of operations. I also realized that to get the entire cycling experience, I was going to have to bike over to the light, just as countless visitors had done before.

But first, on to 'Sconset, and luckily it's downhill all the way. Past Nantucket Golf Club and the Siasconset Golf Course, where the celebrated Skinner Open was scheduled for the weekend. 'Sconset, the site of several memorable athletic achievements of my past - where I blew out my knee at the old softball field next to the water company; where I launched dozens of golf balls onto and over the highway from the sixth hole at Skinner's. But as I rode past the sites of my previous exploits, and with the bike path ending right at the old softball field, I knew I had achieved my greatest feat of all - I had made it to 'Sconset.

How easy my pedaling now seemed. At the top of the hill heading down Main Street, I passed the home of Charlie and Eileen Cahoon and its Nantucket Historical Association plaque (partially obscured by bushes) proclaiming the house as the Marconi Station on Nantucket, the first to receive a radio signal from a ship at sea on Aug. 16, 1901. Sometime after that the station would be manned by a young David Sarnoff, who would later go on to transform RCA into a broadcasting giant.

The leg of the trip to the lighthouse was the backbreaker. Baxter Road seems a lot longer by bike than by car, especially with the wind off the ocean pushing and taunting you. I felt like Jonathan Winters in the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" as I wobbled past the hedges and summer homes on the way up (I had forgotten about that little detail, as I'm sure many visitors can tell you) to the lighthouse.

I climbed to the top of Sankaty on my very first visit to Nantucket, and here I was at the light on my first bike ride out to 'Sconset - appropriate, no? I arrived at a good time- the volunteers who will help assist onlookers during this week's move were getting a rundown on the project and I was invited in. I was glad to get off that bike.

Getting up close and personal to the project was a treat, and I thought back to how majestic Sankaty appeared when I first saw it and how easy it is to look beyond the island's beauty when you live here. There's something about lighthouses, as Edward Rowe Snow would have told you, and the appeal of Sankaty shines on.

And, no, I didn't take the bus back to town, even though the bike chain was suspect, and the front tire could have used some air. I went for it.

And whom should I encounter on my way? Why none other than Ed Toole, of course, out on a leisurely spin of a hundred miles or so. He said I had biked about 18 miles. "Not bad for a start," he said.

Not bad at all.

If only I could find a bike with a chain guard. I