The Ride of Your Life

Riding the GAP and the C&O is "The Ride of Your Life"!

This is a group ride on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal, from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington, DC. It is to benefit Rails-to-Trails of Wayne County, Ohio. It is from July 13 to July 21, 2013 and is an "indoor lodging" trip. It will average 45 miles of riding a day, for 8 days.



Pictured at the left, is the Salisbury Viaduct (former Western Maryland RR bridge); a 3/4 mile long bridge across the Casselman River, US 219, the CSX Railroad and the valley.







This is a map of the completely "off road" bike trail, from Pittsburgh (left) to DC (right). I (Keith Workman) rode it in 2011 and am leading this group of 9 other riders. (The Salisbury Viaduct is pictured at the bottom of the map.)



This is a representation of the elevations on the ride. The combined trails are 335 miles long. The C&O is 185 from Washington, DC to Cumberland, MD and the GAP is 150 miles from Cumberland to Pittsburgh. The last uncompleted section near Pittsburgh, opened June 2013. The long standing road detour on the C&O was removed in Sept 2012, when Big Slackwater section of the Towpath was opened to travelers. The "grade" is not as steep as it looks, because the bottom scale (125-325 showing) is in miles and the vertical scale is in feet (to 2392 ft.). That's only 1.7 % grade, at the steepest part. In this "view" DC is on the left and Pittsburgh on the right.





This sign is in Cumberland MD where both trails meet.














"Patch" for the GAP.
















"Patch" for the C&O.







Follow our travels each day, we experience "the ride of our lives".  The trail goes "thru the mountains, not over them as the GAP Trail goes thru three tunnels, the longest of which is the Big Savage Tunnel at 3300 feet long (that's almost 2/3 of a mile long, but it is lighted).
Hope you enjoy our trip as much as we expect to.