GAP & C&O Day 4

SLIP SLIDING AWAY… our first day on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal path was filled with lots of surprises, challenges, good times and a fair amount of mud. 

The Erie Canal is no longer a canal but a series of very long stagnant ponds separated by dirt.  It’s good to see Len feeling his oats again as he leads the way into the morning dew. 

Angela coasts down one of the many old canal locks remnant structure. 

Chester hurries down the path, trying to catch his brother Len. 

Sue waves to get Angela’s attention to ask if there’s a nearby restroom. 

Len struggles to stay ahead of Donna as she presses him to go faster with her smile.  

The trail mud was a little rough on our bikes and my brand new ‘Scott’ Colorado license plate. 

The roots, rocks and sticks were especially tough on my wheels today, breaking one of my rear spokes.  I thought I could replace it

myself 12 miles down the road at our B&B but it looks like the cassette and maybe the disk will need to be removed first, more than I can handle with my tool kit. I’ve got 35 more spokes left to get me to the next bike shop. 

The ugly mouth of the Paw Paw Tunnel, 3300 feet of dank darkness along the canal.  I had thought we could ride our bikes through it but weekend walkers and the very uneven path surface encouraged us to walk instead. Glad we did. 

After about 15 minutes we entered into the day again.  

While I couldn’t use my tools to repair my spoke I could use them to remove Angela’s mangled front fender.  Somehow she caught a good size stick between the wheel and the fender, locked up her wheel, and destroyed the mounting hardware.  She’ll be traveling just a little bit lighter now. 

45 miles later at the end of our day we make it to the only place I know of where we can get dinner before we get hauled up to the Town B&B 7 miles away.  Bill’s place is infamous as a biker bar but apparently they welcome cyclist too!  Jack, who is the new Bill, told me 37 real “bikers” had just left on their Harley’s a few minute before we arrived.  I was glad because I didn’t want our spandexed appearance to make them feel uncomfortable! 

We had our fair share of Yuenglings and food to get us though the night, and a good time too. 

Oh yea, I almost forgot to mention, Angela had a little spill down the slope towards the river as she was avoiding one of the many mud puddles today. The grassy edge on the side of the path where she went to avoid the mud quickly gave way to a slippery slope that tossed her off her bike. She’s a tough woman, and with the help of the Gang coming behind her. gathered her wits, her scattered parts and pieces and headed on down the trail.  

We had to separate our group to squeeze into the shuttle and therefore had to leave some people behind until the next shuttle.  Len and Terry didn’t seem too happy about waiting?

All’s well that ends well as we have a beautiful sunset view of the valleys from whence we came.  

And the night ended well with card playing, lots of laughter and getting to know other cyclists on there own GAP/C&O journey.  

The GAP & C&O Trail Day 3

We say good bye to Francis on the porch of her Hanna House B&B and start our 60+ mile day to Cumberland, MD.  

We had a beautiful day to ride into, lots of blue skies, mild winds and temps in the low 60’s for most of the morning.  We’re looking over the trestle to our latest river to ride alongside, the Casselman. 

Back in Confluence Larry told us they had a couple of smallish tornadoes about a month ago that chewed up a lot of the forrest but the volunteers and the county had done a great job of clearing and repairing the path. 

For lunch we swarmed into the G.I. Dayroom and Coffee shop in Myersdale for an old style, down home lunch.  They even had Jello salad with whip cream like our moms & grand moms made. I’m guessing that the G.I. in the name might stand stand for “Geriatric Infirmary Dayroom” because a good part of the “regular” clientele looked much older than our crew!

The ever present thick forests that limited our long views the last two days are starting to give way to more agricultural land and panoramic vistas like this one. 


On our trip we have one major goal, to ride to Washington, DC but we have lots of less ambitious ones that just get us through the day or the even next hour, like where are we having lunch today.  One significant interim  goal was to climb to the Eastern Continental divide.  You can see by the way we have overwhelmed the tunnel, which marked the divide, with our bodies scattered over the trail in celebration and talk with other cyclists we are excited. 

Just a few short miles (downhill!!) after the Divide we come upon the marker for the intersection of the GAP with the 233 mile long Mason-Dixon Line that was measured and marked every mile in the late 1700’s. Mason’s skill was surveying the sun and stars and Dixon’s was the traditional surveyor. Their story and the story of the Penns and Calverts dispute about what was the demarcation between present day Pennsylvania and Maryland is an amazing story. Donna decides to not pick favorites and puts her bike squarely on the surveyor chain that marks the line.  

Our blue skies and early stages of autumn leaves continues throughout the afternoon  

By 4:30 we had reached our interim goal, to ride the 150 miles from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland and Mile 0 of the GAP where we now stand.  The GAP has been a great ride and also a great time!! Tomorrow we embrace the C&O Canal Tow Path to DC. It should be interesting!

The GAP & C&O Trail Day 2

Our morning offered clouds and threats of rain but the cycling gods smiled on us and after our 12 mile break at Round Bottom Slush Run we were seeing blue in the skies.  There were lots of colorful comments about the name of our rest stop for sure.  

Sometime in the past day we moved off of paralleling the Monongahela River to one of its tributaries called the Youghiogheny River.  Even though we’re usually within 50 to 100’ of its bank it’s almost impossible to see because of the thick forest.  We stopped for a photo on this abandoned bridge to no where for our first good look at the “Yough”.  It was beautiful and would only become more so.  

Close to Noon we dipped down the valley into Connelsville where we were tipped by a local we could find a nice place for lunch. 

We had a great lunch at the Kick Stand Cafe less than 50’ off the trail in Connelsville. It was also right next to a bike shop.  This town really knows how to cater to cyclist it seems. 

As we approach OhioPyle about about 40 miles into our day (I really need to research that name!) we had more great views of the wild Yough from an old train trestle. 

Sue and I finally had a chance to get to the waters edge of the Yough near the end of our day because someone had put some stairs down the steep embankment to the river.   It was very peaceful but we couldn’t enjoy it for long because time was running out to have dinner in Confluence at the only place to eat in town!  BTW Youghiogheny ( pronounced yoka-geini is Lenape for “stream flowing in a contrary direction”.  The Yough (pronounced yok) runs south to north from Maryland to Pennsylvania.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youghiogheny_River

In the process of trying to find a bike mechanic for Donnas’s rear tire (more later) when we arrived in Confluence around 4, this gentlemanly man about town, Larry, offered us help. Not only did he tell us the bike store was closed for the season because the guy was on vacation, he went so far as to lead us through town (hazard lights a flashing) the safest way to our B&B, helped take us back to town before the restaurant closed and filled us in on tons of history of the town and its people in a very entertaining way. Truly a treasure of a man. 

We got to Mitch’s in time for a nice meal of salads, soups, grilled cheese, strombolis, pizza and Yuengling beer (we had to buy at the bar down the street). Larry told us that Mitch’s isn’t named for the owner as you might expect but rather for a local man who was driving his wife to a medical appointment when a tree fell on their car, killing Mitch and putting his wife in the hospital.  Definitely a well connected small town of 776 people, also according to Mr. Larry!

So, Donna’s rear tire had an incident with a small branch on the trail.  The branch was easily cleared but now her wheel is making a “squishing” sound with every rotation, but only when it’s loaded with a rider. After checking all of the more obvious potential issues without success she checked with her son Michael who works in the bike industry and is all things bike.  He hypothesized a couple of the spokes might be rubbing and suggested we put some plastic between the squeaky spokes.  Not knowing which spokes we’re squeaking we put a little electrical tape between them all-sadly without success. The mystery continues to tomorrow!


After dinner we all chatted in the great room of the 175 year old Hanna House and got to know one another a little better. Tomorrow we finish the GAP Trail in Cumberland, MD. The C&O to DC will be next.  

The GAP & C&O Trail Day 1

Our Day 1 was a 40 mile jaunt from Pittsburgh to Belle Vernon, PA.  We finally had a break from the cloudy weather and road into a cool and sunny morning. The sign that Donna is peering from gives a high level overview of our trip to Washington, DC. 

We meet lots of friendly folks along the trail.  Ray-Ray and Freddy gave us some tips on a places for lunch as we head southeast on the GAP. 

So much industrial history along the rivers in Coal and Steel country but my observations are just a tiny fraction is left from the heyday of big steel in the US.  Now we ride our bikes on the once great P&LE railway. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_and_Lake_Erie_Railroad

Mid-morning today we became the “Gang of Eight” when Annette and Terry met us not far from Pittsburgh.  Annette has the turquoise jacket and Terry is just to the right.  We’re pretty much a bicycle gang now and we’ll likely be intimidating trail people all the way to DC!  Watch out!!

In Boston, PA we all had lunch at Betsy’s Tea Room.  In spite of the name the food was great and we got a little rest before we finished our day. 

Did I mention the apple pie a la mode at Betsy’s?  Yummm!

Len learned something new today. 

In the afternoon we encounter Barry, on the far right, who is 11 miles from home. He’s also ripped and flatted his tire.  Barry told us he doesn’t believe in carrying tools or knowing how to repair a flat but he knew how to shout out to us when he was in trouble.  So we donated a tube to his cause and he added the dollar bill to boot up the small tear in the tire.  I modestly pumped up the tire and told him to take it easy on the way home. He tore off like a jack rabbit but at least we never saw him again so maybe he made it.    

We made it to our overnight in Belle Vernon by around 4.  Donna and Sue quickly researched our dinner at the nearby Cedarbrook Country Club where it just happens to be $5 Build Your Own Burger Night!! We ate till we were full and carefully sped back to our motel in the coming darkness of night without injury or scratch. 

The GAP & C&O Trail-The Gathering

Today was the gathering of 3/4’s of our group and the beginning of both a shake down ride around Pittsburgh before we leave for DC tomorrow and a chance for us to start forming as a group.  Sue, from Chesterfield, MO and I are checking out the Rec Paths on both sides of the Monongahela River that will take us into Pittsburgh proper. 

The day was cool and mostly gray but thankfully dry as we worked our way across busy bridges, roads and paths towards downtown. 

The official start of the GAP trail is Point Park where the Monongahela and the Allegheny River join to form the Ohio River. So of course we needed an obligatory starting picture by the fountain. 

Our morning 10 mile shakedown ride proved fun and fruitful with no issues presented.  We then drove about 60 miles for a tour of Frank Loyd Wrights famous Fallingwater house built in the 1930’s. The house and setting were stunning as was the history of the home.  

After a hard day of touring and site seeing we had a fun dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Upfront I present the Brothers Szmurlo (Chester & Len) followed R to L are Angela, me, Sue and Donna.  Tomorrow we’ll be joined by Annette and Terry on the trail. 

We did an after dinner encore of our version of Free Bird to thousands of blazing lighters and cell phones in the crowd. Tomorrow the real performance will start.