Miles: 91.13
Riding Time: 7:01:15
Average Speed: 12.9
Cum. Miles: 3101.60
We began the first 40 miles or so of the trip on alot of steep and hilly country side with beautiful views. The parts of Pennsylvania that we have traveled through so far have been gorgeous and the best part is there is alot more than just cornfields to look at. After the first 40 miles, we road the last 50 or so miles on a crushed cinder bike path along the Youghiogheny River. This was an extremely flat trail and apparently the average grade was .212%
Before getting onto the bike path, I was riding down the last big hill into the checkpoint when I hit a little pile of gravel and got my second flat tire. I stopped mid-hill, and Liz and I changed my flat tire. I was at the point of putting the tire back on the rim when I poked the new inner tube with my tire iron. We heard a little hiss and knew that I had poked a hole in it. I put my second spare inner tube in the tire and this time we just used our hands to pry the tire back on the rim, then finished the little decent down to the checkpoint. Once we got on the trail for a little while, we climbed over two fallen trees and got hit by some rain. We had to be a little more careful when we were riding because the path had turned to being wet with random mud and puddles. Eventually we got to the last water stop which was hosted by a guy named Fred, who was a Big Rider from 2000 I believe. We showed up with our bikes and ourselves covered in mud and sand from the path and when we looked around everyone else was clean. Apparently just about everyone else beat the rain to the pavilion and looked at us kind of confused as to why we were all completely dirty. Fred and his wife had subs, fresh fruit and soda for us. They also brought some Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer which was excellent.
Once we got back on the path Ben realized he had a slow leak so we stopped at this opening in the woods with a beautiful view of the river. We sat there and relaxed while he was fixing his tire and David Lambert and Andy caught up to us. Andy went ahead, but David tagged along with us for the rest of the trip. The rest of the trip was through the woods on this path, minus 1 or 2 road crossings. On of these crossings was in Ohiopyle and as we crossed the road and passed this family walking the other direction, I thought I might of recognized a voice. I turned around for another look and sure enough it was my cousins, aunt and uncle coming back from a rafting trip. I basically cut everyone off, stopped and went back to talk to them. It was really surprising to see them then, on the one opening of the path which was pretty cool. I planned on seeing them in Gettysburg but sure enough there they were walking down the road.
We made it into camp and my first thought was I need to do laundry because I am carrying around all my clothes that are soaking wet and smelly. Camp was all of our tents shoved up on a small little hill with geese poo all over the ground. However we were right by a little lake that fogged over at night which was really cool to look at. We find out at about 7:55 after dinner that the laundromat closed at 8. Liz and I decided that we still wanted to maybe look for someplace to do laundry so we went to the ice cream place right outside of camp and talked to a few locals. One guy said he would offer us to use his except he was at his vacation trailer and didn't have any. At this point I was getting a little more agitated that I had only one semi dry set of clothing to wear, but there was nothing I could but wait for tomorrow. On a final note for today, we passed our first 7-11 of the trip! But we didn't stop for a slurpee.
PICTURES FOR THE DAY!