Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, is a favorite for Pittsburgh day-trippers. College students, already finished with their spring semester, are poring into town to take summer jobs as river raft guides. Tom convinces Greg and me to spend the morning in town and ease on up to Rockwood, where we have reservations at Husky Haven Saturday night.
That’s a mere 27 miles, according to the Trail Guide, though it’s also an elevation gain of 594 feet. I manage to double my sleep from the previous night to more than six hours.
As I look out over the Yough Plaza parking lot, I feel like I must be in Colorado or Oregon. The lot is full of bikes in the provided racks and more on the day-trippers’ Subaru and SUV bike racks.
In the motel’s guest laundry room, a day’s worth of biking and post-biking clothes are drying. Tom’s Specialized adventure bike has developed a flat and he gets it fixed at one of two bike shops nearby.
Adventure bikes are made for trails like The Great Allegheny Passage and the rougher C&O Canal trail. In fact, I bought the Renegade mostly because I thought I’d be riding the C&O and its rough, rutted surface. Just as “hybrid” bikes begin with a hardtail mountain bike-style frame with straight handlebars, and replace off-road tires with intermediate tires for such paths, the modern adventure bike starts with a road/touring bike with drop handlebars, but with wheels that can accommodate tires more robust and wider than the bolo tie-thin racing style tires. My Renegade’s versatility proves perfect for this long trek.
We check out at 11 and head for the park overlooking the rapids, for pictures. Then we ride the half-mile or so back to the trail and continue on south.
Steadily, slightly uphill, Tom and I pace off each other at a moderate clip as Greg is slightly off-pace and behind us. We take regular breaks along the way, but most of the time Tom and I maintain a constant 10-12 mph (an estimate). The GAP trail’s speed limit is 15 mph.
We stop in Confluence for a late (2-ish) lunch, skipping the Lucky Dog cafe on the outskirts. Confluence is named for its confluence of the Casselman and Youghiogheny rivers. It’s also the home of Confluence Cyclery, located downtown, a mile or so off the trail. Its owners are two escapees from Washington’s Inside-the-Beltway rat race, and it’s worth visiting whether or not you need any adjustments. The owners recommend lunch at Sisters Cafe, a block away, but we must hurry — it’s 1.50 p.m., and the diner closes at 2. Tom gets a new pair of tires to replace his worn tires at Confluence Cyclery as we have lunch.
The 18 miles to Rockwood are perhaps the most beautiful miles on the GAP trail. In Rockwood, there’s a B&B/bike shop right on the trail as we enter the town, but we take a left off the trail, cross a bridge and find the guest house of Husky Haven, on the other side of the Casselman River, and named for the team of dogs that Barry and Jean (the owner) Atchison used to mush in winters a generation ago on the GAP trail. The Atchisons’ property on the other side of the river, cleared of trees so they could run huskies in the ’90s and ’00s, now is Husky Havens’ campgrounds for bikers.
Jean checks us in to the guest house and tells us there are two dinner choices in Rockwood this Saturday night. The closest closes at 7 p.m., about an hour after we’re showered and ready, while the other is more than half a mile away, serves food until 9 and has a liquor license. Sold.
It occurs to me on the walk over to the tavern (Greg rides his recumbent) that we’ve been in Trump country for much of this ride. Rockwood is another small Pennsylvania town, well-kept but economically stagnant because of dying or moving industries. Tons of steel, coal and coke used to come from these hills. The marketing of the Great Allegheny Passage and its official connection with the C&O Canal trail in 2010, when the U.S. started to recover from The Great Recession, has begun to bring in biking enthusiasts like me who’ve already spent used car money on ever more expensive bikes and their accessories.
It won’t be enough, of course. There’s Husky Haven, the Rockwood Trail House B&B, the Hostel on Main, which we passed on the way to dinner and a place called Gingerbread House — which we did not see — in this town of 846 people. I wonder how locals in Rockwood regard bike tourists like me.
Trail Guide mileage: 27
Mileage according to Greg’s iWatch: 30.9
Elevation change: +594 feet
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