John and Carole Bike the Allegheny River Trail
For Christmas 2017, Carole surprised me with a gift of a bicycling mini-vacation on the Allegheny River Trail in the Titusville/Franklin/Foxburg PA area, which is northeast of Pittsburgh. The ART itself is 31 miles long from Titusville to Foxburg, but also connects to a several other trails.
We scheduled the trip for mid October, which is usually about the peak of fall foliage color in that area - but with the crazy weather this summer the only colors were green (leaves on the trees) and brown (leaves on the trail.) The weather also just changed from being unseasonably warm to being unseasonably cool, so we adjusted our plans a bit.
We decided to drive up to Somerset PA on Wednesday night, which would get us close enough to Franklin that we could arrive in time on Thursday to get some biking in. We went westbound on the Pennsylvania Turnpike - which was lucky for us, because there had been a horrific tractor trailer crash on the eastbound lanes which shut down that side of the Turnpike for over 70 miles between Breezewood and New Stanton. Our side was fine, but the other side was either miles-long backups or long stretches of no traffic at all.
We had a nice dinner at the Pine Grill in Somerset and the next morning took back roads up to Franklin PA - for some reason Carole made me take a very specific route to show me something:
We arrived at Franklin and checked into our very nice B&B, the Witherup House.
It was cloudy and about 43 degrees, so only one of us decided to bicycle that day, while the other decided to walk around the cute, cute, cute town of Franklin and lounge around the B&B. I am bound by a pre-nuptial agreement not to say that it was Carole who did the walking/lounging.
I biked from the B&B across the Allegheny River to the start of the Allegheny River Trail, which is a very nice paved surface with constant river views. I went about 5 miles south until the point where the ART intersects with the Sandy Creek Trail. Well, more like passes under the Sandy Creek Trail - there is a bridge that takes the old Sandy Creek Line over the ART and the Allegheny River and in order to get up to the Sandy Creek Trail you have to take your bike up some pretty steep steps.
Even with the ramp on the side of the steps, that was harder than I thought it would be. From the Sandy Creek Bridge there was a nice view of the river, the surrounding hills and the smaller bridge I biked across on the ART to get to that point.
The Sandy Creek Trail is a beautiful paved path through the pine trees and hardwoods, slightly uphill all the way to Van, criss-crossing a river and taking you through one short tunnel.
The Sandy Creek Trail ended at Van and it was pretty much turn around and bike back to the B&B for a total of about 28 miles.
After I got back we drove up to see what Oil City and Titusville were like. No matter what way we turned, the signs would always say "Oil City - 7 miles" so we never got there but we did check out the "Caboose Motel" in Titusville where for $69 you can rent your own fully equipped motel room in an actual caboose.
That night we walked into town and had a great dinner at the Trails to Ales Brewery - great flat breads, soft pretzel with dipping sauce, arugula salad and interesting libations. I had an "Apple Pie" ale brewed locally and Carole had a flight of 4 different flavors of mojitos.
The next day was supposed to be warmer and no slacking off from biking was allowed. Since the innkeepers were away, they had left us a gift certificate for breakfast at the Amazing Foods Cafe in Franklin where oatmeal and waffles were consumed in large quantities. We walked back and stopped to see the awesome Tiffany stained glass windows at the St. John's Presbyterian Church, which were back-lit by the morning sun.
We then drove south to Emlenton to bike a section of the Allegheny River Trail that included going through two tunnels.
The Rockland Tunnel is about 2800 feet long and has water cascading down from the top of the tunnel at the southern end. We walked the bikes around the water and turned on the lights - since the tunnel has a "dog leg" turn a few hundred feet in, you can not see the other end of the tunnel for a while and was very dark.
The next tunnel was even longer - the Kennerdell Tunnel is 3400 feet long but dry - but also has a dogleg turn and was pitch black most of the way through. Both tunnels were built in the early 1900s and bisected loops in the river to save the railroad many miles of track.
A few miles past the Kennerdell Tunnel we turned around and headed back for a total round trip of 25 miles. From there we drove a few miles to Foxburg, for some fancy chocolates and ice cream and then on to Grove City PA to stay at the Terra Nova B&B and have a great meal of home made pasta at Nonni's Corner Trattoria, which is now our second favorite Italian restaurant after Pasta Plus in Laurel MD.
The next morning (after a huge breakfast at the Terra Nova) we made the 5 hour drive back home, stopping at the Distillery Lane Ciderworks in Jefferson MD to pick some apples, apple cider vinegar and hard apple cider from this small apple orchard and distillery.
Potomac Pedalers Back Roads Century Metric Version Ride
Last week I rode the Baltimore Bicycling Club Civil War Century ride 65 mile route, along with about 1600 other riders. This past weekend I tried the Potomac Pedalers Back Roads Century ride 63 mile route, from Sheperds University in Sherperdswotn WV with about 1200 others riders. I'd never done this ride before and never bicycled in that area at all. Carole and I had spent a Sunday morning in Sheperdstown a few years ago on the way back from a weekend somewhere, and the downtown area was cute, cute, cute - and had several great coffee shops.
The ride was 64 miles with about 2800' of climbing. Sheperdstown is just south of the Potomac River and the ride was a big counterclockwise loop. There were a few short steep climbs, especially going through a big apple/peach orchard out West near Arden where the route hit its highest point. That and one other spot had short stretches of 12% grade, but in general the ride was rolling hills.
It was very foggy at the start of the ride at about 0715 - like many others, I had my blinky red tail light going. The fog itself, and how it clouded up my glasses, made it hard to see the various hickory, acorns, paw paw and Osage orange shells and nuts littering the roads. In the first five miles there was a continuing string of riders stopped on the side fixing flat tires, so I slowed down quite a bit, activated my manual windshield wiper fingers and managed to avoid everything.
There were three rest stops, at 19, 33 and 56 miles - all with fantastic food, nice people and convenient facilities. The fog finally burned off when I reached the 2nd rest stop, so the last 30 miles was under a bright sun and temperatures in the high 70s - perfect biking weather. MyWindSock claimed I was in a headwind 63% of the time, but there really wasn't any wind.
I was back to the start by just after noon and was able to go take a shower at the Shepard University "Wellness Facility," which if you are over the age of 50 you probably call a "gym." Very nice to be able to do that, since I had to hop in the car and drive 75 miles east to join Carole, Jim and Jacqui at a party in Crownsville MD.
Great route, well managed ride - at several intersections where we had to make left turns across larger roads (not very large, though) there was even police support guiding what little traffic there was. It is a 90 minute drive from my house (compared to about an hour for the Civil War ride) but was definitely worth it. Next week I'm going to try a brand new Metric Century ride, the Ride for the Rivers to raise money for the West River/Rhode River Riverkeeper conservation organization - will probably be much more bare bones than the BBC and PPTC rides, but for a good cause - and a lot closer to home!
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