What does it take for a 29-year-old East Penn School district teacher to plan and accomplish a 3,197-mile bicycle trek from northern Maine to the southernmost point in the United States in Key West, Fla.?

Six months of planning and the help of numerous new friends along the way it turns out.

Macungie native Erin Trautmann, now of Allentown, is the East Penn Middle School band director and music teacher. She recently completed the solo adventure which began in Calais, Maine June 13 and finished July 29 in Key West. That’s successful planning to the smallest detail. She booked her return flight to Pennsylvania for July 30 – before she left for her adventure.

The 2015 Penn State graduate said, “Two years ago, I would never have dreamed that I would be doing this in 2022.” Her first thought of the solo trip along the not-yet-finished 3,000-mile East Coast Greenway was formed in the fall of 2021. She had participated in shorter multi-day family cycling trips with her parents Scott and Jenifer Trautmann, of Lower Macungie Township, both cycling enthusiasts, but nothing this ambitious.

Her successful completion of the trek would not have been possible, she said, without the “super-kind people I met along the way. So many people went out of their way to provide physical help and mental and emotional encouragement.

“Some rode with me along smaller portions of the trip and some really kind people got me in and out of their shop in a short time when I needed new tires on my bicycle,” she said. “Their kindness helped renew my faith in the innate goodness of people.”

Many families along the way, mostly cycling enthusiasts, hosted her overnight stays in their own homes and provided meals after her long days on the road. “I tried not to eat out often at restaurants, because I did not want to go broke,” she laughed.

“The local intelligence provided by my hosts helped me avoid construction and road congestion. That was really helpful to me,” she said.

She shopped along the way for energy and protein snacks and drinks to get her through the days as she would pause about every 10 miles.

Trautmann connected with the host families through the very-useful website of the East Coast Greenway Alliance. The website provides mapping tools that vary from satellite views to turn-by-turn directions and GPS coordinates. Trautmann said she planned her stops about a week in advance using the site’s tools.

“I knew my physical abilities and the routes I wanted to take, so I could plan ahead almost to the very mile I would travel,” she said. One particularly memorable day she was able to cycle a “century,” a 100-mile portion of the trip in a day.

Aside from the “very hot rides through the southern states,” weather was not a big obstacle for Trautmann. “It poured my first day and my last day of the trip, but otherwise I was not hampered by bad weather.” Her daily routes consisted of about one-third along cycling/hiking trails and the other two-thirds along roadways.

Trautmann planned her trips so she would pass through major cities, such as Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. where she paused to see the usual landmarks. She said Maine was a particularly beautiful ride along the coastal Route 1 highway, “but so many hills.”

Along the way, Trautmann posted photos and narratives of her progress on social media, and kept in touch with family by cellphone.

Trautmann’s favorite stop was in Savannah, Ga., she said. “It was so beautiful.”

By the time Trautmann hit the Florida border, she was feeling really fatigued. “But, when I arrived in the beautiful Florida Keys, I really got my ‘second wind’ and really enjoyed the ride along the Key’s route A1A,” she said.

How did she mark her accomplishment at the southernmost point of the United States?

“Like all cyclists,” she quipped, “I celebrated with ice cream.”