| Summary | None |
| Owner | Eric Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2013-06-20 22:10:10 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Matthew and Eric Gilbertson
June 1-2, 2013 301 miles (176 Saturday, 125 Sunday) One of the longest and flatest rail trails in the country is actually just a short plane flight from Boston. The Alleghany Passage plus CO Canal trails combine for a single continuous 300-mile long rail trail from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington DC. There are lots of campsites along the way, and it's a popular trail to do a multi-day bike tour. It's amazing that it's somehow almost completely flat (only 2,000ft of climbing over 300 miles), and there are no cars to contend with. It's gravel, but almost as smooth as pavement. Matthew and I decided to bike the whole thing in a weekend, and flew in to Pittsburgh Friday night and spent the night in the nearby town of Greensburg. We started biking at 4:30 Saturday morning in the rain, and got our first flat tire only an hour later. The rest of the day went smoothly, and we took turns drafting off each other to save energy. We biked until dark at 9:30pm, after 176 miles, a new personal best. We threw out some bivy bags in the woods outside Hancock, MD and went to sleep. Sunday we started biking at 6am, and discovered that the CO canal section of the path is considerably rougher. We actually couldn't draft because there were too many roots and rocks in the path that would catch the drafter off guard and potentially pop a tire. Sunday evening we finally crossed the finish line 125 miles later at 6pm in Washington DC. We flew back to Boston monday morning for an end to an action-packed weekend. |