2nd day 2017

Just riding the rails!! I have not been on a passenger train since I was a kid, some 45-50 years ago. I was excited to give Amtrak's roll on service for bikes a try. The roll on bike service is offered on the route I needed, Washington DC to Chicago with a stop in Pittsburgh, PA, my destination.

To pick it up from my last entry I negotiated the ten blocks or so from the mall to Union Station. It was city riding but this area looked to be mostly government offices and since it was Sunday afternoon not all that busy. Union Station in DC is a remarkable beautiful building. I rolled into the station and it literally took my breath away. Soaring and majestic with the gold leaf on the roof. I regret that I took no photos. I was a bit apprehensive about the task in front of me to get myself and bike on to the train I focused on that instead of soaking up the experience. I left myself time but I also did not have extra time to burn. It all felt a bit weird folks, rolling a loaded bike right through the station and up to the check-in desk. The lady behind the counter was very helpful and explained the process. I was ready to pack my Panniers, tent, and sleeping bag in a separate bag. That got checked as a bag and then I rolled my bike through the line to get out to the trains and down to the baggage car. They have a small room set up for bikes. They go on a rack that has the front wheel up against the wall and then standing the bike up, there is a support arm with velcro strap to secure it all. Good design. They have room for seven bikes so if you want to use this service make your reservations early. It was a $20 fee over the price of the ticket. You load it yourself so it makes for a good feeling that your bike is OK and taken care of.

So here I am with my first Amtrak travel experience and I have to tell you folks, this is a superior way to travel!! It was such a contrast to being wedged into a tiny seat with no legroom, the airline experience that I just had getting from Denver to DC. You get a nice wide seat with all the legroom a 6'4" guy can want. Reclines back and you are not invading the person behind you space, plus a foot rest. There are outlets to plug in your computer and charge your devices. You can bring your own blanket and pillows. Basically anything to pass the time. When you get tired of your seat you can wander up to the club/snack/observation car and get a beer and snack and sit and watch the world go by and socialize with other people there on the train. I did not go to the dining car for a meal, but it is there when needed. I guess the only disadvantage is the time factor. You have to not be concerned about the time it takes with delays on the routes due to freight trains having priority. Seriously people, I could skip the whole airport, airlines, TSA hassles to travel on a train with my bike!

Enjoying a Pennsylvania Beer on the train!!

 I caught a few cat naps on the train before we got to Pittsburgh, unloaded my bike and got my checked bag. Then it was a wait for it to get light out. This was the part of the trip I had no real plan for. The train delivered me to Pittsburgh station at 2:00 AM and after re-packing the bike I was looking at about two hours to cool my heels in the station before first light. Oh well, I dozed as best I could in the station chairs. After a complete google search for a 24 hour or early morning breakfast place I had to settle on a Burger King, it being the only place that opened at 5AM. You see those 0.89 cent pancakes they offer??? Yeah...they should give you 0.89 cents to eat them. A very lacking breakfast but enough to get it light enough to get rolling.

Here is the Point and the start of the GAP or Great Allegheny Passage Rail Trail.

There was some construction on the trail so I promptly got lost in the streets in Downtown.
Got this picture of the Pittsburgh Paint and Glass Corporation, we sell PPG paint in our Lumberyard.

I found the trail again and had the chance to read some of the history of the bridges that cross the river. Old Pittsburgh Steel and many design engineers and their work some 100 to 80 years ago still standing!!

After getting lost one more time heading out of town I finally reach the end of the paved portion of the trail and started the crushed limestone trail. This was my only complaint of the trail in Pittsburgh, it was not marked very well. The bridges and some of the old industrial buildings kept your interest going as you pedal out on what is really just a city paved bike path.

Starting the dirt trail they have a stretch of original track.

 They have built these nice table benches to take breaks on for the well maintained trail. Smooth and wide and a gentle upward grade. The upward grade will continue for me the next two days until I reach the Eastern Continental Divide.

Some pretty things to look at as I roll along

Coal mining is of course a big part of the history here and the main reason for this RR to have existed. Moving coal to the smelters in Pittsburgh. The combination of water, coal, and the exposure to oxygen creates sulphuric acid. It bubbles to the surface and creates this rust water spring runoff.

The day at this point started to catch up with me and I just worked on grinding out the miles to get to my campgound, a KOA that is close to the town of Connelsville. A 64 mile day on not much sleep in the last 24 hours made my campsite very welcoming. A shower revitalized me to enjoy my campsite as the sun went down I crawled in for a nice sleep!!

We'll it pick up tomorrow for day 3.
Thanks for reading along!!
Jim

Ride it 2017

My annual Summer vacation bike ride took shape during this last winter. I have never been to visit my sister and her family at her home in Leesburg, VA and look at that...it is right on the C&O National Park Service Towpath. And, the towpath connects to the GAP rail trail which means one can ride a dirt trail from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington DC.

Let the planning begin!!

The logistics include boxing up my bike and shipping it off to Leesburg. My sister and her husband are friends with a nice fellow who owns an excellent bike shop in Leesburg called Plum Creek Cyclery. That is where the bike will go. I got a box from my local LBS and packing stuff from the lumberyard here and figure this out.
The idea is get this:

Into this:

Success!!

I tried to fit my panniers and camping stuff in with the bike to act as padding but the whole thing weighed to much. A different box to ship that stuff turned out to be the better idea.

A few weeks later off I go on the big bird. I get there on Saturday and we head over to the bike shop and pick up Ogre where the boys at Plum Creek had me all set to go. Thanks guys for taking care of it!!
Mark shows me about Leesburg, a little riding all over town with a couple of brewery stops with Jennifer meeting us!!

Next morning I pack up and head on out. First stop is White's Ferry which shuttles me across the Potomac River to the C&O towpath where I head on down the path for Washington DC.

The Chesapeake & Ohio towpath is a National Historic Monument. Built to move freight and coal back and forth through the Washington DC-Pittsburgh/Ohio corridor it was a monumental construction project. It's downfall was during the time to build it the train technology replaced it.

Today's ride plan was to cover the 37 miles down to DC, look about at monuments on the mall and then ride over to Union station and catch the Amtrak up to Pittsburgh. Before I even start I chat with some guys that rolled up. They noticed that I was just starting because my bike was clean and theirs were caked with mud. Seems the week before it had rained a bit and the mud and puddles were prevalent. The word in all the ride journals was the C&O was a rougher trail than the GAP. Looked like it to me to be a rougher ride than the other rail trails I have been on.

I then happen onto my first lock and lock house. There are so many stories and history on these locks and houses. I took a lot of pictures of the different ones through the ride. I'll share some of those as we roll along.

I head on down the trail really soaking this all up. Such different riding than I am used to!! Through the trees and forest, splashing through the mud puddles! The Potomac has some different looks to it which is why the canal was dug. There are sections that certainly are slow moving and could transport boats but other areas that are wild with rocky rapids. It is a beautiful river and a surprise to this western boy.

Hey Turtles!!

I roll into DC and get my mind reset for people and cars and traffic!! A summer Sunday in our nations capital, it was busy with people on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial. A few pictures of my ride through the mall heading for Union Station which is a few blocks from the Capital.

I'll leave it here for the first day and pick it up with the train ride up to Pittsburgh.
Thanks for reading along!!
Jim

Almost new

I think many people riding bikes thinks about a new or different bike to ride. Sometimes one desires a completely different style of ride (road bike or mountain) or just an upgrade on what you currently have. People post up about the N+1 theory of bike ownership and many posts and memes are pretty funny about that. I currently have three bikes that I own and find I ride all three and like them. A road bike, a touring bike, and a do-all adventure bike. I use the do-all bike for most of my daily commuting with the touring bike filling in for that duty when I am up for a change. That bike has disc brakes (my only one) and I found that when I got the bike I really liked them. So, when riding my road bike for fun this last summer I was thinking how I would like to have disc brakes on a road bike. This of course leads me to the computer doing research and shopping for disc brake road bikes. I love doing that!!! Looking at bikes and all the good stuff out there is just a great internet time waster!! That said, cooler heads prevailed and I wrote down on a legal pad what I really like and wanted in a road bike ride. I am a bit different than most road bike riders on how I want my ride to be set up. A bit more of an upright riding position, wider tires that I can run at a lower pressure, 32 tire at 80 psi. That's all OK because the beauty of cycling is everyone can have their own individual ride for themselves.
After looking at my list, at my current bike and at what is offered out there for disc brake road bikes I felt I had most of what I wanted in a perfect fitting bike that I had already tweaked for me in my current bike. After a few more changes I would have my ideal ride except for no disc brakes.

Let's see how it all turns out!!

Winter in Estes Park is a good time to work on bikes. Riding weather is very hit and miss and I can turn on the heater I have in the garage to make it very workable in there on all but the super single digit temperature days.

Here is where I start.

I've never really liked the brake lever shifters (brifters) combo. They have always made me nervous after reading about guys having cables break off inside the mechanism after some wear and their advice was to replace cables every year so you would not face that issue out on the road. I had never kept up with that kind of preventative maintenance and now I worried with every clunky shift. I am going to convert to my favorite, bar-end shifters set up with manual, not indexed shifting. I've had it on my LHT since I got it and I have had it on bikes back to the bike I rode in high school and college years.
New Shimano bar-end shifters

Of course, since the brifters were going away I needed some simple new brake levers that were just.......brake levers. I found these very nice looking black Tectro levers.

To go with the new changes I wanted a different bar set up. With my old bars I found I never rode on the lower part of the bar. Just not comfortable and I find I was always on the top bar or on the hoods. Let's go with something a bit different with the Salsa cowchipper bar with the splayed out lower bars for a more usable hand position.

I will use all new cables and sleeves to give it a fresh new shifting function. I go with classy red cable sleeves to match the red bike and set off from my tradition black double wrap bar tape.

It is a quick job to get the old stripped off.

The new bar went on and the first thing I tackled were installing the brake levers and running cables to the brakes. There I had to take a pause because my brake pads had some pretty good wear on them and looked like it was a trip to the LBS for new pads. I did take the opportunity to switch them to the longer mountain bike pads for a little more stopping power.

  I cabled up the new shifters without any trouble at all. I already like the way those bar-ends go on and function.

After getting everything all adjusted with the shifting and braking it was time to finish up with new bar wrap. I like the feel of cloth wrap but also the soft feel of padded wrap. I use a single wrap of cloth on the lower part of the bar and then on the top part of bar a wrap of the padded tape and then go over it with a wrap of cloth. It gives it a bit of a clunky look, but that is OK by me and my hands!!
Accessories like ride computer and handle bar bag finish my job and I am ready to ride!!

I get the chance to head out for a ride down the mountain starting in Lyons and I am not two minutes down the road and I realize that I forgot to attach my handlebar rear view mirror. I sure am used to riding with it that I find myself glancing down to where it should be. I'll get it on for the next ride. The ride was great, bars are a good fit for me, everything shifting smoothly and braking efficiently. I miss having the disc brakes but I am very happy about the $120 I spent on new parts instead of the $1500 on a new bike that I would have had to spend more on to get it just how I want it.

Action shot riding down the road

Thanks for reading along!!
Everybody enjoy your rides as spring makes a comeback here!!
Jim