The GAP/C&O Canal Towpath Bike Ride is history

The ride from Pittsburgh on the Three Rivers Heritage trail, the Great Allegheny Passage, and then the C&O Canal Towpath to Georgetown/D.C. has ended. The memories will last; the photos may fade; the friendships I made, hopefully will endure; the saddle sores will go away. 

Summary: I used two large bandaids on a knee scrape, drank gallons of but not enough water, didn't take enough pictures, couldn't connect to wifi, met some really fine and some really questionable people, heard the unease many are feeling about politics, saw landscapes that I hadn't particularly been interested in seeing but am now glad I did, traversed the Eastern Continental Divide and rode through some of the history of the Civil War, witnessed for myself part of the rust belt, and hopefully raised a few bucks for Bike Utah. And I proved to myself that at age 67 I still had some steam left!

I have planned this trip for a couple of years after hearing about the trails at the Bike Summit in D.C. in 2014. I got the idea to raise funds for Bike Utah from having raised funds for some NGOs when I biked cross-country a few years ago. The added incentive was spending a few days at the end of the trip with my two Maryland grandkids; honey on a sweet roll! 

The planning that went into this--because of so many moving parts (other family in Utah, California, New Mexico, shipping my bike east and then back west, deciding whether to camp or B&B, what clothing to bring based on weather predictions, impact of my trip on other obligations--felt like trying to gather a swarm of wild bees and get them to go to the same hive.

There were rabid Trump and anti-Trump people. But almost everyone I talked to on the trip was uneasy about the choices we had and the potential fall-out of any choice.

The towns along the GAP, that I assume were connected to supplying the steel industry in Pittsburgh, were showing the wear and tear of a declining economy. The loss of traditional employment manifested in poorly hidden resentment towards anything that suggested it was a change agent. The area was suffering from the bust of a boom/bust economy (steel, coal, coking) that provided careers for generations. "We thought it would be something our kids could inherit from us--a career in steel, mining, or manufacturing that promised it would never end." said a woman who cleaned a B&B and then cleaned other houses and a couple of businesses in West Newton. She lost her office job in a mining company and her husband lost his in the coking industry. 

But not all have stayed in the muck of a ruined career. A man and woman in Frostburg found private and public dollars to renovate the Train Depot into a GAP tourist center. He worked in strip mines for almost thirty years (like is family before him) and his wife had worked in a coal company office for almost as long. There are other examples. 

The dread and uncertainty was contagious. It rang at a personal door I've kept closed for decades. That door that has hidden a life in which I was by all odds destined to work the ranch, mine, build houses; all hereditary jobs. I can't point to anyone thing that stimulated me to move out of a boom/bust lifestyle. I don't know how I got here from there!

Not everyone was showing the wear and tear of a changed economy. Like the couple in Frostburg many if not most people have moved on, found other ways to make a living, found a different outlook on life. Almost everyone, on both sides of the Eastern Continental Divide, were friendly and ready to give advice, directions, tell me the history of the town or area, ask questions about what I did and where I lived, help me fix a flat, give me water, and some even shared a joke or two with me. 

Now that I've finished the ride I feel exhausted but satisfied. It took a couple of days to repay my water debt, relearn how to sleep without just doing a face-plant and not moving the entire night. I've told my children, and now my grandchildren, that you can almost always find something good in every experience even though it may be hard to find for a while. Some of what I found was easy. I re-filled my ecologist's need to see new systems, met people different than me, and I found new compassion for relatives I left behind decades ago who have remained mired in the past like some of the folks I met on this trip. 

I didn't doubt my ability to ride the distance, nor my confidence that I could ride solo, but I hadn't factored in the impact of hours of pounding my hands, my arms, my back, and my 67 year old rear end!

A real highlight was that I made two friends: Nora and Harold from Anchorage, Alaska. We only rode together one day (Meyersdale to Frostburg) but everyday we met for dinner or breakfast. In Cumberland, where they decided to return to another part of an extended vacation, we reminisced about the GAP, laughed about our moods riding through the one day of miserable rain, talked about our families, shared what we had seen or missed, and finally wished each other fond farewells. 

Fall Foliage Bicycle Ride Gallery

For a day by day synopsis click here.