Off-Road from DC to Pittsburgh

The air, cool and humid, was thick with the pungent odor of organic decay. Eight or nine turtles, all snatching a few rare rays of sunlight, lined the top of a log protruding above the surface of the green, algae-covered water filling the 150-year-old trench to my right. From an unseen perch deep within the adjacent forest of maples and sycamores came the distinctive call of an American cardinal. The moderately fat tires on the hybrid bicycle I was riding purred along the C&O Canal towpath?s dirt surface, occasionally splashing through a puddle remaining from the Hurricane Hannah-induced rainstorms of several days earlier. I could see no one ahead of me; and, when I stopped to turn around and look the other way, there was nobody behind me. I felt like I had bicycled into Daniel Boone?s own eastern forest primeval.

?Is it really 2008, and am I really just 30 miles from the nation?s capital?? I asked myself.


So begins a story I wrote for the March 2009 edition of Adventure Cyclist magazine, about a trip Nancy and I did with an Adventure Cycling group in September of ?08. The title of the piece, which is the same as the title of this blog post, describes exactly where and how we rode.

For the first four days of the trip, we pedaled along the no-cars-permitted C&O Canal towpath, going from the National Mall to Cumberland, Maryland; and, for the final three days, from Cumberland to suburban Pittsburgh along the equally car-free Great Allegheny Passage, or GAP.

It was a terrific bicycle tour, one that I can heartily recommend to bicycle travelers ranging from beginners to the saddle-savvy. The 2011 version of the trip ended just over a week ago; for 2012, the fully supported camping trip is slated for September 29 through October 6. Meanwhile, the C&O Family Fun tour, which excludes the GAP portion of the route, will run July 8 through 13.

You can read the story I mention above in its entirety by clicking here (PDF).


Photo by Michael McCoy.

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BIKING WITHOUT BORDERS is posted every Monday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s media specialist, and highlights a little bit of this or a little bit of that ? just about anything, as long as it?s related to traveling by bicycle. Mac also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to more than 42,000 readers worldwide.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/10/off-road-from-dc-to-pittsburgh.html

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