Week 12 Highights & Route Overview

Highlights: With our police escort out of Leetonia on Sunday it wasn’t too long before we were out of Ohio and into Pennsylvania. Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania have been pretty hilly, got to get our climbing legs back in gear. 

We haven’t been chased by dogs for a long time. The dogs have been behind standard or electric fences. Many of the dogs will run along the yard with us and seem pretty playful rather than wanting to sink their teeth into us. One dog even grabbed its chew toy and ran with us, just wanting to play. We passed one big yard in the countryside where three dogs were yapping playfully (we think).  A child about 3 years old was also in the yard and started barking at us as well. It was cute and all, but Robert had to pepper spray the kid because we weren’t sure what to expect…  JK about the spraying. 

In Pittsburgh we took pictures at the baseball stadium, rested for a while at the point state park, and took the Duquesne Incline up to the overlook. On some booking website we were able to get a great hotel room with a great view of the point and Steelers stadium for only $115. Nice!

For the last 5 days we have been riding on the GAP and C&O trails. It is so nice to just ride and not worry about turns and roads. The GAP trail has a short section near Pittsburgh blocked due to land slides, so we had to take a shuttle around that.  Most of the GAP is packed, crushed cinders, very nice to ride on. There are parts with some erosion and bumps, but most of it has been very smooth. It follows the Youghogheny river, in which we were able to cool off a couple times. We passed the continental divide and the Mason/Dixson line, and are already out of Pennsylvania. TTFN

The C&O has some smooth, packed parts like the GAP. but it also has sections with single track through grass, mud puddles, or thick gravel. The Paw Paw tunnel is a canal tunnel with a narrow tow path, it was very unique, a little bumpy, but fun. Also on this trail are a lot of relics of the canal locks and lock houses, which have been interesting to ride by, and the path even went through a couple of the drained locks. 

We have stayed at 4 free cycling campsites along the trails, one with a 3 sided shelter. The 2 in Maryland were called Pigmans Ferry and Licking Creek, we’re not sure who named them.

It has been very hot and humid, We also rode through our first rain storm of the trip, for about 3 miles on the GAP. It wasn’t cold so we didn’t put on rain gear. It has been so hot and humid so it felt kinda good to get soaking wet (and a little less sticky). It is very green and beautiful along both trails, and luckily, even though we’ve seen a lot of greenery on this trip we haven’t gotten sick of it yet.

Route Overview: From Leetonia 344/164 to Columbiana, 882 and county roads to 351, which is very hilly, so we took a side road into Darlington, PA. We went through Beaver Falls, then made our way to the Brush Creek trail into Cranberry. From Cranberry to Pittsburgh, no one should ever follow our route, 2 very busy roads with no shoulder and no sidewalks, horrible job Map My Ride website. The one bright spot was North Park, very beautiful and nice for cycling. Once on the Three Rivers Heritage trail thing got much better. Going through Pittsburgh was not pretty either, somehow we got routed to climb Polish Hill, ugh! Riding past the Carnegie buildings and Schenley Park was nice, but probably not worth it. Lots of zig-zagging and we finally got to the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) trail. In Cumberland Ma we got on the Chesapeake and Ohio tow path trail to just past Hancock Ma.