The Gap: Part 3

The last day of our trail was quite fun, lots of mile markers, the Mason Dixon line, the Eastern Continental Divide (Every river east of this flows to the Atlantic, every river west flows to the Gulf of Mexico) the state line separating Pennsylvania and Maryland, and after a long upward climb, a 15 mile descent into our final destination, Cumberland, Maryland.

But before we get into details, first a word about our trusted steads on this trip, our bikes!. First up was my “fat tire” bike, which is typically what I cycle in snowy winter Chicago, but is also perfect for cross country trails.  It has a frame bag for food, a handle bar bag for tents and two sleeping pads strapped to the front forks.  The great thing about this bike is its 4 1/2′ wide wheels, which was a great conversation starter with everyone we met on the trail!

Next up is Miles’s bike, a rented “Surly”that we picked up in Pittsburgh, which carried all our sleeping bags and spare clothes.  Despite Miles complaining in principal that he was being dragged away from his friends the last week of summer holidays on a camping trip with his parents, he never once complained whilst on the trip!  Go Miles!!

 

Finally, was Cindy’s mountain bike, a super light aluminium frame, with a seatpost bag that carried our rain gear (luckily never used)

All bikes we’re great, but the shocking thing was after completing our 150 mile cycle, with no problems, Cindy’s bike suffered a catastrophic crankset disaster our first ride out after our return home to Chicago, requiring a complete replacement of her pedal system!  Very glad that happened in Chicago, versus 20 miles out from some small mining town!

But on with the trip, the last day was very exciting with us passing the Eastern Continental Divide, which included a nice profile map of how long we’d be cycling uphill, along with a promise that our last 15 miles would all be downhill!

We also encountered the “Big Savage” tunnel, a mile long train tunnel, completed in 1911.  Even with lights in the tunnel, this part of the trip required us to use our headlamps to illuminate the way!

 

Finally we passed the Mason Dixon line, the line that officially separates the North from the South in America and was to become so significant during the American Civil war.

The route marker delineating the Mason Dixon was actually drawn up in the 1760s and is the same region where the French Indian war started, and where a certain George Washington initially came to fame.

Moving into Maryland, the landscape changed and became a lot more pastoral and less mountainous, but still some lovely views.

Beyond the lovely scenery, there was also plenty of relics from when this bicycle trail was a train line, which always led us to reflect on how Liam and Rory would have loved this vacation.

But the highlight of our last day was getting to our destination, mile zero of the GAP trail in Cumberland, Maryland.  After this, the C&O trail continues a 150 miles all the way to DC, and hopefully one of these days we’ll get to complete that.  Its a canal route that goes through the civil war battlefield of Antietam, Harpers Ferry where John Brown tried to start a slave revolt, and finally DC itself.

Here’s the end of the trail:

And here’s the start of the C&O trail

All in all it was a really great vacation, five days, off road and offline, with great weather, beautiful scenery and gentle grades all the way.  Definitely a vacation we’d highly recommend!