Adventure Cycling Association

We’ll gather in the heart of Washington, D.C., where we’ll meet our seasoned Tour Leaders and have our first map meeting, dinner, and overnight. If you arrive early enough in the morning, you’ll have the opportunity to join us on a guided cycling tour of the National Mall.

Our ride through history begins by pedaling across the National Mall and stopping to snap a group photo on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. After a few miles on the Capital Crescent Trail alongside dozens of joggers and cyclists, we’ll ride into deep hardwood forests and onto George Washington’s route west. Soon, you and your new friends will ride past Great Falls Park where the Potomac River gathers speed and force as it tumbles over a series of jagged boulders through the narrow Mather Gorge.

Today, we’ll ride a section of the C&O that runs along the Appalachian Trail. We’ll take leave of our bicycles and walk up the steps and over the bridge spanning the Potomac to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, the site of five Civil War battles. You may choose to take a side trip and pedal through rolling farmland to Sharpsburg and the Antietam National Battlefield. The peaceful atmosphere at Antietam today belies its place as the bloodiest one-day battle in American history on September 17, 1862.

After a tour of Fort Frederick State Park, which preserves a pre-Revolutionary War British outpost, we’ll have the option to hop off the dirt-surfaced C&O and onto the Western Maryland Trail, a 22-mile-long, paved rail trail that parallels the C&O. Next up is the quaint town of Hancock, where Weaver’s Restaurant & Bakery serves some of the very best homemade pies east of the Mississippi.

Today, we’ll pass through arguably the single most-impressive structure on the entire C&O Canal: the Paw Paw Tunnel. Excavated between 1836 and 1850, this cool, damp, and mysterious passage burrows through the hills for some 3,100 feet. Our final stretch of the C&O Canal will take us into the beautiful town of Cumberland, with its friendly citizens and classic downtown pedestrian mall.

First thing this morning, we’ll pedal onto the crushed limestone surface of the Great Allegheny Passage rail-trail to begin a long but gentle uphill into the Allegheny Mountains. You’ll surmount the Eastern Continental Divide which marks the division between the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico watersheds, and you’ll cross the famous Mason-Dixon Line, going from Maryland to the Keystone State of Pennsylvania. Today’s ride offers the best vistas of the entire tour and the opportunity to pedal through another impressive tunnel, the 3,300-foot-long Big Savage.

Early on, we’ll spin through Ohiopyle State Park, with its beautiful bridges and waterfalls, perhaps pausing to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s nearby architectural masterpiece, Fallingwater. There’s also a wealth of terrific hiking trails in the state park in case you’d like to stretch a different set of muscles. For much of the day, our group will follow the Youghiogheny (YOCK-uh-gay-nee) River, known as the whitewater hub of the East.

We’ll travel through the old mining towns of Dawson and Whitsett. Then, we’ll ride out of the Allegheny Mountains toward McKeesport, where the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers converge. We’ll finish the ride at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, where we will spend the night at the cycling-oriented Traveler’s Rest Hotel and celebrate our achievements with a hearty dinner.

After we convene, it’s time to enjoy a shuttle back to our starting point in Washington. The trip may be over, but the memories from the traffic-free pathways through one of America’s most historically important regions will stay with you for years to come.