Day 1: Pittsburgh to DC to Catonsville

Game Day

As usual, I cannot sleep before big athletic events This was no exception. The plan was to launch by 3am, so if I went to bed by 6-7, I could get 6-7 hours of sleep. After much fussing and re-fussing with my gear, I finally ended up in bed at 11:30.  Great plan. And then I couldn't fall asleep. One thing about tapering for a big event, is that if I do no physical activity that day, I have a lot of pent up energy. I guess I am using up that energy to cover for my lack of sleep.

(Thursday, 3am) Lets all wake up from our wonderful sleep-and you drive Jeff

I picked up Jeff bright and early exactly at 3am. Heading off to Paul's house, Jeff cracked a joke and asked if I was going to ride in Croc's. Oh snap! I was wearing Croc's.  I realized I had forgot to put my Five Ten riding shoes in the car. A quick back track to my house and we arrived at Paul's at 3:20. We were finally heading off to Pittsburgh @ 3:25am. Jeff offered to drive the first half and I snuck in the back to see if I could sleep. And sleep I did. The entire ride! While Jeff was looking for relief, I was passed out in the back.

On the ride over, it had started raining about an hour before Pittsburgh. Yeah! We just hoped the B&O trail wouldn't be too muddy the next day.

(Thursday, 8am) Great nap-oh we are here already?

All unpacked and ready to roll!

Arriving in Pittsburgh the rain had turned into a light mist. This was looking promising as no one wanted to start out in the rain. Returning the car was easy at the downtown parking garage which also doubled as the Avis pickup/return point. We were only 0.3 miles away from the starting place-Point Park. However, a little mis-communication and we totally shot past it. We circled back and took a few pictures to document the official start of the Great Allegheny Passage.

The start!

It was all worth circling back to get the picture.

(Thursday, 9am) Dude-where's the start?

The ride had an auspicious start. Navigating out of the city, Paul dropped a burrito. It would be one of many things he dropped on the trip. The next incident was Jeff shearing off a bolt to his front bike rack at 20 miles into the trip. It looked like the panniers should have had a third mounting point, but there were only two available. As Jeff figured out how to attach his pannier bag to his Revelate seat bag, it had started to rain. Now we were getting cold and wet, but all knew this was just the beginning of a long ride and everyone kept their cool.

Old distillery we saw.  I didn't take this picture but stole it from here:
 http://swpare.blogspot.com/2011/11/abandoned-overholt-distillery-broad.html

Paul: 'I think we go right here . . .'
Jeff: 'That's a nice warehouse . . .'

Views from the left bank of the river.

One of the many awesome bridges along the GAP

Overlook on the Youghiogheny river

Some great scenic views of the Youghiogheny river

An awesome bridge crossing before Ohiopyle

The ride out of Pittsburgh was beautiful. It seems they offered a number of bridges to cross back and forth across the river so we had good views along the left and right banks. I wish I could post more pictures of the ride, but with the gloves, rain, and the fact that I can't ride without any hands, pictures taking opportunities only happened when we stopped.

(Thursday, 1pm) I am wet cold and shivering, let's stop and eat

At about 80 miles in we stopped for lunch in Ohiopyle. This was an amazing place and I wish we could have spent more time here if it weren't for the fact that we were wet, getting cold, and had another 255 more miles ahead of us. It had started raining a bit harder now, so we definitely wanted to find some shelter to eat. At this point in the game, I made the unwise move of putting on my shoe covers. I didn't put them on earlier in the ride because I thought they would overheat and get wet from sweat. .Well, now they were wet from rain. Both Jeff and Paul had put their neoprene shoe covers on at the beginning of the ride and had completely dry feet. One of those things you try to manage but fail. It turns out that putting them on still helped and kept my foot warm the rest of the day.

Rapids at Ohiopyle

Apparently we made it that far down that GAP map..

The rain had let up a little by the time we launched. Jeff looked to refill his water bottle, but we did no see any super accessible pump. We could have gone into a store to fill up, but with all of us cold and wanting to move, we thought we could fill up at the next pump 10 miles down. Or so we thought was 10 miles down. This decision would impact the ride for the rest of the night.

(Between miles 0 and 100) Retrospective Riding notes

This section is a bit of a reflection on how we rode to this point. Both Jeff and Paul had touring bikes which was perfect for this hard packed trail. Being the Mustachian frugalist, I opted to retrofit my hardtail mountain bike with a pair of cycle cross wheels I borrowed from a friend. While my bike rolled well, it accelerated poorly with the additional weight and the heavier wheel set. Compounding to this, I was the smallest rider with the lowest wattage output, so my bike moved significantly slower. While riding, we agreed to trade leading off every mile. If you look carefully at the Strava analysis, you can see every time I took over, we took a dip in speed. And ever time I took lead, I pushed at a fairly uncomfortable pace while trying to keep the train moving. 

At the same time, Paul in retrospect said he wasn't feeling well from the beginning. Jeff and I didn't know this at the time, but he said he felt sluggish for the first 100 miles. This was good to know, because at one point Jeff and I were pushing 18 mph at a slightly uncomfortable pace. Paul told us to dial it down which was the smart thing to do.

Did I mention the occasional rain and slightly wet trails? From a traction perspective, this didn't bother us at all. What did bother us, was the rooster tail of water that the bike in front would send up to our faces. This made drafting harder as we couldn't ride directly behind the wheel without getting a mouth and eye full of mud and water. Paul blessed us with fenders on his bike, but it turns out fenders only protect the rider and doesn't minimize rooster tails. It turns our Paul's fenders saved him in other ways later in the trip.

On the ride up to Ohiopyle, the sun and rain had come out so we were constantly adding and shedding layers. A lot of things fell off both Paul's and Jeff's bikes from burritos, panniers, and jackets. Of course, my bike technical wasn't due until later that night. . . 

(Thursday, 3pm) Dude-where's that water pump?

About 10 miles from leaving Ohiopyle (90 miles into our Journey), Jeff runs out of water. As expected. However, we couldn't find an "accessible" or "convenient" water pump in Confluence, PA.  It was too out of the way. Not to worry-we will find another place 10 more miles down right? What we didn't realize is that we wouldn't find a place to fill up for the next 20 miles. 

Jeff looked pretty desperate for water, so I offer him my salted water and we finish up my supply by mile 100. We were in this exact same situation on our 200 mile ride during the summer. I wasn't too worried until I started feeling thirsty. When you feel thirsty, you know your already dehydrated.

We spotted a small town of Casselman, PA, but it was across the river and there was no way to get to it. I did pack a water filtration straw, but we weren't quite THAT desperate yet. In the next mile we saw a trail head marking and a GAP bathroom! This was another let down as there was no water pump here as well. WTF!?!?

Fortunately, the trail had crossed Rockwood, PA and we found a small convenience store a few hundred feet from the path.

(Thursday, 4:30 pm) Git your bike off my deck! Nobody needs that. Nobody needs that . . .

The next part of the trip was our second most memorable moment. At 110 miles and 10 hours in, all of us were feeling exhausted. We wanted to tick of 200 miles that day, so we knew we were only half way done, yet were pretty far behind our planned pace of 13-15 mph. Dying of thirst didn't make us feel any better. We found the Country Trail convenience store in Rockwood, PA and sought to end our drought. 

Paul led the way and pulled his bike on the deck/porch of the store where an old man was chain smoking out side. He promptly turned to Paul and said, "Git your bike off my deck! Nobody needs that. Nobody needs that . . ." The last part he kinda mumbled to himself, but you get the idea. 

I volunteered to wait with the bikes while Paul and Jeff had their own adventures inside store. While I was making small talk with Mr. Chain Smoker, Paul and Jeff were figuring out how to refill our water bottles. Apparently they couldn't use these steel sinks in the back and the attendant had to fill up the bottles from behind the counter. After dumping out all of Jeff's Infinite solution in his bottle, the attendant handed back quarter filled water bottles. I am guessing water is a scarce resource in Rockwood, because it took three more tries to have the water bottles topped off. 

When I went in to buy some food, I wanted to gather some intel on the next water stop. "Where's the next town heading to DC". Apparently I used an incorrect geographical marker as the attendant didn't know where was DC. "Okay-next town East on the GAP?" East was also an unknown orientation, so I pointed in the way we where heading. I got the town named Garrett, but no mileage information. Mr. Chain Smoker filled in that detail.

All of us gathered on the porch (where bikes aren't allowed) and noticed there was a bar connected to the convenience store. It had a big sign on it saying "Bikers Welcome". Oh-I guess we went to the wrong place! We witnessed a few store patrons drive up and leave their cars running while shopping inside. Paul joked "And you were afraid of leaving our bikes unattended?"  :-)

I wish I would have taken a picture of the place was too tired
to capture one. Here's a street view shot from Google Earth.

(Thursday, 5pm) Gimme some tunes!

While amusing as it was, leaving the store was definitely one of our lowest morale points that day. We were all tired, it was getting dark, and we were still a bit damp. And then Paul pulled out his bluetooth speaker and started playing some jams!

In a true pivotal moment, the mood shifted to a party. While I typically do not condone blaring music on the trails, there was no one we  to bother as we headed to Cumberland into the night.

The pace picked up as we all started to feel a little better. Paul actually started feeling himself as he struggled through the first 100 miles. Even the next day it took Paul 100 miles to warm up. To get himself back in the groove, he would spend his time in lead standing up pedaling for the full mile. The first time he attempted this he did a full three miles. My legs were so tired, I could barely stand up for 5 strokes before I had to sit down.

(Thursday, 6pm) Boom!

We were all feeling good and crushing down the path next to the train tracks when I heard a low popping sound from Pauls rear tire. Uh oh. It seems Paul had hit a sharp rock and blew out his tire. 

What Jeff and I witnessed next was truly amazing. In less than 5 minutes, Paul was in some bike mechanics trance as had replaced his tube and loaded up with air. Of course, the tube he replaced it with had a mis-seated core and all the air leaked out.  In the end it took a total of 15 minutes to change the tire, but we got back up and started rolling. We were currently in the middle of the climb up to Cumberland. It was a mild 1% grade, but it was a climb nonetheless when you you were carrying an additional 35 pounds of gear. We wanted to get to the top and without stopping crush downhill so we wouldn't be too cold. That would have been a great game plan except I had underestimated my salt intake.

(Thursday, 6:30pm) Where are my legs?

With that tire tube change, my legs had seized up and started cramping. As Paul and Jeff disappeared into the night, I could barely get back onto my seat. All my long endurance rides were in some relative heat, so I was diligently to take two Salt Lick pills every hour. Since I figured I was sweating less (or so I thought) in this cool weather, I reduced my intake to one pill every hour.  In addition to our water running dry, I had depleted my salt reserves. 

Paul and Jeff eventually stopped for me to catch up to them, but now I was in serious trouble. Cramps at this stage would totally slow us down and I've never experienced them knowing I still had 50 more miles to go tonight.  Over the next 5 hours, I managed to recover by doubling my Salt Lick intake but I dreaded taking lead every time as I was on the verge of seizing up. 

(Thursday, 7:28pm-mile 132) Let's climb some more hills!

Top of climb. About to cross the Eastern Continental Divide. 

We came up on right and about to bomb down on the left.

We made it to the top. While I love climbing hills, I was done and ready to descend. The climb wasn't really that steep since they compressed the 130 mile distance in the above image.  Unfortunately, my cramped legs wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the downhill bomb that was coming up.

And so we crushed downhill with mud flying in our faces and wind screaming in our ears. It was awesome! We were averaging 20 mph on some sections as gravity paid us back what we earned. We strolled through downtown Cumberland knowing we completed the GAP!

Jeff feeling good and Paul checking to see how much more we need to ride.

We are heading right.

(Thursday, 9:17 pm-mile 154) Don't splash me!

The C&O was not as well maintained as the GAP. As soon as we left Cumberland, we encountered 2-4 inch deep pot holes filled with water. Normally this wouldn't be anything too traumatic as they were dirt pot holes and posed little risk for tire punctures, but Jeff was concerned his other pannier would get knocked off.

The trail was double track with the middle section containing some nice fully grass. I normally like riding on grass, but not wet grass. Our tires seemed to do a great job of extracting water out of the grass and sending up behind us. All this meant that we couldn't bunch in our normal pace line as we slogged side to side dodging pot holes. This perhaps was one the worst riding aspects of the trip, as it was difficult to maintain momentum dodging wet pot holes and soggy grass for the next 20 mile.

(Thursday, 9:40 pm-mile 165 ish) Now it's my turn to break down!

Along this time, it was my turn to have my bike technical. I heard something snap and then some resistance in my drive train. I stopped immediately fearing it was my derailleur. It would have been great to show you a picture of what was going on, but I had only enough mental powers to figure out what had happened to my bike.

The big fat bungee cords that I used to strap down my sleeping pad had slipped off the PVC bar stabilizer and wound its way around my cassette. The point of failure that I thought could happen did happen. Since there were no caps on the PVC pipe, the bungees were free to slip off. I thought there was enough tension and normal forces to prevent it the cord from slipping off the end-however I was just proven wrong in a potentially catastrophic way.

There was a certain beauty in seeing how bungee could intertwine itself into the cassette, around the derailleur, and between the cassette and the wheel hub. I wish I had more wherewithal to take a picture, because it looked like my bike was done. But after spending the better part of 15 minutes hacking, pulling, and untwisting the bungee, my bike was free. And everything seemed to work. I tied everything back in place and we were off again.

(Thursday, 10 pm-mile 170 miles) Zombie ride--need sleep!

Starting back off again, Paul mentioned he was feeling dizzy. Not a good sign. It was late and we were well under our 200 mile goal for the day. We had passed few hiker/biker camp sites and planned on stopping at the next one.

It's funny how 5 miles feels like an eternity. Sloshing back and forth on the wet pot hole strewn trail made the next campground feel like 20 miles in the snow. But we arrived near Tom Creek.

That day we spent 15 hours and 42 minutes moving and traveled 177.2 miles. The rain, poor legs, and numerous technicals had slowed us down. But the best part is that we were still in good spirits.

It was windy but not rainy. Temps were definitely dropping, so we were quick to dry ourselves off and setup camp. There were some great trees along the campsite, and we settled in.

(Thursday 10:30pm-177.2 miles) Camping notes

Jeff had never hammock camped before. But Jeff is Captain America and he had his site set up first and was in bed before I knew it. I guess he was tired, or probably because I made him drive to Pittsburgh the entire time earlier that day.

I was still feeling the lingering effects of my cramps, so I wanted to make sure I hydrated before going to bed and stretched out. I was thankful my wife made me pack some lemonade mixes, because I really craved the sugar. I downed two bottles of those mixes combined with sweet iodine C&O water. 

Across the river the train was running so I was super glad I packed a set of ear plugs. I am sure Paul was super glad too as I lent him an extra set. We were feeling tired but good that day. Tomorrow would be longer.

Next day picture of our camp site. I guess I didn't run my
tarp that tight. I did keep the sides down low for wind
protection and since it wasn't raining anymore, this worked.

Jeff stuffing up his sleeping bag. 

You can check out Pauls fully enclosed tarp. It was like a tent.

T-minus 1 day: Pittsburgh to DC to Catonsville

Final Preparations

Food

So what do you possibly eat during a 375 mile ride? Basing my experience on a prior 200 mile road  ride, I was able to go through 3 peanut butter and jelly (PBJ) and 1.5 zip lock sandwich baggies of a potato/kale concoctions. Figuring we were not going to stop for food, I packed 5 PBJ's, 3 snack bags of potato/kale, 2 snack bags of trail mix, 1 snack bag of cashews,  1/4 lb of beef jerky, and 1/4 lb of beef sticks. For supplements there were three things that I discovered that help me on long rides.

1. Having a stable stomach. Nothing could end a trip early or reduce your performance than having stomach issues. Ginger is an awesome anti nausea and stomach stabilizer. I brought 2 zip lock baggies of candied ginger.
2. Maintaining sodium levels. At my first solo race at the Leesburg Baker's Dozen I developed the name "Salt Lick". By the end of the day, my face was completely caked with salt. Since cramping is not fun, I drink straight salt water and eat two Salt Lick pills every hour.
3. Taking the secret endurance sauce. At the aforementioned Baker's Dozen race, I was introduced to the secret sauce of endurance racing. Caffein. Not being a coffee drinker, I was surprised at how caffeine boosted my energy and performance levels.  While I prefer drinking Cokes on my ride, Double Expresso Cliff Energy Gel shots with 100 mg of caffein was significantly more portable. 

3 PBJ's. This took up a lot of space

Potato and Kale conncoction 

Enough food for 375 miles?

Weather

The weather looked promising except for a chance of rain on the first day. We just hoped the C&O wouldn't be too muddy the following day.

Water

There hadn't been a good freeze, so we were hoping the GAP water pumps were still active. I couldn't get an official answer before we left, so we had to hope that water would be available ever 10 miles. 

All Packed Up

The final manifest of my gear. 

Sleeping system

1. Fleece pants
2. Thick fleece shirt
3. Tyvek suit
4. Thermal underlayer top and bottom
5. 50 degree sleeping bag
6. Hammock with hammock straps
7. Hammock rain fly
8. Sleeping bag liner (I later removed this and added the fleece pants)
9. Tyvek stuff gab with hammock straps
10. Balaclava
11. Lightweight micro fiber towel-I wanted to make sure I was dry before going to sleep.

Riding gear

1. Camel back with 2.5 liter capacity
2. Pearl Izumi shoe covers
3. 1 long sleeve riding shirt
4. 1 riding jersey
5. 1 riding bib
6. 1 spare riding bib
7. 3 pairs of gloves.
8. 2 pairs of wool socks

Phone and electrical

1. iPhone 5s with a weak battery
2. Morphie external battery 4000 mAh
3. Anger external battery 3000 mAh
4. 1 lighting charger

Miscellaneous

1. First aid kit. 
1. Tampon.  I read about using a tampon to prevent serious trauma bleeding! Stay tuned on it's involvement later in the trip.
2. Advil
3. Pepto
4. Iodine
5. Life straw water filter
6. Emergency blanket x2. Since we were hammocking in potential wet weather, I threw an extra in there to be safe
7. Band aids
8. Rubbing alcohol 
2. Tooth brush/tooth paste
3. Paracord
4. 4-5 chemical hand warmers 

All bagged up

1. 1 20L dry bag-that held all my sleeping equipment and next day change of clothing.
2. And old North Face waist pack that held 90% of my food.
3. A cheap High Sierra camel back from Costco that stored my rain jacket, shoe covers, and bike pump and the all important first aid kit.
4. An Iberia top tube bag that held my phone, phone batteries, candied ginger, salt, and salt pills.
5. Bontrager seat bag that two tubes, two CO2, bike levers, and a multi tool.

Rental

We wanted to pack up our bikes the day before so we could launch promptly at 3am. I reserved the previous day before our early morning departure.  Since this was a bike expedition, what better way to pick up the care rental than by bike!

The attendant said he's met only 2 other people who picked up
their car by bike in the past three years.  

One bike in. Need to find a picture of the rest of the bikes . . .

When we loaded the bikes up-all that we needed to do was go to sleep and drive to Pittsburgh.

Next up; Day 1

Prepping for the Pittsburgh to DC (to Cville?) trip

Planning

Assembling the team

I am a cheap (frugal?) version of Tony Stark, Jeff is Captain America and Paul is Thor.
My teammates would probably disagree with my character assignments.  ;-) 

Jeff was in from the beginning. From multiple Shenandoah 100's, century road rides, and our recent double century, Jeff is the faster rider between the two of us. But two people doing 335 miles is still a bit lonely. I wanted to recruit a few more. Building teams can be a tricky proposition. You want people capable for the job and have the right attitude when things get tough. People who have grit-yet were still cheery and constructive. Fortunately, many riders who do 100 plus mile rides exhibit these characteristics. 

Paul was someone who came to mind. I first met Paul on an evening road ride. Coming back from a stomach bug illness, I had lost 10 pounds and wanted to see if losing that weight made me a faster climber. A tall skinny rider in front of me was riding up Bonnie Branch with no hands. No hands. Perfect target. But the harder I cranked, the further away he rolled. That night I introduced myself to Paul and found him to be a totally chill rider-that could crank out a ton of watts. After friending him on Strava, I saw a number of 100 to 150+ mile solo rides and realized this was someone who would enjoy this trip.

A number of other strong riders wanted to join, but we couldn't work out the right schedules. So it was just the three of us locked and loaded to go.

Logistics

Distance. 335 miles. 2 days. Tough-but doable. Everyone seemed comfortable with the milage.  Paul plotted the route and eventually tacked on another 40 miles to finish in Catonsville. 375 miles. Check.

375 mile route! Thank Paul for adding an additional 40 miles to our route to finish back home.

Direction. Which direction then? Everyone agreed that they would rather do a Pittsburgh to DC trip as opposed to a DC to Pittsburgh. No one wanted a long drive back home after a long bike ride. The elevation profile really wasn't a factor in our planning.

Food. Since this wasn't a sight seeing trip, the plan was to pack all our food with us. I entertained the idea of group dinners, but that would have been too complicated to pack with the time constraint.

Get some delicious iodine flavored
water from the C&O pumps!

Water. The GAP and C&O trails had water pumps stationed along the trail. C&O said they usually turned off the water supply in mid November. The GAP said late October after the first freeze. This detail got a little dicey as we were planning on riding October 27-28.  At worse case we would bring camel back bladders and load them up at the towns we passed. This would add time to our trip.

Daylight. We were planning on riding a good number of miles in the dark. We needed to make sure we had enough battery supply to run the lights. At worse case we thought, only the front biker needed lights.

1st Hammock setup with trees
too close together . .  .

Sleeping.  Bike camping. The C&O had a number of hiker/biker campsite available, so we just planned on hitting one of them. As opposed to tents, we all started to setup hammock systems. Paul already had an advanced hammock system. Jeff needed to buy one. I had already hacked a cheapo system together that I wanted to try.

Getting to the start. Buses and trains were an option, but renting a mini van with 3 people was so much easier. We could load and depart on our own schedule. 150 for the rental plus gas and tolls, it was the obvious answer.

Gear

Next time-a trailer!

Never having been on a bike camping trip, there was a number of items that both Jeff and I had to figure out. Paul had already cleaned out REI and his local bike stores with a full bike backing setup.

Bike. I suppose the most important equipment to consider is the bike. One of my goals was to keep this as frugal as possible, so I decided to retro fit an existing bike. I wanted to adapt my 2010 Gary Fisher Paragon hard tail. I was either going to put skinner tires on my Stans Arch EX rims or find a pair of cyclocross wheels. After much wheel research and inquiries, a friend of mine said he had a pair of spare cyclocross wheels I could borrow. Everything on the wheels matched up and there wasn't much retro fitting except for a cassette swap.

Jeff didn't have a hard tail. He had a beautiful full squish carbon Niner. He was looking to mount skinnier wheels and call it a day. He bought some 622x32 Continental Gator skins and threw them on. Well-they didn't actually go on that easily. It took three people to mount them.

Wheels. While we are on the subject of bikes, lets talk about wheel sizes. On a dry run with Paul, I went on a  trip up and along the National Central Railroad trail with my road bike that was fitted with 622x25  Continental 4000s II.  The 25's did okay, although I would have felt more comfortable coming at speed with 28's or larger.

For the GAP trail, you could get by with 28's, but the C&O is a bit rougher, especially after it rains. 32's or wider were recommended. Thankfully, the wheels I borrowed were 35's which seemed to have the right blend of width with speed. Both Jeff and Paul ended up running 32's on the trail and were good.

Carrying system and bags. With the bikes and wheels locked down, it was time to figure out how to carry everything. Since my mountain bike didn't have any rack bolts, I explored a few bike bag options.  Specially, I looked for a large seat bag, triangle bag, and handle bar bags. I checked out the sensible likes of Green Guru, the affordable Banjo Brothers, and the high end Revelate Designs.  Since this hardware would be used for future bike packing expeditions, I didn't mind spending a little extra for a quality bag. The 14 L Terrapin System really appealed to me but I discovered that there were minimum clearance requirements between the tire and the seat.  Paul apparently had the entire Revelate lineup so I went over to see what would fit and not fit.

I would have love to use this bag, but didn't have the  9 inch clearance
on my bike. Even the Pika would be a tight fit. 

Sadly the Terrapin wouldn't fit under my seat and even the smaller Pika would be iffy. And I realized just how small the triangle on my bike. It barely fit my 24 ounce water bottle with no room for a second. So I needed to look for other options.

Ghetto PVC + seat post rack. 

Notice how the PVC doesn't have any
end caps? This will bite me later . . 

I had a seat post rack picked up from the local annual Bike Swap. I then found this durable 6 dollar 20 Liter Dry Bag at Wally Mart. Perfect. With a few Flat Bungee Cords, this strapped securely onto the bike rack. A modification done later, was to add a piece of PVC to extend the 4 inch width of the track rack to 18-20 inches. The bar was used for additional torsional stability.
Having a 20 Liters of capacity bag was great. The one downfall around this design is that it's not easily accessible. The sleeping system and items I would need the second day would all fit in the bag, but I would still require quick access storage options.

Out came a Bontrager seat bag where I loaded it with two tubes, tire irons, CO2, and a multi tool. I then bought a cockpit bag to fit on top my top tube. I could have bought the Revelate gas tank bag, but I wanted a see through phone holder that could be useful on future rides since I don't have a Garmin. Since rain was in the forecast, I would simply wrap my phone in a zip lock bag.

The final place where I could carry items was my handle bars. At first, I was just going to strap a compress or dry bag to the handle bars but looking at how Revelate created their mount, they created a space so the bags wouldn't crush the shifter and brake cables. Hmmm-I wanted to figure out how to make a spacer. I'll need to go into another blog post on that, but in the end, I created this contraption:

Front view

My uncut fork stem provided a way to secure
the handle bar mount.

Add zip ties to secure it all.

It worked well enough to strap an old fanny pack I had. Now I had a few easily accessible options during the ride.

Sleeping system.  Since we were bike camping, we had to figure out how were going to spend the night. Hammock camping. While tents are great-hammocks are awesome! I spent a few weeks before the trip camping with my son's Boy Scout trop along the C&O and the Brunswick Family Camp grounds. I tested out sleeping in the hammock over night for the first time. I had a cheap hammock that I picked up on Amazon for less than 20, but I didn't have a rain fly. I've always wanted to make one myself out of some silicon nylon, but there was no time. I opted for this tarp which seem to balance the best of cost and long term durability.  I also brought along my existing Z Lite mattress pad because I heard hammockers have been known to get cold bottoms when sleeping.

Two nights before we tested setting up our gear in the dark. This helped
shake out any kinks in our packing order as it was expected to rain
our first night.

Batteries. With potentially 12-15 hours of night time riding in our future we talked how we could possibly alternate riding with lights or just have the first person riding with lights. I mean, we were just riding on gravel travel. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? I had one decent battery that went with a Magic Shine clone I bought from Amazon. I needed more juice and and ended up going with this 10000 mAH battery from eBay for 53 dollars. They are built with Panasonic batteries which are supposedly some of the best in the industry. My prior battery pack is built with Panasonic batteries and they are still holding up after two years of continual use.

Testing them, I was able to run them on high for over 7 hours. On low, this battery would definitely give me enough juice for the trip.  The one downfall is that the connector seal on the battery doesn't quite fit in. There is an o-ring on the male section of the plug that doesn't pop into the female section. I will need to figure out an adapter later.

Huge 10200 mAh battery from eBay!

Water Bottle Holders.  Jeff showed me this great blog post on bike camping hacks. The first article showed me how to store an extra water bottle cage using electrical tape. Cheap and easy to setup.

Final Bike Setup

Looked something like this. I was still missing the cockpit bag, the PVC pipe stabilizer, my Crocs and about 10 more pounds of gear and food. But you get the idea.

What's next?

The trip-which will be coming shortly . . .

Goals and Principles

There are goals and there are principles. Sometimes goals and principles do not always align. It is great to set goals, train or prepare accordingly, and finally execute. If a goal however gets in the way of your core principles, it might be time to revaluate your goal.

For a simple goal of running a marathon, there might be some sacrifices made where work is neglected or a story time is missed, to get that extra training run. However if a goal is so overblown or committed that it has a material impact on your life or relationships, it might be wise to reevaluate where you are heading.

Myself, Jeff and Paul had a goal of riding from Pittsburgh to DC to Baltimore. While we were behind our schedule due to rain and some other technicalities, everyone was mentally and physically prepared to finish the journey. Unfortunately, Paul encountered a stick hidden by leaves on the trail. Okay a branch. Well-it was more like a club. Said club popped itself into the front spokes, fender, and fork, which caused him to sail head and then shoulder into the ground.  Jeff, drafting behind, soon ran over him and crashed as well. Fortunately for me, my light was disconnected and had to stay further away. I had enough time to brake.

Paul took a beating. He couldn't continue. [Elaborations to follow] We called his wife to pick him up. At that point, Jeff and I had to make a decision. Continue down to DC or ride back with Paul. We both agreed to finishing our journey. When Paul's wife came to pick him up, Jeff and I went back with him.

The goal of the trip was to make it down to DC and then up to Baltimore. But something unexpected happened. The moment one of our teammates went down, we knew the true journey was in the friendship and bonds that occurred over the prior 270 miles.  Our goal was no longer relevant-seeing your friends safely out was just the right thing to do. After all, this is just one of many other crazy rides we will be having with friends like Paul.

[A full recount of the trip will be following shortly]

First time Bike Packing-beginnings of an epic ride

Bike Packing? What on earth is that? I stumbled upon the concept of bike packing during some random Facebook sponsored content--pathlesspedaled. I love biking and I wanted to learn more about camping-why not do both?

The opportunity however never presented it self until this summer when my friend Jeff and I wanted to do some long training rides in preparation for his Shenandoah Mountain 100 race. Brainstorming around some long rides, we somehow threw out a Pittsburg to DC ride. I had heard people riding it, but I didn't know how far or what was involved in riding that journey. When I realized it was 335 miles, it was going to be an adventure for later.  Not yet . . .

Later that summer we saw a few friends do a ride around the Chesapeake bay.  It was a Double Century! Never heard that term used, but I knew I had to do one. Jeff and I launched it 3 weeks later on one of the hottest days of the year. Epic exhaustion from the heat, but epic time riding! I'll have to write about that experience later . . .

While Jeff and I really loved mountain biking, there is something about moving from point A to B and experiencing the journey. The Pittsburg to DC ride was brewing in my head. All trail, all riding, easy grade-why not? So I started entertaining the idea to other fools I knew. A number of them said they were interested. Until they heard my goals.

1. Needs to be cheap. Okay, so this is a principal that runs throughout my entire core of living. This ruled out B&B's and other such fun stuff.
2. Bike Camping. I wanted to test out what bike camping was like and if I could assemble the stuff to do it.
3. Needs to be fast. While fast is relative, I did not want this to take 4-5 days. One guy mentioned he did it in 30 hours non stop. That sounded brutal and conflicted with objective #2. Day days sounded "reasonable".
4. Having fun. Why else would I be doing this.

So let's see what happens . . .