Summer 2012 Trip: St. Louis to Milwaukee

June, 2012
Jon and I took a longer trip this summer, a trip that started out shorter and in a different part of the country. By the time the planning (or the lack of planning) was done, we were on our way to St. Louis, with the intention of spending the better part of two weeks riding up the Mississippi to Wisconsin, then cutting across to Milwaukee (where Jon lives).

My original plan was to load my Bike Friday into its suitcase and take the train to St. Louis. Jon would have needed to load his LHT into a bike box and check it as luggage . . . except Amtrak doesn't check luggage from Chicago to St. Louis. (Can that be true? It seems impossible . . . what an idiotic lack of service. There's no way to get a bike to St. Louis by Amtrak. This is, alas, typical. Amtrak is not interested in bike riders.)

The solution was to have Jon's incredibly generous wife drive us from Milwaukee to St. Louis (400 miles). We drove down on Saturday, she threw us and our gear out of the car, and then she turned around and headed home the same day. Yikes. She must have been really eager to be rid of Jon for a few weeks.

Our plan was to follow Adventure Cycling route guides as much as possible. I had used their route guides in a half-hearted way before, frequently jumping off the route if it seemed to be taking a longer route than I wanted, but I had never religiously followed a route guide for any distance. So this was to be an experiment.

The advantage of a route guide is that the route is picked for you. No advance planning is necessary. No county maps, no researching camp grounds, just the route guide (and a large state map for reference). We would follow the first few panels of the Lewis and Clark route from Hartford, IL to Marthasville, MO (on the Katy Trail), turn north and follow the Great Rivers South route to Muscatine, IA, and the Northern Tier segment from Muscatine to west of Dubuque, where we would turn eastward.

That was the plan. The reality was a bit different.

As usual, we camped in public and private campgrounds, with two motel nights thrown in where convenient camping couldn't be found. All but one of the campgrounds had showers, which is always nice. In total we stayed in six state or county parks, two motels, two private campgrounds, and one in-laws house.

On previous trips, we have considered days of 65 miles or so to be optimal. As a result, we frequently had 70- and even 80- or 90-mile days, with relatively few days under 60 miles. For this trip, we decided to set the standard distance at 50 miles, meaning that distances of 50-60 would be most common, 60-70 would be less common, above 70 would be only in an emergency. Furthermore, it meant that sub-50-mile days were possible, if we had to choose between that and going 70-plus miles.

We mostly stuck to that standard. We only had one day over 70 miles (with a stiff tailwind and no hills), and only two days over 60. And we did, indeed, have one day under 50 miles, something we never would have allowed in our younger, more pain-tolerant days. All the other days were in the 50-60 mile range. Since we always started out by 7:30 am, this meant we were usually done by early- to mid-afternoon.

The obligatory gear details:

My rig. Rear panniers have rain covers in this photo.

I was riding my 28-year-old Trek 620 touring bike (of which only the frame is original--everything else has been swapped out), rear panniers, tent strapped on to the rear rack, front rack with a waterproof gear bag strapped to it, and a front handlebar bag fastened high up on a bracket. This worked pretty well. I carried all my clothes in the dry bag; at night, I simply unfastened it and took it into the tent. In the handlebar bag I kept the daily necessities: wallet, phone, tomtom gps unit, sunscreen, bug  juice, headlamp, coin purse, maps for the day, snacks. I could have put the handlebar bag lower, perhaps directly on the dry bag, but why bother? The bike handled well enough, and I like having the bag (with my snacks and maps) up high where I can get at them.

As I was getting ready for the trip, I noticed that my fancy Velocity Synergy rear wheel was tearing itself apart, with the rim cracking in many places, and spokes pulling out. (See my post here.) I was grateful that I noticed it before we left, but it posed a dilemma: Take the clown bike (that is, the Bike Friday) which is not as good on trails (it rolls noticeably slower), or build a new wheel. I decided to try the latter. I ordered up a touring rim from Velo Orange. The old spokes were a few mm short, but they might work. Bad idea, I know, reusing spokes, particularly on a fully loaded touring wheel, but I didn't have time to get new ones.

So I laced up the wheel, trued it, dished it, stressed it, and crossed my fingers (not 3-cross). I had a week to try it out. In the 100 miles I rode that week, it seemed to be holding. The test would be when I loaded it up. (I had also built the front wheel using a Novatech dynamo hub and an old rim I had lying around, but I wasn't worried about it, since it was already two years old and had never had a problem. Besides, front wheels don't work as hard as rear wheels, nor do they have the asymmetrical stresses caused by dishing.)

Bikes and gear before loading.

I threw my bike and gear into the van on a Friday, drove over the top of Lake Michigan and down to Milwaukee (longer but infinitely worth it for avoiding Chicago), slept in Jon's basement, then, at the crack of dawn, we were off. Six hours to the St. Louis area (Hartford, IL, on the other side of the Mississippi, where Louis and Clark started, I guess). By 3:00 we were ready to go. We hoped to go 30 miles this first partial day.

We would be following the Adventure Cycling Lewis and Clark route these first two days, along the river north to the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers before crossing into Missouri and following the Katy Trail.

The first flat tire of the trip

So that first day, we cruised along the river on a nice off-road bike path on top of the levies as far as Alton, at which point the path follows Route 100. Jon had his first flat tire on this stretch. 

Although he had three flat tires in three days, making us worry that it would be a daily annoyance for the whole trip, they did eventually stop. Flat tires are demoralizing. Not particularly problematic or time-consuming, but demoralizing. Jon's second flat tire happened just as we were starting on the second day, and his third flat tire happened at the top of a huge hill on the third day. There's never a good time for a flat, but both of those were particularly bad times.

The first night we camped in Pere Marquette State Park, which is, technically, on the Illinois River. As with most state parks, this one was quite pleasant and had showers, our big requirement. We had eaten dinner at an ice cream stand in Grafton, so the lack of grocery and restaurant didn't bother us. In general, that was our model: We looked ahead to where we'd be stopping, found the last place prior to our destination that had restaurants or groceries, and stocked up or ate there. Some nights, that meant actually buying dinner. Other nights, we bought canned beans (or their equivalent) to cook on our little alcohol stoves. Even canned beans taste good at the end of a day of riding. There's no point in trying to cook an actual meal starting with fresh wholesome ingredients. It's a giant hassle, the ingredients often cost more than a restaurant would, we can't really buy perishables if we are going to carry them any distance, our catfood can alchohol stoves aren't good for much more than boiling water and warming beans, and there's usually something left over at the end of the meal, which must be thrown out. So canned beans and ramen noodles for us. In the mornings, I always boiled water for instant "coffee," and we often had instant oatmeal if it looked like there would be nothing close for breakfast.

The free ferry across the Illinois River

The next day, Day 2, got off to a slow start thanks to Jon's flat after a half-mile. The Lewis and Clark route took us to a ferry across the Illinois River (free) and, after a bit of winding around on the peninsula between rivers, another ferry across the Mississippi (not free). At this point, we were heading south-east, a bit discouraging on a trip that needs to go north-west. We would continue southwest the rest of the day, first on roads into St. Charles, MO, and then on the Katy Trail.

In St. Charles we got a bit lost, thanks to not reading the route guide very carefully. These route guides are very good, very detailed, and (mostly) very right. They contain all the information one needs to find one's way, but you need to pay careful attention. On normal maps, you can "sort of" read them and fill in the gaps and get where you're going. On the route guides, you must notice every mark, every road, every street name. We didn't, so we went astray. Rather than roaming aimlessly around St. Charles, we retraced our steps several miles (very discouraging) and tried again. The second time worked, and it took us through a lovely commercial district that had a Walgreen's, where I got a battery for my odometer (very important when using the route guides).

The Katy Trail, west of St. Charles

At this point we joined the Katy trail for the rest of day 2, and the first part of day 3, traveling in exactly the wrong direction. But we were committed to following the route guides, so southwest we went. In retrospect, we could have set off on our own up the Illinois shore and done just fine (and taken several days off the trip and avoided some huge hills), but it was interesting to follow the route guides. I'll reflect on the differences between ad-libbing and following route guides later. When you're following a route guide, it feels scary to consider going off the route. In fact, we did better in many ways after we left the route.

Until this point, I hadn't had a copy of the route guide (Lewis and Clark, section 1). It wasn't a big deal, but it made me feel a tad disoriented, not knowing exactly where we were headed. The beauty of the route guides is that both riders always have exactly the same information; one can say to the other, "The guide says we turn in 3.7 miles," meaning, We don't need to think for the next 3.7 miles. Or argue, as the case may be. (Not that we argue that much about routes, but having the route guide as ultimate authority pretty much eliminates disagreement.) I tend to be bossy about routes, and the route guide helps prevent that. Instead of unilaterally announcing, "We're going THIS way!" I can announce, "The route guide says we go THIS way!" There's no arguing with that.  Once we hit the Katy trail, we entered the Great Rivers route guide, which we both had.

 We camped our second night at Klondike County Park, just short of Augusta. It was a lovely, brand new little park. The shower building even had a camp kitchen in it. We were told that it was completely full the night before (Saturday). On this Sunday night, however, it was mostly empty. Because we hadn't read the route guide carefully, we rode past this campground on our way to Augusta (where we had indifferent burgers and brats in an odd outdoor beer grotto restaurant), which left us the unpleasant prospect of retracing our steps yet again. For such a nice little campground, it was worth it. It was either that or forge ahead to Marthasville and Choo Choo's Custard and Camping . . . sorely tempting, but it was still 12 miles, and who knew if it was open or what it would be like.

Klondike County Park

The third day was the nicest so far. It started on the Katy Trail (which is interesting, but not what I'd call beautiful), but at Marthasville we turned north onto roads. The climb out of the Missouri River valley was brutal (made more so by Jon's dispiriting flat tire that came shortly after he crested the summit), but we then seemed to be on higher ground, with gently rolling hills and horse farms. This was beautiful biking. Little traffic, lovely scenery. It steadily heated up during the day on this, the first of a nearly week-long stretch of hot days. In Troy, we found the franchise strip with help from my GPS girlfriend, Mrs. TomTom, and settled in to the heavily air-conditioned Dairy Queen to wait out a torrential rain squall. Good timing.

Abandoned farmhouse on County O

This was an interesting segment of the route. First, after Wright City we were put on a dirt road; this, even though Adventure Cycling brags about how well they avoid dirt roads. I sort of like dirt roads (usually they're peaceful and, as long as they aren't covered with loose gravel or sand, or washboards, they're usually very rideable), so this routing didn't bother me. The route guide explained that the traffic is so bad on the paved alternative, that the dirt is worth it. I agree. I liked it.

But one choice that the route guide made on this segment was, flat-out, a catastrophe. After Troy, the route follows state highway 47 for 3.5 miles. The first three miles had a good shoulder, so despite the heavy traffic it was fine. But the last half-mile was a nightmare. The worst segment on the route. We had the bad fortune to hit it at rush hour (I guess, at least as much as Troy gets), and it was a steady stream of pick-up trucks driving very fast. The road had absolutely no shoulder--just a drop-off to a soft shoulder, and the traffic was steady in both directions, so we couldn't count on traffic being able to swing wide around us. I ended up riding on the soft shoulder, which quickly grew old. A half mile is a long way when you're doing that kind of riding on a loaded bike. 

It was a great relief to get off the state highway when we entered Cuivre River State Park. The route guide was a little unclear where the campground was . . . at least, at the time it seemed unclear: once we found it, the directions made sense. But because we were entering through the unofficial back entrance to the campground, there were no signs. It was later explained to us that this back entrance was instead of the very hilly front entrance, which made me stop complaining. (And the back entrance came after some not insignificant hills. After the terrible Route 47 trauma, we weren't in the mood for any more hills than we got.)

Cuivre River State Park, MO

Cuivre River State Park was nice. A classic state park. We had bought canned beans and ramen noodles, etc, in Troy, so we set up our tents and cooked a gourmet dinner on our little alcohol stoves. It was a perfect dinner. I had Bush's Mexican style black beans. A bit salty, but good. I cut up summer sausage into it (making it still saltier).

Day 4 was much like Day 3. Beautiful rolling countryside, lightly traveled roads, lots of horse farms. The hills got bigger as we approached Clarksville and the river, which we hadn't seen since before St. Charles. If we hadn't followed the route guide and the Katy Trail, we would have reached Clarksville on the second or third day. Worth the detour? We weren't in a hurry and the riding was lovely (if a bit hilly), so yes, it was worth the detour, I guess. Had we taken the direct route, we would have avoided hills, but we also might have found ourselves on Route 47 for 10 miles. That would have been alarming.

The view from Henderson Riverfront Park, where we  weren't allowed to camp.

Once we reached Clarksville, we were tired from the hills on County W (although it was beautiful). The route guide said there were restaurants and groceries in Clarksville. Make that a restaurant and a convenience store. I guess that counts as groceries. So we had a late lunch and aimed for Louisiana (Missouri, that is), which had, supposedly, camping in a city park. When we arrived, we searched low and high for said park. We eventually found it, high above the river in a nice neighborhood. They allow camping here? I asked myself delightedly. Well . . . not quite. The route guide didn't quite get it right. When we asked at the police station (as per the route guide) they said, and I quote: "Huh? Hell no, you can't camp there. But you can camp down south of the boat ramp. Just go down past the waste pipe that is spewing toxic effluent into the river. You'll be cozy there." Actually, they didn't mention the pipe or the effluent. Now, I can't prove that it was a former toxic waste site, nor do I know what the foul-smelling effluent was. I just knew I didn't want to camp there.

River's Edge Motel, Louisiana, MO

So off we went to the River's Edge Motel. And guess what? It was right on the river's edge. And it was quite nice. And it had THREE convenience stores next door and across the street. And Louisiana had a restaurant with a good salad bar and a pizza special: Giant pizza with everything on it for $12. Which we couldn't even come close to eating after the good salad bar. We don't got no sense.

But staying in a motel once a week or so is just a nice thing to do. Nothing to be ashamed of. Now ordering that huge pizza . . .

The next day held the promise of hills. We had been warned by several people that the stretch from Louisiana to Hannibal was hilly, so we were apprehensive. But the first 15 miles were absolutely perfect riding, mostly through a river valley, lovely hills on both sides. Easy. We took a break at the foot of the first hill, hoping that perhaps it was the only hill. It wasn't. These were significant hills, one after another, all the way to Hannibal. Not as big as the hill coming out of the Missouri River valley, but big and numerous. Each one had a lovely scenic turnout looking out over the sweep of the Mississippi and into Illinois. We would have happily done with less scenery and more flat, but we tried to enjoy each view as it came along.

A scenic pullout south of Hannibal

When we rolled into Hannibal, we were pretty tired. After a long long downhill to Ilasco and the river, which I thought was, perhaps, the end of the hills, the final payoff, there was one final hill before we reached the city. Annoying. Once in Hannibal, we took a good break. We found a nice little coffee shop in the historic district (surprisingly not called "Mark Twain Joe Shop" or "Becky's Brew" or "A Cuppa Huck" but, instead, Java Jive--what does that have to do with Mark Twain?). We were both impressed with the quality of the wait staff. We spent more than an hour there, recharging electronic doo-dads, drinking coffee, eating sandwiches.

The route guide said that we need to ride on the freeway to cross the river back into Illinois. This was unusual, but I trusted that it was correct. I was completely reassured when I saw the bike route signs pointing up the on-ramp. We crossed over from the hilly western shore to the flat flat flat eastern shore. We saw few hills from this point until northern Illinois, five days later. I like hills, and I don't mind slogging through them, but I also like total flatness, particularly when there's a bit of a tail wind.

Crossing back into IL on the freeway

We rolled through Quincy (a bit of a rundown city) and found our private campground (a former KOA, renamed Valley View, renamed Driftwood, under a new owner) on the north side. As with KOAs, this campground was adequate, with showers, a pool, electric outlets on the main building where we charged our doo-dads.

Unlike a KOA, there was no camp store where we could buy Beef-A-Roni for our dinner, so we biked back to town and had a very mediocre meal at a biker bar. It was $1 long-neck night, so I had a few. "We have all domestic beers," the waitress said proudly. "How about Miller?" I asked. "Nope." How about Coors?" "Nope." "What do you have?" "Bud Light." "How about regular Bud?" "We have that, too!" That's what I had. Jon and I had fried fish; they looked like catcher's mitts with a little hamburger bun stock in with a toothpick to add class. Not our best meal, but anything tastes good after a hot day of riding through hills.

Houses on stilts along the river north of Quincy

The route guide had us staying on the Illinois side for another two days before crossing the river into Iowa. But we started getting the feeling that this was not what we wanted to do. First, we liked the flat Illinois side. And we were having trouble seeing campgrounds that were spaced adequately in Iowa, whereas there were plenty of them in Illinois. We had two days to decide. First, we headed to Nauvoo, that Mormon mecca, full of tour buses of the faithful coming to visit the big new temple and see where Joseph Smith met his end.

Nauvoo State Park was one of the more unusual campgrounds I have ever stayed in. It didn't seem to have sites, at least not the tent area. Just a tree-covered hillside sprinkled with picnic tables. We had heard from other bikers that there were no rangers to collect camping fees (which only came to $8, I think), and that proved to be true. Very nice new bathhouse, pleasant enough park. But odd. We set up on the empty hillside, cooked our canned beans and ramen noodles, took showers, went to bed at 10:00, as usual. We had this corner of the campground to ourselves.

Our "site" in Nauvoo State Park

But when I looked out of my tent in the morning, I beheld a strange sight. The hillside was covered with people sleeping in sleeping bags and under blankets, and there was a white bus, a repainted school bus, parked next to the tent area. The bus had Idaho plates and was covered with slogans about the virtues of farming and general cheery remarks. ("Hi!" said the swing-out former stop sign on the driver's side.) And as I watched, a man in blue jeans and flannel shirt walked over to the bus, sat down on a picnic table, and commenced reading something, as if he were waiting for the others to get up. And when they did, it turned out there were children, boys and girls, infants through late teens, and some older women, but no older men other than the fellow reading by the bus. And the girls and women all had their long hair in braids, and they were all wearing long 19th-century denim farm-wife dresses.

My first guess, upon seeing the bus, was that these weref 21st-century hippies. But when everyone started stirring, it was clear that this was wrong. The truth of who and what these people probably were was a bit creepy. Jon, of course, went over and tried to strike up a conversation, but didn't have a lot of success. They weren't very chatty.

This was to be our day of decisions. To follow the route guides and cross over into Iowa and leave the river? Or to stay in Illinois and continue along the eastern shore? (It sounds like we were deciding between going to Minas Tirith or going to Mordor.) The Illinois route had a lot going for it, except for the small detail of getting through the Quad Cities, which really looked sprawling and impossible to go around in a reasonable fashion.

River bottom land in Illinois

We rode the beautiful (flat) farm roads to Dallas City, followed the main highway along the river to Lomax, and continued on past Carman and finally reached the point of no return: Either we would turn left at US-34 and cross over into Iowa, or we would turn right and continue up the Illinois side of the river.

We turned right. For two miles, we wished we hadn't. The east-west roads, particularly the major US highways, are busy. Very busy. Loaded with trucks going between Illinois and Iowa using the few bridges across the river. And narrow. No shoulder. We hurried, we ignored the horns, we tried not to get squashed flat, and we breathed a sigh of relief when we could turn left and leave US-34 behind. We had made our choice. It would be smooth sailing until the Quad Cities. But then what? I figured there had to be a way to get through. It would be on a Sunday morning. If we went early enough, we could probably use major streets.

Dallas City, IL

At this point, we were off the route guides, relying, instead, on Illinois state maps. Although this may seem reckless, with a GPS unit as a backup it works quite well. All the small grey roads on the state map are paved (with one exception that we found the next day), and usually they are (relatively) lightly traveled. With the GPS, it's possible to figure out what they're called and where to turn. (Note that the GPS unit can't be on all the time as in a car, since the battery would run out. So having a GPS that turns on and acquires satellites quickly is very helpful. I have found that my small TomTom works well for this, while my Garmin is much less useful.)

So we worked our way up the small grey and black roads to Oquawka (who knew there was such a town? Says Wikipedia: "Within the city exists a memorial and grave marker to a circus elephant named Norma Jean, who perished on July 17, 1972 after being struck by lightning. The pachyderm was attached to a small circus that performed in the city. Norma Jean was buried on the spot, and the circus, without its star attraction, closed within a year."). Anyway, in Oquawka we bought beans and ramen to take out to Delabar State Park, just north of town.

The route into Warsaw, IL

Usually, the rule of thumb is state park campground = showers; state forest campground = no showers. But north of Oquawka, the rule was turned on its head. Delabar State Park, a run-down, dingy excuse for a state park on the Mississippi, had no showers or flush toilets. Big River State Forest, just a few miles farther north, did have showers. But we didn't know, so we stayed at the state park, our only night without showers. Got chatted up by Ed and his sidekick (perhaps named Junior, perhaps not), who were there to drink beer, fish for catfish, drink more beer, and get away from Ed's bitchy wife (although she joined them later). Nice enough guys. Very chatty. I was glad for my earplugs, because they were noisy at night.

Thanks to Mrs. TomTom, we knew that there was a KOA just south of Rock Island, which would position us nicely for the Quad Cities on Sunday morning. We followed gray roads north and east, encountering a few rolling hills and a smidge of dirt road, but otherwise the riding was OK. Hot, but OK. The KOA was a KOA, which is good and bad. Good because it had really nice showers, laundry, air-conditioned main building, and pool (which I gratefully sank into). Bad because the sites are packed in cheek to jowl, with rocks on the camp drive which make lots of noise as people come and go at all hours. Still, it was fine. We rode into the commercial district and had an awful dinner at KFC. We rode right past a little diner to get there. I'm ashamed, because Jon saw it, but I was so far ahead that he couldn't get my attention. So awful overpriced KFC was our fare.

Great River Trail in Rock Island, IL

In the KOA laundry room (where I sat to read my book and enjoy the air conditioning), there was a "Discover the Quad Cities" brochure. I thought, You don't suppose they have information about biking, do you? They did! Turns out there's a paved bike trail that runs the entire width of Rockford and Moline along the river. In fact, the Rock Island Trail, which becomes the Great River Trail (which consists of both separate paths and signed routes on roads) stretches all the way to Mississippi Palisades State Park, 77 miles away and our ultimate destination for the day. Suddenly, getting through the Quad Cities AND making it to the state park 77 miles away seemed possible. Bike path along the river, with a predicted 20 mph tail wind, and no hills. Definitely possible, even in the heat (which was in the 90s).

The riding was easy and nice. The paved trail was delightful (stretching all the way though Rock Island and Moline, and extending quite a few miles north of Moline), and the segments on the roads were clearly marked with relatively little traffic. This was the most we had ridden along the Mississippi during the trip. We followed the river quite closely most of this day, dipping inland occasionally, but always returning to the river. By Savanna, we were tired and ready for dinner, which we ate at Shivers Ice Cream Shoppe.

Palisades State Park was north of town, with the campground nestled into a break in the rocky bluffs (the palisades). When we rolled in, the ranger at the entrance station said, "You must be the last ones!" To which we said, "Huh?" It seems that there was an organized bike tour staying in the campground that night, put on by the League of Illinois Bicyclists. Because it was their first night, they didn't know each other (or us), so they figured we were with them. (There were more than a hundred of them, I think.) We could have marched in to the food tent and helped ourselves to dinner.

We chose a site that was fairly far away from the tour group. They gave us many glances askance as they passed on the way to the bath house, but no one stopped by to say hello. Our theory is that they thought we were renegade members of their group, wanting our privacy (since they didn't know each other yet, they didn't know us, either). In the morning, once they figured out that we weren't with them, there was a steady stream of people stopping by. I don't think we were strutting around as the self-contained bike touring experts, the middle-aged supermen riding from the St. Louis to Milwaukee, since, let's face, it's not that big an accomplishment, but we were happy to chat and learn about their tour and tell them about ours. (Ours seemed more fun. I have never been attracted to big group biking events.)

We had our first (and only) rain of the trip that morning. An hour or so before I usually got up, the heavens opened and dumped for an hour, complete with lightning and thunder. My tent didn't drip, thanks to the seam sealing I had done on the rain fly, but the floor did leak. (The fact that we were camped in a low spot that became a big puddle certainly didn't help.) All the water pooled at my feet, under my air mattress, so nothing important got wet. And, since this was likely to be our last night of camping, even a wet sleeping bag wouldn't have been a big problem. Still, it's aggravating to have a tent leak. (This was an inferior tent in that way. There were big seams across the floor, and along the edges, instead of a wrap-around "bathtub" floor. When I returned home, I emptied several tubes of seam sealer on the floor seams.)

Our goal this day,  number 10, was Monroe, WI, 57 miles away, within the acceptable daily distance. We had been spoiled by flat river bottom and strong tailwinds. We knew that would change when we turned inland. We were leaving the Mississippi at Savanna rather than continuing up to Dubuque because we wanted to avoid Lafayette County in Wisconsin, which is notorious for serious hills. We knew we'd hit some hills as we angled up to Monroe, but we hoped to miss the worst of them.

We got off to a bad start. Jon blames me. I blame Mrs. Tomtom, who found us the road leading out of the Mississippi valley that turned out to be dirt. I don't mind dirt, and I didn't mind most of this road. (Jon minded all of it MUCH more than I did.) But when it turned more or less straight up, even I got a bit grumpy. In fact, I walked my bike up the worst of it, which is quite unlike me.

This was a bad start to the day. Jon was more than grumpy. But you know, I had no way of knowing this was a dirt road. I thought it was one of the grey roads on the state map, which are never dirt. (It wasn't the grey road on the map, as it turns out; that one started south of the campground, as I would have figured out if I had looked more carefully.) Mrs. Tomtom doesn't distinguish between dirt and paved roads. It just looked like a nifty way to get over the "palisades."

Northeast IL, near Stockton

In any case, once we got up onto the ridge road, the riding was quite lovely. (I think Jon was still too mad at me to appreciate it.) The ridge lasted quite a few miles, so we didn't have serious hills for while.This was lovely country--rolling hills, long vistas. We were following the grey roads on the state map, with the help of Mrs. Tomtom, and mostly it worked as planned. We found paved roads with light traffic that went where we needed them to. At one point, after Stockton, we followed a road that was not on the state map, but that Mrs. Tomtom showed to run parallel to the state highway, which we were inclined to avoid. All went well until . . . more dirt. Ugh. Once we got back on the state highway, we realized that we would have been fine on it right along; but avoiding state highways is good policy, the odds favor it, in general, like putting in a left-handed batter against a left-handed pitcher, so I didn't really regret the alternate route.

When we got to Wisconsin, we hit the Badger State Trail, one of the state's numerous rail-trail conversions. It would take us the last seven miles into Monroe. As usual, I had a love-hate thing going with this packed stone-dust trail: I loved its flatness and absence of traffic. I hated its slowness and lack of interesting things to see. The tentative plan was to follow this trail all the way to Madison, after Monroe, but this would put us an awkward distance for the last two days: 70 miles or so from Madison to Jon's house, with no good campgrounds on the route. The logical place to state was at my in-laws lake house in Lake Mills, but it would be a push.

Because there were no campgrounds near our route within striking distance, we decided to stay in a motel. (Two motels on a nearly two-week trip isn't too bad for a couple of old farts.) Monroe had a very nice Super 8 (my wife is skeptical: a "very nice Super 8"? Seems unlikely. But it WAS very nice. I'd stay there, or in another Super 8, again.) I had the pool and whirlpool to myself. And this one had the added advantage of being close to franchise restaurant paradise. So we had dinner at Culver's and late dinner at McDonald's.

And then it was decision time again: Take a short day on the trail to Madison, followed by a very short day to Lake Mills, setting up the final day of 57 miles or so? Or do a medium day to Lake Mills, skipping Madison and cutting out a day? We opted for the latter. We'd be following the very very good Wisconsin state bicycle map, so figuring the best route was easy. We took the trail for about 20 miles (which included a fantastic DARK tunnel that required lights!), and then turned east on pretty (rolling) county roads. Lunch in Stoughton in our favorite kind of little local restaurant. We ended the day on the Glacial Drumlin Trail (which I have ridden many times). We were given a hero's welcome by my father-in-law, Phil. Dinner in town. (Phil bragged about us to the waitress; we just said Aw shucks twarn't nuthin, which is mostly true.)

Jon emerging from the tunnel on the Badger State Trail

The final day would be all trail, specifically the Glacial Drumlin Trail for 40 miles, followed by community trails in Waukesha, New Berlin, and Wauwatosa. Luckily, only the first 20 miles were stone dust. All the rest of the trails this day were paved. Considering how draggy we were, this made a big difference. We rolled in to Jon's driveway about 3:00. I loaded up my bike, jumped in the car, and headed back to Michigan. Trip over.

Final Thoughts:
1. Although the daily mileage was shorter than I would have done by myself, it was pleasant not to be totally exhausted at the end of the day. When I go 70 miles, the last 10-15 miles of the day are usually pretty hard. Lopping those miles off makes a big difference.

2. It's worth carrying cooking gear, but it's not worth trying to do real cooking. Heating up beans and ramen noodles was fine. Boiling water for instant coffee in the morning was also fine. Making a souffle would have been less fine. And on a bike, buying and carrying excessively heavy canned goods for one meal is OK for a few miles. I don't feel the need to carry freeze-dried beef stroganoff, as if I were backpacking, nor would I want to fill up my bags with freeze-dried food for more than a meal or two, even if it weren't so expensive.

3. Route guides are nice, but they change the nature of the experience. They make it possible to travel through a region without really knowing where you are, because you never look at a big, normally oriented map. All you see are the skinny slices of the route, twisted every which way to make them fit on the page. It's not hard to get used to reading them, even with north sometimes pointing downward to the left, but it does change the way you picture the geography of the place. For those of us who love maps, this does make a difference.

The two panels below, from the Great Rivers South guide, illustrate what I mean. To read the top panel, it is necessary to notice that north points down and left. (At least I find it necessary to know that.) So the northbound route is, on this map, going mostly east in the top panel (even though it's pointing up). On the bottom panel, north is now to the left and slightly upward, and the route now goes primarily north. Notice that the maps contain mileages between dots, and stars where the written instructions contain an event (also marked with a star). So you can track your miles by the numbers on the map, or by the relative distance between the stars. It is mostly possible to do without the written instructions; the map is detailed enough. But once I got used to the written instructions, I found myself following them quite obsessively. I was constantly subtracting the mileages in the the instructions from each other, in order to figure out how far to the next event.
After a while, the thought of riding without a route guide is scary, since the guide feeds you every turn, every road name, every distance. (Notice my mark on the lower panel showing a mistaken location for Marcelline. These maps had very very few such mistakes.

4. Once we left the route guide, it worked very well to use a plain state map (I had both the official Illinois state highway map and another that I bought in a gas station) and a GPS unit for reference. I was worried that not having county maps in Illinois would be a problem, but it really wasn't. Staying on the gray (mostly county) highways shown on the state map worked fine.

Although I could get a converter that would allow me to connect the TomTom to my generator hub so that the GPS was on all the time, I don't think I'd like it. Or would I? Hm.

5. My saddle sore problem (as if anyone wanted to hear about that) was not an issue thanks to (a) a "memory foam" saddle cover on my B. 17 saddle, and (b) my J&G loose biking shorts with the fleece liner. Enough said. I was grateful.

And the next tour? Good question. Taking two weeks is disruptive to the family schedule. I think in the future I'll need to limit it to no more than a week. Perhaps I'll start the cross-country-one-week-at-a-time trip next summer. In the meantime, sub-24-hour overnighters will be the bike "tours" of choice.

Velocity Synergy Rims—The Final Chapter

In a fitting conclusion to a sad story of defective rims, which weren't quite the size they said they were, here's how my four-year-old Synergy rear rim ended up. Normal daily commuting use (carrying perhaps a 10-lb bag on the rear rack plus my 175 lbs). I'll send the rims to Velocity to see what they say. I never got around to showing them these rims, which were smaller than 700C, even though Velocity offered to look at them. See my previous post here.

Bicycling in Brasilia! Not.

We're in Brasilia (Brazil, that is) for a week, doing music education consulting. It's summer here, biking season. My original thought was to load the Bike Friday into its suitcase and bring it along, but after reading a little about biking (and walking) in Brasilia, I decided against it. I'm glad I did.

It would have been possible to ride here (in Brasilia), but really unpleasant. The city is organized around two axes, both of which have a many-lane road connected to other roads by clover-leafs. There would be no happy way to get from our hotel (roughly at the intersection of the axes) to anywhere a person would like to bike. I suppose I could have putzed around some of the smaller side streets (or taken my chances on the busy arteries), but I prefer to walk if all I'm doing is exploring. (Walking is a bit of a challenge here, too. There are few official cross walks and pedestrian traffic signals. It involves lots of dodging cars while jay-walking across 8-lane roads.)

I have seen very few bikes in town. There were some people riding on the main highway out of town to the north, but it was basically a freeway. Not a lot of fun, and not easy to get to from here, anyway.

I don't mind the city; it's nice enough, as inland cities go. The architecture of the federal buildings is spectacular. It's just not very good for biking.

Biking in Richmond, VA

This weekend I went to Richmond, VA, for a conference. I had to give a paper, so it wasn't just a bike trip, but it was the biking that I looked forward to.

My original plan was to load the Bike Friday AND its trailer hardware into the suitcase and ride from the airport to the hotel (which looked like it was doable, about nine miles). But I didn't have time to practice loading the suitcase, and as I was doing it at midnight the night before, I couldn't figure out how to get the trailer wheels to fit. So I gave up.

As it turns out, it was pouring rain and getting dark when I arrived, so riding in wouldn't have been a good option then. But returning to the airport? Ach. It would have been perfect. I rode the route on Saturday. Easy. It would have saved me the $35 cab fare, more than paying for one checked bag fee.

But the riding in Richmond was nice. I went for two short rides on the south side of the James River (on US Bicycle Route 1), which was lovely: winding roads, beautiful views of the river and the houses overlooking the river, no traffic.

On Saturday, I went 43 miles, into the flatlands to the southeast. I visited a view battlefield sites, and made a big loop (down Osborne Turnpike, out Kingland Rd, then Long Bridge Rd, returning on Charles City Rd, dropping down at the airport to Darbytown Rd.

On Sunday, I went west, out Carey Rd, intending to ride on River Rd, on the north side of the river, but I accidentally found myself crossing the river on Huguenot Rd (a miserable stretch of riding). Once on the south side, I jumped onto USBR 1 and rode along the river to Old Gun Rd (and then a little more). Back all the way on USBR 1. Absolutely beautiful. Some of the nicest biking of the year.

Again, the Bike Friday was a dream. Checked through as a regular suitcase with nary a raised eyebrow. Very fun to ride. Well worth the $50 bag check fees.

New World Tourist, Progress Report

I have had the Bike Friday NWT for four warm months, and I'm happy to say that it is filling its niche perfectly. I have put nearly 1000 miles on it; I have taken it on a flying trip in its suitcase; I have taken it on a driving trip folded up in the trunk; I have toured with it (twice); and I have found other spontaneous uses for it.

By the shores of Torch Lake.VO front bag; Banjo Bros seat bag.

First the tours. In June, I loaded up the trailer, hooked it up to the NWT, and set off on an overnight to Barnes Park, on the north end of Torch Lake. I rode 85 miles out and 75 miles back. I really wanted to test it out, to see if I could imagine flying off somewhere, unpacking the bike, setting up the trailer, and going on tour.

I'm happy to report that I can imagine it. That first two-day trip was fine. Towing the trailer is a little odd, but then so is riding with full panniers. Mostly, it was no big deal. I quickly stopped noticing it was there.

Then in July I rode the NWT/trailer combo down to Ludington (90 miles), where I met Jon coming across on the ferry. Over the next three days, he and I rode on the diagonal up to Cheboygan (that's in Michigan), where we caught the ferry to Bois Blanc Island to stay with Jon's in-laws. Again, the trailer was fine. It slowed me down a little, but not that much. It certainly didn't feel a lot harder to ride with the trailer. Now, the trailer was not stuffed full (but then, I like to tour light), so it easily could have weighed twice as much. But it's possible to overpack panniers, too.

One nice benefit of having the trailer is that it's racoon-, squirrel-, and gull-proof, so we could store food in it. Not bear-proof, by any means, but we weren't camping around bears on this trip. (In fact, a bear would tear it absolutely to shreds. Must remember not to leave food in it when in bear country.)

So I can safely say that the trailer works great. Rolls smoothly, handles well even at high speed (I had it up to 30 mph with nary a twitch), and it's really convenient at the camp site.

The portability and rideability of the NWT make it perfect for spontaneous bring-alongs. When I go somewhere overnight and don't want to rig up the car rack, but I do want to bring my bike, I can just throw it in the back of the car. Today, Cindy was flying back from out east, and I thought it would be fun to meet her at the airport, where she had left her car. So I hopped on my NWT and rode the 33 miles, up hills and down (averaging 15 mph, which isn't bad for a pleasure ride), found her car, and popped the bike in. She was surprised to see me.

The fact that the bike is so much fun to ride (admittedly less fun than my Rambouillet, but then, that's the perfect bike), means that I don't hesitate to ride it like a real bike. I don't feel like I'm compromising by riding it. I have been surprised at how stable it is: despite the slightly twitchy steering, it tracks perfectly while being ridden no-handed, even at 20+ mph. And because the measurements were according to my specifications, it is, in many ways, my most comfortable bike over long hauls. The handlebars are exactly where I like them.

All in all, I'm very pleased. Highly recommended.

Fenders

Fenders are a good thing. No doubt about it. I have them on all my bikes. HOWEVER, I must add a caveat.

While we were riding the GAP Trail, Cindy and I both picked up sticks between our fenders and tires. In both cases, the sticks got caught enough to pop the quick-release mechanism on the fender spars. (I had added QRs to Cindy's fenders before this trip.) In Cindy's case, the stick stayed wedged, and it actually caused the fender to fold  until it was completely doubled under. Because it's plastic reinforced with metal, it didn't break, and it was bend-backable. However, I didn't remount it. What if it had happened on the 24-mile downhill while we were going 15 mph? I left the fender off the rest of the trip. When I remount it, I'm going to be sure there is at least 1/2" (maybe more) between the fender and the tire.

We have picked up sticks this way both trips. It seems to happen only on the soft surface, perhaps because the tires are stickier.

Good Roads Movement

In researching the early national roads (Dixie Highway, Lincoln Road, etc), I was delighted to discover that bicyclists were largely responsible for the first significant improvements made to intercity roads in the U.S., in what is called the "Good Roads Movement." Immediately before automobiles made their entry onto the transportation stage at the end of the 19th century, bicycles were the modern wheeled wonders, and bicyclists wanted better roads. We bicyclists are history makers.

Great Allegheny Passage Trail, May 9-12, 2011

Let me just get this out of the way at the beginning: The Great Allegheny Passage bike trail is a national treasure. Although I have not ridden every long-distance bike trail in the country, I feel confident in proclaiming the GAP trail, quite simply, the best. I can imagine none better. The Erie Canalway Trail was interesting, but it is in a different league from the GAP. Other longish trails are nice, I'm sure, both beautiful and well maintained, but none can possible compare to the 135 gorgeous miles of the GAP.

Anyway, on with the trip. More praise at the end.

The intrepid reader (all one of you) will recall that last summer my wife of 25 years (as of day two of that trip) and I rode from Buffalo to Seneca Falls, mostly by way of the Erie Canalway Trail. We rode the longest continuous off-road segment between Lockport and Newark (85 miles), then on- and off-road segments at the beginning and end.

The intrepid reader will recall that we had fun, despite stiff headwinds, March-like temperatures, and, of course, rain. But we were ready for a better experience. That trip and this trip were done in-transit to picking our son up at college in Philadelphia. Both years, we finished our own teaching, frantically graded tests and papers, assigned grades, and leapt in the car to drive far enough to make it possible to ride on Monday-Thursday, before picking the son up on Friday.

This year, the logical trail to try was the Great Allegheny Passage, which runs continuously from Cumberland, MD, to just south of Pittsburgh (soon to be all the way to Pittsburgh). A former rail route, the GAP was reputed to be well-maintained, very scenic, with ample places to stay and dine along the route. Because the Pittsburgh segment is not quite done, we chose to make the northern terminus in or near McKeesport.

The original plan was to end there. In fact, here is the complete original plan. (Do not pay particularly close attention to this, because it changed at the last minute.)

Turn in grades on Saturday, jump in the car on the Saturday evening, drive to, oh, say, Cleveland. Sunday, drive to McKeesport (remember: just south of Pittsburgh), pick up a U-Haul truck. Park the car in McKeesport (where? That was something that needed figuring out), load the bikes into the U-Haul, drive to Cumberland, turn in the U-Haul, spend Sunday night in Cumberland, and begin riding north on Monday. First night, Meyersdale, second night, Ohiopyle, third night Perryopolis, reunite with the car on Thursday. Luckily, that plan did not come to pass. Why luckily? That first day would have been a problem. Stay tuned for the reason.

Instead, here's what we really did: Turn grades in on Saturday, take a bunch of deep breaths, start thinking about packing, load the car on Sunday, read the papers, have a leisurely lunch, leave for Pittsburgh Sunday afternoon. We even had dinner with our son Sam in Ohio on the way. We stayed in a nice Hyatt Place hotel near the Pittsburgh Airport.

And here's where the plan changed dramatically. Rather than leave our car, rent a truck, drive to Maryland and bike back, we reversed it. We left our car and biked south, having reserved a truck in Maryland to drive back to our car.

And where did we leave our car? In reading blogs and discussion groups, it became clear that the best place to leave the car was in the Boston (that's PA) trailhead lot, a few miles south of McKeesport. Free parking, patrolled by police. In fact, when I contacted the Allegheny Trail Alliance (the official umbrella organization of the GAP), the nice woman gave me an email address of someone who would let the police know that the Michigan van was legit.

So that's what we did. No exhausting driving back and forth to position cars prior to the trip. Just park and go.

So there we were, on the trail again after exactly one year. For the gear-heads out there (well, considering the odd gear, I don't suppose real gear-heads would care), but here's how we were outfitted:

Same bikes: 27-year-old Trek 620 with, basically, no original parts other than the cranks and the rear brakes (700C wheels outfitted with 38mm Kenda Qwik Roller tires; full fenders, front and rear racks with Wald baskets, Rivendell shop sacks in each basket, clamp-on handlebar bag, trekking handlebars mounted on a high stem + extension), and a cheap Trek women's hybrid, which, although costing less than $400, has been a completely adequate bike. Cindy's bike had 37 mm tires and a rear rack with a large rack trunk.

Both bikes had full fenders. Interestingly, our only mechanical problems were with the fenders. On the first day, both Cindy's and my front fenders were missing a nut, causing rubbing and annoyance. Nothing that zip ties couldn't fix. But there were more serious fender problems, which I will discuss in a separate post. The official Riv-ish love of fenders has an important caveat.

One last gear comment: The Rivendell shop sacks in baskets are, ahem, a unique way of carrying gear, but it works beautifully. The baskets and racks are completely rigid, so there's little swaying, even though the gear is up high, and the Riv sacks can simply be popped out of the basket and carried in to the inn or B and B at the end of the day. A large and a small Shop Sack (plus Cindy's rack trunk) carried all our clothes for four days.

Getting ready to go at the Boston trailhead

Anyway. We set off from the Boston trailhead at 11:00 or so, riding south along the west bank of the Youghiogheny River, which was to be our companion for nearly three days.  The weather was cool but not cold. I quickly switched to shorts and my normal summer long-sleeved shirt.

(About the weather: Although we had a nice time last year in the windy cold drizzle, we didn't really want to do it again. It has been a cold rainy spring, so we were watching the weather carefully the week before we were scheduled to ride. In fact, we didn't book any reservations until the Friday before we left, when we were sure that the weather was going to cooperate. As if to make up for last year, the weather this time was perfect: Four days of sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s. The last day was very warm at lower elevations, but we were at the high point of the trail, so it was delightfully cool. Despite a rainy spring, the trail surface was dry and firm, with only occasional ruts left from previous muddy rides; clearly, the trail handles rain well.)

Between Boston and Perryopolis

This initial stage of the trail was nice, if not spectacular. The river is very pleasant, wide and slow, lined with trees. We passed through scattered small communities (really, just groups of houses), crossed small roads now and then, and felt like we weren't far from civilization. The trail was in perfect condition: hard-packed stone dust, wide enough for two to ride abreast, with little center vegetation. We passed volunteers who were spraying vegetation along the trail to prevent encroachment; the trail is obviously well cared-for.

Rarely was the trail this primitive.

For the whole trip the CSX railroad tracks ran parallel to the trail on the opposite side of the river. Freight trains rumbled by at regular intervals. 

On this sunny Monday in mid-May, we saw quite a few people using the trail, particularly at the beginning, within 10 miles of the greater Pittsburgh area. Beyond 10 miles, the traffic thinned quite a lot. We didn't see any touring bikers at all this day. In general, the traffic on the trail seems to be quite light this time of year. Overall, we only saw a handful of through-riders going either direction. In the summer and fall, I think trail use is much heavier.

The first of many benches on which we rested.

We were only going 25 miles this first day, so there was no hurry. We stopped fairly often and sat on benches that appeared at regular intervals along the trail. (This proved to be true for the whole trail: There were always benches to sit on, with even an occasional covered picnic table.) The trail was basically flat, with little elevation gain. Although the trail gains nearly 1600 feet between Pittsburgh and its highest point south of Meyersdale, most of that happens in the seventy miles after Connellsville.)

I must say, I was lukewarm about the trail at this point. I had a headache, which the scenery and trail were not enough to make me forget. It was not much different from riding along the Erie Canal.

We were headed for Perryopolis, which is located just off the trail. It doesn't even show on the map as being a trail community. To get there, we had to push our bikes up a very steep hill and ride about a half mile. What we found was a tidy little town of small, well-maintained houses, a small downtown with a "wagon-wheel" layout (designed, the visitor is told many times, by George Washington, who once owned all the land on the which the town stands), and a healthy looking school complex filled with healthy looking students. The town doesn't offer much; we had to walk way down state route 51 to CoGo's gas station to buy a state map, but it seems like a nice little town.

The Inn at Lenora's in Perryopolis

Just off the the rim of the wagon wheel is Lenora's restaurant, which also has an inn attached, called, logically enough, The Inn at Lenora's, a name that doesn't make much sense if you don't know what Lenora's is. This was to be our favorite lodging of the three. A true inn, with nicely appointed rooms and a very good attached restaurant, this was quite a lovely place to stay. Lenora herself is the chef and hostess. We had a nice chat with her as we ate our tasty breakfast seated at the bar.

Day Two, Perryopolis to Ohiopyle, 31 miles

The day started with a lovely downhill run back to the river along a road different from the one we came in on. We almost got to go through a little tunnel until we discovered that the tunnel led to a bridge over the river—and, as a result, over the trail. Instead, we detoured around the small ridge through which the tunnel runs, descending down to the river's edge, where we found the trail. (Actually, I made a quick trip through the tunnel just to have a peek.)

The tunnel on the road from Perryopolis

The scenery improved dramatically on this second day. The first twelve miles to Connellsville were nice (much like the previous 25 miles had been). But starting in Connellsville, the trail follows the Youghiogheny up into Chestnut Ridge and the mountains proper. The river narrows, speeds up, and gets noisy. The river valley has steeper sides with frequent rock faces with small waterfalls tumbling down them.

Between Perryopolis and Connellsville.

Man towing a raft on a trailer north of Connellsville

The trail goes along city streets in Connellsville.

Connellsville is the last major city until Meyersdale, 58 miles away. We shopped at a nice grocery store right next to the trail, on the north side of town. The trail goes right through town, along city streets, before emerging into the suddenly beautiful Yough valley south of town. There was some evidence of soft trail conditions in the past (primarily tire and water flow ruts), but by the time we got there, the trail was hard and dry.

South of Connellsville, the start of truly spectacular scenery

We were only going 36 miles this day, so we again were in no hurry. We made it a point to stop often and enjoy the sights and sounds of the river rushing through its rocky bed.

We met a group of school children wearing shirts that read "Biking 34 Miles for Cystic Fibrosis." Obviously, they were Connellsville children biking the 17 miles to and from Ohiopyle. There were a lot of them. I was glad they weren't going our direction. It would have taken a while to pass them.

Looking upstream toward Ohiopyle

The rapids got bigger and bigger, and the country felt more and more rugged as we approached Ohiopyle. The approach to town from the north is announced by a pair of spectacular bridges over the Youghiogheny, which offer wonderful views up and down the river gorge. It's disorienting to ride into town from the north, because you pass over not one but two bridges, and when you get back alongside the river in town, it seems to be flowing in the wrong direction. This is because the first bridge puts you onto a peninsula formed by a large loop in the river. The second bridge puts you back on the side you started on (technically the west bank), but the river is to your west, and it has momentary doubled back on itself to flow south-ish.

The first Ohiopyle bridge

View from the first bridge

We arrived before the official check-in time to our guesthouse, so we hung out in the park next to the river, enjoying the rapids and waterfall in the warm spring sun. Ohiopyle is not much. Just a few shabby businesses (including a single open restaurant, of sorts) and a few shabby houses with a few residents, most of whom seemed to be kayak bums (the river equivalent of ski bums). This seemed grim to me. I can understand being a ski bum or a windsurf or surf bum. Conditions are constantly changing, making the experience of skiing, surfing, or windsurfing in the same place different every time. Buy kayaking? It's always the same river. Why would you want to do it over and over? Sure, it looks fun. But over and over? The same stretch of river? Give me skiing or windsurfing.

Our lodging this night was the M******* Guest House, which shall go unnamed. It was, basically, a flop house, an old family home in which the owners (not living there any more) were renting out rooms. The front door is always unlocked, so we just let ourselves in. Each bedroom had its own lock and key. We only caught a brief glimpse of our hostess as she dropped off slices of cake-like strawberry bread for breakfast. Otherwise, there was a refrigerator full of bottles of expired orange juice, and a container of stale Maxwell House coffee next to a coffee maker for our breakfasting pleasure. There were also some frozen blueberry muffins. It was hot upstairs, there were no screens in the windows (most of which didn't open anyway), and the toilet broke. Oh, and I spotted a cockroach scurrying under the baseboard. It wasn't as bad as it sounds (and Cindy wasn't as critical as I was), but it was only a place to sleep, nothing more. We were glad we didn't need to share it (and its two bathrooms, one of which was attached to the kitchen) with anyone else.

The area around Ohiopyle is lovely. We took a long hike around the peninsula and then around the rapids. It's easy to see why tourists flock there in summer.

Day Three: Ohiopyle to Rockwood, 31 miles.

Early morning between Ohiopyle and Confluence

We weren't tempted to hang around in Ohiopyle. We also weren't exactly stuffed from our strawberry-ish bread/cake and expired orange juice. So we ate just enough to prevent us from passing out on the trail, and set off for Confluence, 12 miles away, were we were pretty sure we could find an open restaurant for breakfast.

Stopping by the Youghiogheny south of Ohiopyle.

It was yet another lovely day. Sunny, rapidly warming by the time we left at 8:45. The trail continued along the Youghiogheny as far as Confluence, and the scenery continued to be lovely (although the trail leaves the river now and then, making this stretch not quite as perfect as the stretch between Connellsville and Ohiopyle.)

The confluence of the Youghiogheny and Cassellman Rivers

In Confluence (so-named because two rivers and a creek converge at one point), we did indeed find an open restaurant serving breakfast, Sister's Restaurant. (It may have been the only open restaurant in town, which made choosing it easy.) We had an acceptable breakfast, made better when another through-biker on a Rivendell Atlantis pulled up and came in. I think it was the first Rivendell I've seen (other than mine) east of the Mississippi. I didn't rush over and gave him a big hug like a long-lost brother, but I did admire his bike as we were leaving.

Between Confluence and Rockwood

Below Confluence (actually, east from Confluence), we left the Yough and started following the Cassellman River, also beautiful. Less water than the Yough, but nearly as beautiful. The trail stayed mostly right by the river the whole way to Rockwood (17 miles).

The trail continued its steady but slight climb, which started in Connellsville. Although we knew were going up, it only slowed us (or tired us) a tiny amount. This steady climbing over two days was going to pay off big on our final day. On this stretch we were passed by a south-bound biker for the first and only time.

Bridge over Cassellman River

 

One of the regularly spaced covered picnic tables

A closed tunnel that the trail goes around

We arrived in Rockwood at 2:00. (We easily could have gone another 10-15 miles, but this was where the lodging was.) We had milkshakes at the ice cream store in the old mill (and opera house), then found our lodging for the night, The Gingerbread House, just south of town, right next to the trail. We were the only lodgers there, too, but at least it didn't feel like we were living in a ghost house. In fact, it was lovely. Very pleasant room, nice house, even a place to stash our bikes. We met the B&B keeper, arranged for breakfast in the morning, and relaxed for a while.

Gingerbread House B&B in Rockwood

At 5:00 or so, we walked into town to the Rock City Cafe, basically a bar serving food. But our Berk's Burgers (conglomerates of everything under the sun) were tasty, and my draft beer cost a buck. Sleep that night with a window open, listening to a rushing creek.

Day Four, Rockwood to Cumberland (44 miles)
This was payoff day. We would climb another 500 feet in 20 miles, and then plunge 1600 feet in 24 miles. We needed to get to Cumberland by 3:00 to get our U-Haul. We were hoping that we hadn't lost the reservation, since U-Haul had had no way to call us to confirm. (Although the Rockwood visitor's center at the trailhead has a cell-phone signal booster, it only works for Verizon and ATT, not T-Mobile. Grr. So we had our fingers crossed that we wouldn't be stranded in Cumberland.

Salisbury Viaduct, north of Meyersdale

The first twelve miles took us to Meyersdale, the other real city between McKeesport and Cumberland, still climbing, following the Casselman River. After Meyersdale, the trail was in the best condition of all. Wide, hard, fresh crushed stone in many spots. We climbed another eight miles, passing over one of two spectacular viaducts, and over lovely old bridges, until we reached the apex of our journey, the eastern "continental divide" between the Chesapeake and Gulf of Mexico watersheds.

South of Meyersdale

The highest point in the trail

As we were planning, it seemed reasonable to make this the longest day of the trip. We knew that it would end with 24 miles of downhill, but we didn't really know how much down it would be. I mean, I sort of knew, and I read the altitude tables that showed that we would lose the altitude we had gained over three days in 24 miles, but I didn't dare think that it would be ALL downhill, as in glide for 24 miles.

But that's what it was. If it had been paved, we literally could have glided for 24 miles, except for one tiny uphill bump near Frostburg.

We felt giddy. We flew along at 15 mph with virtually no effort, just pedaling to give our legs something to do.

The descent begins

This graphic says it all. Notice Mckeesport (right) and Cumberland (left)

On the way we went through three fun tunnels, including the 3294' Great Savage Tunnel. The trail was perfect. Two miles outside of Cumberland it turned into asphalt for the final sprint.

Big Savage Tunnel, 3294'

Benches and view south of Big Savage

Welcome to MD

The trail runs alongside the scenic railway tracks going into Cumberland.

Arriving in Cumberland

The end of the trip.

We arrived in Cumberland at 2:00. We found our way to the U-haul pickup point (they nearly gave our truck away when they couldn't get hold of us), loaded our bikes in, and roared off for McKeesport, 119 miles away. We dropped the truck off at a transmission shop right next to the trail, unloaded our bikes, and rode the final two miles back to our car, which was where we had left it, no tickets, no dead battery. We loaded our bikes in and drove off. The trip was a success.

What I learned on this trip:
1. Warm sunshine beats cold rain and stiff headwinds.
2. Travel north to south on the GAP unless you want to start with a 24-mile climb. (This wouldn't be impossible. In fact it would be like riding into a 15 mph or so headwind for 24 miles—we've all done it. But it was more fun going down.)
3. Don't use close-fitting fenders. (We both had our fenders nearly torn off when they picked up sticks. See my separate post.)
4. Make reservations. This time of year, it's easy to find lodging. In summer or fall, not so much.
5. Don't try to do the GAP in two days. Take time to putz and enjoy the view. Sit on the benches. Look at the water. Watch the trains go by. Go for a hike in Ohiopyle. We wanted to see Kentuck Knob (Frank Lloyd Wright house not far from Falling Water), but we couldn't figure out a way to get there that didn't involve biking up the steep hill out of the river valley on a busy road.
6. Don't plan on cell phone service. I never had any beyond Connellsville (using T-Mobile, at least). Two of our inns had wi-fi internet. The scary place didn't.
7. Ride the GAP trail. Everyone who can ride a bike should do it.