Biking to Pittsburgh

Killdeer nesting in the stone ballast of a railroad track.

Last week my brother and I did a three-day bike trip from Cumberland, Maryland to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania along the 150-mile Greater Allegheny Passage trail, which is a rails-to-trails project completed a few years back. The GAP trails connects to the 184-mile Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and bike trail at Cumberland, so it's possible to do a relatively smooth and flat 334-mile bicycle ride from Washington. D.C. to Pittsburgh if you are game.

The trip was pretty smooth except for a broken chain (my bike) right at the start due to a bungee cord wrapping around a gear (operator error on my part).

The 60 miles or so from Frostburg, Maryland through Ophiopyle, Pennsylvania is truly beautiful, with amazing streams, waterfalls, rivers, long flying railroad bridges, and a one mile-long tunnel. The trail itself is excellent and incredibly well maintained. We crossed over the eastern continental divide which separates the watersheds that drain straight into the Atlantic from those that drain into the Missouri and Mississippi, as well as the Mason-Dixon line.

Because we are professionals, we both did the trip in our crocs.  Worked perfectly.