Bike Tour

After tossing around all kinds of places and timelines for our annual bike tour, we finally settled on the C&O/GAP.  On June 1st we are driving from Providence R.I. to Pittsburgh for an over night stay.  From there we are taking a shuttle to Washington, D.C. to begin our 335 mile bike ride back to Pittsburgh.

After many long distance tours over the years, we have learned not to do much advanced planning.  Winging it is the best way to go, eliminating the stress that can happen when we make reservations weeks in advance.  Planning our mileages in the mornings during breakfasts gives us at least a basic idea of how much riding we will do that day.  We may or may not stick to that plan but at least it gives us something to talk about over our tofu and rice cakes.

There will be lots of riding between now and then.  Not for training or anything. Just because is nice to ride a bike every day.

***** Here we sit, six hours after I wrote the stuff up above and everything has changed.   The shuttle from Pittsburgh to DC was $500.  The bike rental was $200. We would have lost two days of our tour if we stuck to that plan.  Now we finally have a final plan.  For the third time.

We are going to begin in DC, taking a train with our bikes to Pittsburgh and spend the night.  Now we can begin the ride back to DC early morning on June 2nd from Pittsburgh.  The train is $65 with our bike and that’s a whole lot better than paying $500 for a shuttle.  “More beer money” is our new mantra.