CAT Board Member and Ride Leader Jennifer Cunningham shares her story below about her relationship with the D&L Trail. The Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor is running a Take Action Campaign to share personal and meaningful experiences on the D&L Trail and/or its adjacent waterways.

My happy place used to be riding on the D&L trail — alone. I also loved training for triathlons on my road bike — alone. Then Covid shuttered the triathlons, and I spent a lot more time riding the D&L and other trails in the area. As I pedaled the miles – still alone – I started to experience big FOMO. Biking seemed to be the perfect socially distanced activity for a lot of happy people riding together, but I didn’t know anyone in the area who wanted to spend hours and hours on their bikes like I did.

Then I discovered CAT-Coalition for Appropriate Transportation, and signed up for one of their weekly women’s group rides on the D&L out of Bethlehem. (Those rides are made possible in part by a grant from the D&L’s partnership with the Lehigh Valley Greenways, BTW).

The afternoon of the ride, I totally panicked and almost didn’t go. I didn’t know how to ride in a group! Do you go side by side or single file? Are you expected to chat the whole time? About what? What if they all know each other? What if they go too fast? Too slow? What if there were only one other person and they were weird? What if they thought I was weird?!

Fast forward a couple years and dozens of group rides later…through CAT I became a League of American Bicyclists Certified Instructor (LCI) and now co-lead some of those Tuesday night rides. I’ve even secured two mini grants from Adventure Cycling Association that allowed CAT to host overnight camping bike trips on the D&L and other trails. And I’m the Vice President of the CAT Board of Directors. All thanks to that first ride that I almost chickened out of.

So what does the D&L mean to me? It’s personal, and professional. My job for the last 17 years has been building university alumni networks through volunteerism, events, giving, and other experiences. But I hadn’t been able to articulate what about that work gets me out of bed every day, and my lack of clarity was causing me agita.

Through my work with CAT against the backdrop of the trail, I discovered what brings me joy. It’s to bring delightful people together through meaningful experiences that change them somehow. Bonus points for when I get to help people learn something new, introduce them to new friends, or discover new hobbies. Even more bonus points if all that happens on a bike!

Just about every Tuesday night during these women’s rides, I find a bit of that joy. We get 4 to 25 people riding each week, with ages spanning from 15 to 80, and experience levels ranging from commute-by-bike-every day to haven’t-riidden-since-the-sixth-grade. We’ve taught people how to change flats, inflate tires, lube chains, adjust their seats, properly fasten helmets, safely ride on crowded trails — so many things! Several regulars have even become ride leaders themselves! And in the winter we’ve run a couple of hands-on workshops at the CAT Bicycle Cooperative where women fix up kids’ bikes for our Holiday Bikes program.

Thanks to CAT and DLNHC for letting me do this “work!” on and off the trail.
#TakeAction #MyDLTrail

Submit your own story about your personal experiences on the trail here.