The Great Allegheny Passage
The Great Allegheny Passage is a 150-mile trail that runs from Point State Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Downtown Cumberland, Maryland. 148.8 miles if you want to get technical. The trail is paved close to Pittsburgh. But otherwise it’s mostly crushed gravel, winding through the wilds of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Especially during the summer months, it’s popular to cyclists looking for an adventure.
I first heard about the Great Allegheny Passage, or GAP for short, when an old job allowed me to be an interloper in the Pittsburgh running community. It was while out on a run I learned that I could take the trail under my feet all the way to Washington DC. That the GAP went as far as Cumberland. And in Cumberland you could pick up the C&O, which would take you the rest of the way to DC. They told me how tons of people would fly with their bikes to Pittsburgh and ride the trail over a long weekend.
At the time I never thought about riding a bike down the trail, but I was amazed that people did. That they would spend all weekend on their bikes doing this crazy thing, and then just go back to work on Monday. They might tell everyone or no one at the office about their journey. I thought they were a kindred spirit of ultramarathoners. I always smiled when I saw them with their bike bags. Every time I ran on the GAP, I’d think about how incredible it was that if I just kept going, I could end up more than 300 miles away without ever leaving the trail.
Fast-forward to this winter when my friend asked me if I’d do either the GAP or the C&O with her. That she had been planning a bike trip for a while, but now needed a travel companion to make it possible. I didn’t hesitate, even though I don’t love riding bikes. I simply said yes, under the condition that she do most of the planning. It was her adventure that I wanted to be along for the ride on. But I didn’t want to alter the trip she’d been creating with any of my opinions.
I implicitly trust her planning abilities. Even at age ten she was meticulous and conscientious, and that hasn’t changed. I also trust her experience and knowledge around bikes and cycling trips. She’s the bike person I’ll never be. And outside of helping with a few logistical decisions, I wanted to default to her. I wanted the trip to be the adventure she’s been imagining all along.
For my personal prep, I bought two pairs of cycling shorts and a highly recommended chaffing cream to have with me, just in case. I borrowed my friend’s older set of bike bags and didn’t test out packing my things in them until the night before the ride. I had mediocre motivation to practice riding my bike a couple of times and to test my shorts. But I never actually got around to it. For better or worse, I chose to rely entirely on my overall fitness base, my ability to smile through discomfort, and my friend.
I have two bikes, both more than ten years old. One is a nice hybrid and the other is an old mountain bike. For a few weeks, I pretended like I’d have to make a decision about which one I’d ride. Like I’d have to take them both out for a spin or two and see which one felt better. But when I decided to be honest with myself, there was never a question of which one I’d take.
For most people the hybrid bike would’ve been the more logical choice. A hybrid has a lighter frame and is sleek enough for speed, yet sturdy enough for gravel terrain. It would have been an easier ride for my legs and more than enough bike to handle the GAP. But for me, even if it wasn’t logical, I was always going to choose the mountain bike. My sister’s mountain bike.
I started riding my sister’s bike the summer after my sophomore year in college. When I decided that it would be fun to try a couple triathlons and no longer had a bike of my own to ride. When her bike was just sitting idly in my parent’s garage, because she was no longer around to ride it. And that fall, when her bike miraculously survived the fire with just a few burn tattoos, I knew I’d ride it for as long as the frame lets me.
Since my sister died, I’ve picked up pieces of her to carry with me. It’s always helped me feel like I’m doing something with her. It helps me feel closer to her in a way that has always been familiar, ever since I started borrowing her things when she moved to college. Her clothes, and then her ring the day we buried her. Some of her books and her bike. I also did my best to pick up her fierce kindness, because that felt like something that should be carried on.
I don’t get to do things with my sister the same way that other people do. But I do get to share things with her in a way that other people can’t. Most people don’t get to bring their sister with them on a bike adventure with only their childhood friend. But I do. I learned long ago how to pay attention to extra coffee cups or the unexpected breeze on my face when the trees are still. The small signs that could just be coincidences, but they feel too much like her to ignore.
We left our hotel in Pittsburgh just after 4:30am to get to the Amtrak station two blocks away. Me, my friend, and my sister’s bike. While most of the train slept, I watched the sun rise over the Youghiogheny River, drinking coffee and eating a piece of coffee cake. When night gave way to day, I saw my first glimpses of trail through the trees in the early morning grey. I looked out the window, and I marveled at the route we’d take back to my friend’s car.
The train dropped us and our bikes off in Cumberland mid-morning. We explored town briefly, finding a coffee shop where we could indulge in one more relaxed coffee while we changed and checked our packing. Well, as relaxed as possible anyway. With our bike shorts on, we said thank you and headed to the trail. We took a photo at mile marker zero. Then it was time.
The first five miles went by with an agonizing slowness that sat in the pit of my stomach. We were not riding slowly, but the mile markers had days between then and my sit bones already ached. For the first hour of the ride, I prepared to be miserable all weekend while keeping a genuine smile plastered on my face. Luckily though, I started to settle in before too long.
Once the miles stopped passing like molasses, I enjoyed the climb. Our first 26 miles were a steady but not steep incline. We gained over 1700 feet before enjoying a single downhill on our way up and over the Eastern Continental Divide. My legs cycled between aching and powerful, and my sit bones fell silent after they went numb. I already knew I would not take up cycling more regularly when I got home. But my confidence gained momentum with each passing mile.
We rode nearly 32 miles that first day after the Amtrak, then left the trail for our first trailside town bed and breakfast. We arrived exhilarated, exhausted, and dirty to a wonderful evening. Good conversation, great food, a beautiful Victorian front porch, and a luxuriously comfortable room. The next day was our long day with the most logistics and uncertainty. We were covering nearly 50 miles and timing our first segment to meet a shuttle.
Two sections of the trail were still impassable when we left for our bike ride, without detours. My friend had been watching the construction closely and booked a shuttle to take us around the bridge that was out, and we were thinking of taking our chances that we’d be allowed to ride through anyway when we reached the other construction. We waffled. If we were wrong, we’d have to backtrack significantly and ride at least 20 extra miles.
That first night while sitting on the grand front porch, our gamble disappeared. The trail alerts updated and we found out the second zone was open. We’d be able to ride through without breaking any rules. And we no longer had to consider skipping the prettiest section of the trail. We were our host’s first thru riders for the season, and we’d be passing through Ohiopyle State Park the first day the trail was fully open. It was unexpectedly lucky. I silently thanked my sister.
Days two and three were endless miles of river and trees. Following our latte-colored path through the wilds, we alternated between steady and hard riding as the mile markers slowly climbed. We had the most delicious frozen coffee and sandwiches after I insisted we venture off trail to check out a waterfall at the halfway point. My friend waited patiently with our bikes as I explored a forgotten and graffitied crumbling factory. And I pedaled, gritting my teeth while my legs continuously burned so that she could avoid riding in the heaviest of the rainfall.
Off our bikes we spent a lot of time talking, about nothing and everything the way friends do. We hadn’t spent that kind of time together in years, and it was just nice being together. I still didn’t like biking, but I was wholeheartedly enjoying our adventure. We ate big breakfasts and dinners, and we slept hard at night.
On our bikes, we were mostly quiet. We took in the scenery around us, absorbing everything through our skin. There was never more than a quarter mile between us, but the time on our bikes was our own. That’s when I rode with my sister. I watched the train tracks through the trees and thought about how a building ends up isolated and alone in the woods. I wondered what it used to hold, and what it would’ve been like to live in a different time and place.
The last day was the hardest. I enjoyed the transition from woods and country to urban as we approached Pittsburgh. But I think we both woke up on our last day ready to be home that evening. Our last day was a damp, wet cold. We were tired but proud of ourselves, and both experiencing the cumulative fatigue in our legs. We rode 36 miles in a chilly headwind. When we reached the point, we barely celebrated. We snapped a few photos. Then we rode past the fountain along the river one final mile back to the car.
I changed my clothes in the hotel lobby bathroom while my friend packed the car. It sounds lazy of me, but it was the most helpful thing I could do. She needed to do it herself without me in the way. After, I convinced her to change while I sat in a lobby chair. Enjoying a hot cup of coffee and a crumbly pastry I had bought from a bakery the day before. We got in the car as refreshed as we would be for the drive home, getting out of the city just before baseball traffic.
We stopped just north of Pittsburgh for our celebratory coffee and a quick lunch. Then we drove two hours back to Cleveland, unpacked my things from her car and said goodbye. Ready to be home, my friend got back in the car quickly and continued on a few more hours to Detroit. We spent all weekend doing this epic, crazy thing. Then we simply went back to work on Monday.
