Sunday, June 21, 2009
Day 6: Frederick, MD to Bedford, PA
We started early today, knowing that no matter what we did, it was going to be a very long day. Directly west of Frederick are some pretty big hills. In fact, we think today will be one of the hardest days of this entire trip.
The first hill is one that I climb all the time. Roughly 650 feet over 2.8 miles. That's about a 4.8% average grade. We climbed it without any serious problems, and had a good time surveying the valley ahead of us.
After a brief stop in a park we were off to tackle climb two. Unfortunately, we could see this climb coming from a long way away, and the temperature had started to pick up. We had a short conversation here where we decided (perhaps out of Jillian's stubbornness) that we were going to do this ride, no matter what.
This climb ended up being 550 feet over 2.1 miles - again around 4.8%. Nothing too bad yet, but with the constant rolling hills between, we were feeling a little tired. At the bottom we stopped at a Sheetz for breakfast. Here we ran into some cyclists on their way to a race in Williamsport, MD. The were had also apparently been another race in Hagerstown. We were missing the races by a matter by a day, which is rather frustrating. They were impressed by what we were doing, as were impressed by them.
It's a long, flat road to Hagerstown, which was good. We ended up having to backtrack around the city a bit, since we had trouble finding the road we needed to get out. As we were headed out the weather started to look iffy, but by riding pretty hard all the way to Mercersburg, we were able to stay North of it.
We decided to stop in Mercersburg for lunch. First we rode to the Mercersburg Academy campus, which was beautiful.
We had a bit of trouble finding somewhere to eat in Mercersburg. We were there on a Sunday, and the entire town seemed empty. We finally found an open gas station, got some drinks, and then were off.
Our next stop was Buchanan's Birthplace State Park. We rode a little way off the road to it, but stopped soon because we were running out of time. We did snack on some food though.
Then we started the climb up Cove Gap. This climb worked out to 1150 feet over 3.1 miles - a 7% grade. It would have been a totally manageable hill, except for the trailer and the two previous climbs. For the first time in ten years I walked a bike on a hill. Not that far, only for maybe a quarter mile, but I was too tired to push it any farther. The view from the top was awesome.
From here we had a very fast downhill. Jillian tried to record it as a movie on the camera, but we're yet to see if the footage is any good. We did have a problem where halfway down the computer stopped recording speed. It seems that when our speed breaks 40mph, the computer stops working.
At the bottom was the town of McConnellsburg. There wasn't really much of a town, but I did insist on stopping for a Slushie. Then it was off to climb the next hill, which we could see coming all the way from town. This climb seemed to twist back and forth some. This climb came in two sections. The first was only 0.6 miles long, but at an average 7.8% grade. Again, I asked Jillian if we could walk the bike.
At the top of this first section, I noticed the handlebars were feeling a little shaky. If you're pushing a Pino, push by the stoker's seat - not the captains. The shaking isn't bad enough to really be worried about, but we definitely need to have it looked at.
Just half a mile later came the next section of hill - another mile at 6.5%. We climbed this one, and had a not so pleasant downhill, since it was getting late and we weren't sure if we'd make it to Bedford before 10pm, when the hotel closed up for the night.
At the bottom we had to decide if we were going to take the short, but steep, route to Breezewood or if we were going to take the longer route via the abandoned PA turnpike. Perhaps foolishly, we thought it'd be faster to take the turnpike. Unfortunately, the route we took involved a bunch of dirt roads. We'd been on the dirt road for three minutes when we were chased by a dog, which we outran. Riding on dirt got really old, really fast.
Soon we weren't really sure where we were. Fortunately we ran into a couple (and their dog) who did some cycling touring. They pointed us to the road we needed (which we had ridden past, not even seeing it hidden in the forest). This road led to another dirt road, which had a huge, stone covered hill. We walked the bike here too, but only because we couldn't find enough traction to keep going up the hill.
Eventually, we found pavement again.
A few miles later we hit the trail, which was very well marked.
It was a little eerie riding on an abandoned highway.
Even more eerie were the tunnels. The longest was about a mile, and had a crown to it, so that you couldn't see the end of the tunnel until you were close to halfway.
The miles between tunnels were spent avoiding large potholes and climbing easy grade hills. Finally, we reached Breezewood. I had originally intended for us to ride a circuitous route to Bedford, in order to avoid a highway, but now we were short on time. I called my parents and asked them to ask the PA State Police if it was legal to ride US-30 the whole way to Bedford. We rode on a little while before hearing back that yes, it was legal.
So we rode as hard as we could, since there was no way we were going to make it in before dark and a possibility we wouldn't make it before ten. Unfortunately, we got to Everett and discovered that you can't bike 30, you need to go through town. It looked like a nice place, but we had to fly through it.
We arrived in Bedford around 9:30 and started racing out of town toward the hotel. Jillian called her mother and had her call the hotel and beg them to stay open long enough for us to arrive. At 9:45 we coasted in and checked into Judy's Motel. Jillian hopped into the shower and I set off to find somewhere to get some food. Unfortunately, the pizza place (and only place to eat we saw) closed at 10 and I was a few minutes late. So I grabbed some refrigerated sandwiches and cheese from a gas station and walked back. It wasn't a pleasant dinner, but we were so tired and hungry we didn't care.
We also decided that although we didn't have an exact count on miles for the day (I found out later it was 102), there was no way we could do a 100 mile day the next day. So we decided to shorten our route and only travel to Donegal, PA. At only sixty miles, hopefully we'd get some rest.
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