Day 11: 75 Miles

Blairsville, PA to McMurray, PA

Apologies to the avid readers who were concerned when there was no update last night. Yesterday was a long day and I just didn’t have the energy to do an update. Next time that happens I’ll put up a short note and fill in the rest when I have time. Today you get a double dose of me!

I woke up to sunshine and temperatures above 50 degrees for the first time this trip. After the great experience on the bike trail the day before, I decided to try out the West Penn Trail on my way to McMurray. The trailhead was about 2 miles from the hotel, and once I got there I was happy to see that this trail was in pretty good shape.

I put a headphone in my right ear, tuned to the radio station with the best reception, and let Katy Perry’s Firework carry me through the first couple miles. Today was going to be a good day…until I got 8 miles in and arrived at a bridge that was impassible.

There were large tree scattered across the bridge which would have been very difficult to lift my bike over or around. The bridge also had wire side walls which were now criss-crossing the bridge at varying heights. I would have needed to do my best impression of Catherine Zeta Jones from Entrapment to get through the destruction in front of me. Even if I’d been able to make it across, there was a huge hill to climb on the other side that was made up entirely of ankle deep mud.

With my path blocked, I had to backtrack and find a new route. This proved to be very difficult as my 65 mile day turned in 75 miles with the addition of what seemed like thousands of feet of elevation. The issue with rerouting mid ride is that I have to rely entirely on Google maps. Google is great for finding the shortest distance between two points but is actually pretty horrible for cycling directions. My route had me going over many unnecessary climbs and sometimes selected roads that were clearly not meant for anything other than a tractor. When I hit into something like this it meant backtracking and trying again. I felt like I was in a maze that contained only dead ends. The other issue with relying on Google is the need to take out my phone every time I questioned where I was going. Given the number of hills I didn’t want to accidentally descend the wrong hill and have to climb back up. This meant I was stopping and starting a lot to look at directions. While each stop lasted no more than a few minutes, time began to add up quickly.

About 25 miles into the steep back roads I heard 3 dogs barking and was immediately on alert. I hopped off my bike, putting it between myself and the dogs, but this time there was an owner around and the dogs were actually very friendly. No mace needed! Two of the dogs stayed back while a dopey looking german shepherd came right up to me looking for a pat on the head. I was now stopped at the bottom of a steep hill, so I started to walk my bike up until the road evened out a bit. The german shepherd walked beside me for a solid half a mile before he finally decided to turn around and head home.

I made a stop for food at a gas station at mile 38 of the day. It was already 3:00 PM and I’d been on my bike for 6 hours. There were still 37 miles to go. Luckily, the second half of the ride was significantly easier than the first half. A large portion of the second half was on the Montour Trail which was nice and flat. The gravel trail slowed me down, but at least it was not strenuous.

I arrived at my stopping point right around 7:00 PM. It was the longest day I’ve had in terms of both time and mileage. I was staying at my friend Danny’s place and his family had food waiting for me when I arrived. I kind of intruded on the end of their mother’s day celebration, but everyone was very interested to hear about my trip. Danny and I had a couple of beers and caught up with each other and then it was time to get some sleep in preparation for a shorter and easier ride the next day.