It is now Tuesday, May 24th, and we are in a Super 8 Motel in a town west of Pittsburgh calle Canonburg. We have had a very enjoyable five days riding the GAP trail. After getting off the steam train in Frostburg on Friday, we got on our bikes and pedaled 17 miles to a little trail town caledl Meyersdale where we got a room in a big old house for the night. On Saturday, we rode 32 miles to Confluence. On Sunday we just went 11 miles to Ohiopyle. The motel we stayed at there shuttled us to Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright house built over a waterfall. Yesterday, we rode 42 miles to West Newton, PA, and today we got to the end of the GAP trail in McKeesport, a suburb of Pittsburgh, after about 18 miles of biking, . There we were picked up by a shuttle service from a bike shop in West Newton and driven about 20 miles to this town we are at tonight.
Riding the steam train was fun. We met a fun group of "seniors" from a hiking group in Cumberland while waiting for the train Friday morning, and we all were put on the same car on the train since the other cars were filled with kids from three different school groups who were making the trip. The first seven or eight miles of our 17 mile ride to Meyersdale was uphill, Even though it was a very gradual uphill ( the grade never got above 2%), it still made us tired by the end of the ride. I guess we got a little out of shape again while waiting out the weather for three days. During that stretch we also crossed the border from Maryland into Pennsylvania, and shortly after that crossed the Eastern Continental Divide. So the rest of the trail from then on was theoreticall all downhill, but not really! It was however, pretty flat with gradual ups and downs, and we really were overall going downhill. The ride from Meyersdale to Confluence was uneventful. Just a pleasant quiet ride on a very nice trail, mostly through wooded areas. Confluence was a pleasant little town, and we stayed at a very nice house which had seven rooms to rent. We had an excellent dinner at a restaurant in a restored old house on the river called, strangely enough, the River's Edge Cafe, which was just a block away, Confluence got its name because it is located at the confluence of two rivers and a creek. The Youcheigeny and Casselman Rivers, and a creek the name of which I can't remember right now. The Yougheigeny is the river we followed he rest of the way. (Pronounced Yok-i-gay-nee).
During our 11 mile ride on Sunday to Ohiopyle, we were passed by three blurs that turned out to be three guys on mountain bikes, who we met up with when we pulled into the old train station turned visitor center in Ohiopyle. They were getting ready to leave again on their way to Pittsburgh. They told us an amazing story about struggling through several feet of water, mud, and fallen trees on the C & O Canal trail. Turns out they were on the trail the day it was closed because of those conditions, but these guys didn't realize it was closed. In spite of that, they still biked 130 miles that day!!! Unbelievable. All I can say is we were feeling very thankful that we didn't try to go on it. Our tour of Fallingwater that afternoon was very interesting. The grounds around the house are beautiful, and the view of the house from a point down the river a ways is spectacular. For anyone who may not know, Fallingwater is the name given to a house that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for a Pittsburgh deparment store owner in 1936. The owner wanted a house by the river and near the falls there so they could see the falls from the house, but FLW went a step or two further and buit the house OVER the falls.
Yesterday,we had our longest ride since the Monday before, and did ok. After 42 miles we didn't collapse. Walked about 1/2 mile into town for dinner with a couple we had met in Confluence, who arrived at the bike shop in West Newton where we had just arrived about 10 minutes previously. We both stayed at a B&B right by the trail, and it turned out that they were also being shuttled today. They were picked up at 5:30 a.m, at the B&B to be shuttled to PIttsburgh. We biked the 18 miles or so to McKeesport, and were shuttled here. The reason for all the shuttling is that there is a nine mile gap in the trail from McKeesport into Pittsburgh, and negotiating the roads to get into Pittsburg around that gap is apparently a very scary proposition because of , again, shoulderless roads with very heavy traffic.Several people discouraged us from doing this, so we opted for the shuttle. This town is just a few miles from the Montour Trail, which is another rail trail which, along with a connection trail called the Panhandle trail will take us into West Virginia and close to Ohio. We.ve met many more very nice people along this stretch, and everything's going well. Bill took a couple of spills on his bike and skinned his arm both times, but fortunately that was the only damage to him. No damage to the bike.
Enough for now. I'm rather upset because I think I may have lost our pictures after transferring them to the computer, so there are no pictures to post this time.
Riding on,
Carol and Bill
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