Lucy, proprietor at the Connellsville Bed & Breakfast, serves up a nice Wednesday morning omelet. It’s 7.30 and the others here are a married couple with their male friend, in bike spandex, from Pittsburgh and headed south. They had breakfast at 7, so we don’t get a chance to do more than exchange pleasantries.
When I’m finished and on my third or fourth cup of coffee, I meet another couple headed south. They’re from Maine, and they’re dressed more in the t-shirt and athletic shorts mode, kind of like me. They’re maybe a few years younger, and parked their car in Cumberland to take the Amtrak train to Pittsburgh where they began their ride. The couple and their friend who left ahead of me are older, perhaps within a few years of standard retirement age.
I worry that The Great Allegheny Passage trail is filled with Baby Boomers just comfortable enough to get nice bikes and enough time off to put a full week into this ride, though I’m going to finish a full day early, myself.
I’d hope and bet that the riding crowd is far more diverse, and more colorful when summer begins next Monday (Memorial Day). Then again, I’ve seen plenty of 30-somethings and perhaps more than a few late-20-somethings on this ride, including the diverse group that tried to warn me off of riding uphill from Cumberland.
This last day leaves me with 62 miles to Pittsburgh, which now seems like a walk in the park. By the time I make “Little Boston,” 39 miles in, the rural hills and farmland of The Great Allegheny Passage roughly from Ohiopyle to the Eastern Continental Divide returns to exurb/suburb by this point. I have a late-ish (1 p.m. or so) lunch at The Trailside, the desktop restaurant above a bike shop and overlooking the trail, where Greg, Tom and I had our first lunch together last Friday.
I take a table on the outside deck and order, predictably, a cheeseburger and a Yuengling. I’m not driving, and although I’ve still got a ride ahead, I take a languorous hour.
As I eat away the final 23 miles, a group of half a dozen or so bike geeks, wearing matching t-shirts announcing their group’s name storms past with an “on your left!” I’m humbled, though I keep pace with them on a long, steady uphill for a mile or two. A few miles more and they’re taking a break next to a park nestled between the trail and the river.
They’re from Chico, California, aged from 30s to about my age. All male, and they’re finishing up a ride begun in Washington. They’re pretty much the mirror image of the Pittsburgh group that warned me about the uphill ride.
I ride closer and closer to Pittsburgh and my parked, borrowed Fiat 500X, feeling no regrets. I miss the company of Greg and Tom, and their encouragement in keeping a strong, steady, but comfortable pace from Pittsburgh to Cumberland. Now I miss Tom’s expertise as a local in navigating urban Pittsburgh as I get closer to Point State Park. The bridges, right up to the Hot Metal Bridge, cross pavement and over cars instead of rivers and I feel a vacation quickly coming to a close.
The trail breaks up maybe six or seven miles from Point State Park, and I walk my bike for a few blocks on the sidewalk — which I prefer over riding sidewalks — to find my way back. As I take my final selfies at the park, across the river from Heinz Stadium, it begins to drizzle again. I’m unshaven, sweaty and rain-soaked, look like hell, and feel like a million bucks. I could turn around, head south and do this all over again.
Mileage: 62
Official Trip Mileage: 300
Estimated Trip Mileage: 350
Like Writing a Bicycle 