Bikenik Returns

In the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC for lunch after a 5-day, 360-mile bike ride from Pittsburgh. Wasn't sure how this pub got wind of it.

Tune in tomorrow for the return of the Beetnik Urban Farm Blog, and a t-shirt update.

Leaving Pittsburgh, weighing at least five pounds more than I would five days later.

Many a beautiful high trestle along the Great Allegheny Passage.

After more than fifty miles of steady climbing, we crossed the Eastern Divide and had a pleasant twenty-three mile downhill ride into Cumberland, Maryland. 

Two days of riding and 160 miles from downtown Pittsburgh to Cumberland, the last town on the GAP and the start, from our perspective, of the C & O Canal Path.

Many of the 75 locks on the C & O Canal had extant lock houses. Quite Irelandish.

Pretty much 200 miles of this.

We camped on three of our four nights. Our last night, in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, we opted for a rental cottage, just so we could ride the two vertical miles into the heart of town. Made me want to start a rebellion. That night, the sky opened up and it poured epic Gilgamesh torrents.

Hey, I have a great idea for a transportation system: Dredge a 200-mile long river, right next to an existing river, and tow boats up it's length through a series of seventy-five locks and eleven aqueducts. Encounter a mountain, no worries, just tunnel through it, river and towpath and all, even if it is 3,100 feet through solid granite.

The rains in Harper's Ferry turned the trail into a sloppy squishy mud wrestling quagmire. I washed the mud off several times that day, and the tow path muck plugged up the space between my front tire and fender to the point it popped loose. All in all, a very challenging day.

The work was rewarded by a visit to my bronze idol, Bill Murray.