I imagined the start differently: When I get off the plane in NY with a 3 hour delay, my bike is not there. I have no choice but to wait in NY, but I get 2 days no information where my bike could be. Later it turns out that it was forgotten when unloading on a baggage cart. I find it again only after I go to the airport myself on the 3rd day and search with the help of the airline.
Then a short photo shoot at Brooklynbridge and I drive up 5th Avenue, right through Manhattan and nothing like out of the city, over to New Jersey and on to Pensylvania. Here it becomes rural and the hills of the Appalachians provide 3000 meters of altitude per day. The smoke from the forest fires in the north is washed away by heavy thunderstorms and I roll into Ohio, where it slowly becomes flatter.