Day 0, Tuesday 15 Sept 09: Went to Falling Water with Mom, got dropped off at Kentuck Campground in Ohiopyle for the night. Discovered a bolt missing from my pannier rack. Considered ditching the whole tour, for fear of rack disassembling unsafely. Decided to sleep on it, go to bike shop in the morning and see if there are any threads left to install a replacement bolt.
Day 1 (first day of riding): Hard time sleeping, waking up every couple hours, and uncomfortable on sleeping mat. Earplugs are the best invention ever, with the crazy wilderness sounds out there. Finally got up around 9am, and took a cold shower amongst the spiders. Hit the road and got breakfast at a market. Then, headed to bike shop to see about the rack bolt threading situation and pick up some clif bars. My observation was confirmed after about an hour, yet the bolt was still somehow replaced, with some concerning muscling of my derailluer. I hit the road, pretty content that new, unknown opportunities were ahead.
I was still worried that my rack could fall off at any point, so I didn’t ride too fast. It was all uphill to Meyersdale anyways. I stopped in confluence for lunch, a really small, but delicious salad – I didn’t pack any food or cooking supplies to save weight. The trail detoured away from the river ride into farm country, and there weren’t many places to stop and as the sunshine faded, I grew worried that I wouldn’t find a campground before dark. I went through the Big Savage tunnel and experienced much colder temperatures coming in. Once emerging on the other side, I ran into a cyclist that had stationed himself at the best possible view and ended up camping there with him.
Day 2: It rained all night, with my Sidi shoes just outside of the fly and soaking wet. I put on two jerseys, mountain bike shorts, leg warmers, armwarmers, a rain jacket, and cycling cap, packed up my tent and hit the road with only a clif bar inside my belly. It was only about a mile or so before I crossed the Eastern Continental Divide and a couple of hours later, I was in Cumberland, and although it was still raining and muggy, it was quite a pleasant town. I smelled fresh bread, turnovers, and cinnamon rolls down one street and followed my nose, with the hope of coffee and a dry place to sit for awhile. No seats and no coffee, but quite delicious pastries to take with me on the road for later. A few blocks later, I asked a cab driver (always good for directions) for breakfast suggestions. He suggested Queen City Dairy. Being vegan, I had my doubts, but I found excellent coffee and oatmeal to eat there while drying out and a veggie sandwich for the road. I filled up my camelbak (100oz) with water, and picked out where I thought I might camp at night, to pace myself accordingly. Only a few minutes after I started riding, I found the Trail Connection bike shop. I decided to seek out some kind of protein supplement, but failed. Instead, I got friendly information about the trail and picked up some Heed drink mix, pumped up my tires, lubed my chain, and got an extra tube and co2 cartridge.
It continued misting and remained overcast for my trip on the new trail, leaving the Great Allegheny Passage for the Chesapeake and Ohio Towpath trail. I struggled with layers of clothing, since it was too warm to wear the rainjacket, but too wet not to wear another layer. I put my wind breaker within reach as I left Cumberland and realized 3 hours later when stopping for lunch that I somehow lost it in transit. It was close to Little Orleans that I finally ran into another cyclist and exchanged contact information in case he came across it the other direction (possible but highly doubtful).
Continuing through the Paw-Paw tunnel, a completely dark (almost a mile long) run along a narrow ride railing; I grew tired. Riding along, my eyes were losing focus on the trail – perhaps too bumpy or too many hours with yellow lenses. A few hours later, I stopped at Indigo Neck campground, washing my riding clothes in the river with Dr. Bronner’s and hung up the wet clothing on the guy lines from my tent to dry overnight.
Day 3: It was too humid to dry any of the clothing, so I put on wet clothes and hung up the second set over my pannier bags to dry while riding. My tire was extermely low, so I replaced the tube, booted the tire in a few places and used co2 to inflate it to full capacity.
I rode into Hancock, went straight to the bike shop to pick up another extra tube and co2 cartridge, and see if there were any protein bars (nope again). They suggested going to Park and Dine restaurant a mile up the main road – and it was a fabulous suggestion. I was famished and pigged out on oatmeal, potatoes, and 3 cups of coffee and got another salad for the road. Then, I power showered in their bathroom and switched into my other partially dry riding clothes to dry them off with my body heat.
The sun came out around noon, and I kept up a quick pace to the Stonewall Jackson dam to stretch and lunch. After getting back on the trail, I encountered a rather unpleasant pavement detour through a rather bike-unfriendly farm town that had paintball scars on all the “Share the Road” signs. In addition, people in big pickup trucks would fly by at about 60mph on the narrow two lane, winding roads. As the detour ended, I was back on the dirt double track and assumed the rocks hitting my frame was the suspicious noise from beneath my bike, until my bike came to a halt with the rear derailluer in the spokes of my rear wheel. As the trail was flat, I hadn’t been shifting, so it was quite a surprise! I inspected the damage and quickly noticed that the derailluer’s pivot bolt, which attaches the der to the hanger, had sheared off – stuck in the hanger – rendering it unrepairable without a drill. So, I broke the chain and converted it to singlespeed.
My first attempt was too low a gear and the chain line was off, so it skipped gears every time I went over a bump. Then, I got a quick, hissing flat front tire. I fixed it and decided this was really taking up some precious daylight. So, I rode about 5 miles into the next campground and saw clothes hanging from the trees! Civilization!! I asked them if I they had room for one more, since it looked like there were maybe half a dozen, and explained my predicament: I wanted to use the last bit of daylight to break the chain again and issue a better chain line, before setting up camp. I quickly realized that this was an Amish group, since they were referring to each other as Brother or Sister, all wore the same color clothing, and the men had really long beards. They were tremendous hosts, offering to prepare dinner for me, help my fix my bike, use their homemade shower system, and play Christian music for me. I thanked them, but turned down all their offers (except the music), since I had my own system. I stayed up for awhile after fixing my bike and cleaning up, and chatted with them about philosophy before heading to bed.
Day 4: Woke up at 6am again, hoping to make up the extra 20 miles I missed from the day before as well as the original 60 miles planned, catching up with my friend in Washington DC at 2pm.
As I hit the trails again, I was sore, tired, and slow. My tires were low again, and I was getting grumpy. I used the last co2 to top off the tires and figured I would ride to Harper’s ferry (since that was where I was planning on camping) for breakfast. What a cool town. The architecture, the landscape, the history. The food and service was a little underwhelming, but the outfitter stores in town were amazing. I just might come back to hike the Appalachian mountains… and maybe stay in Harper’s Ferry awhile. That place really called to me.
Anyhow, back across the bridge and on the trails, lots more tourists awaited me. I zipped along the trail as it transitioned back into limestone and passed by several locks. I stopped once to stretch and steal a shower from an RV campground before meeting up with my friend at Swain’s Lock, still about 16 miles from Washington DC. We chatted and rode steadily through the dense walking traffic to the city and had a bit of trouble finding mile zero, with new construction.
We picked our own mile zero and then sought out some much needed sustenance to end the journey.
I stayed in DC for the night, and had a little trouble getting a train ticket because of the G-20 summit, so just bought a greyhound ticket instead. It ended up being faster, sooner, cheaper, and more accomodating on all levels – I highly recommend doing it that way, until Amtrak installs hooks for bike in each car.
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Nickname: Gerbil
Name: Cathy Haagen-Smit
Name: Dawn Lovejoy
Nickname: Dr. Reid (only because I’m a college prof!)
Nickname: MJ
Nickname: Reba or The Queen of Pain
