Day 33: It Was The Best of Trails …

 

…And, yes, it was the worst of trails.

Beaver Falls to Connellsville, 99 miles, 1400 feet of climbing.

The title of today’s blog post begs for an explanation.  We started out our day bidding adieu to Beaver Falls, the hometown of Broadway Joe Namath, the quarterback of the 1969 NY Jets when they won Super Bowl III. Our initial objective was to make our way to Pittsburgh as a waypoint to get us on the Great Allegheny Passage Trail, with Pittsburgh being one end of the trail and Cumberland MD being the other (a total trail length of approximately 150 miles). For perspective, we’re currently somewhere in the middle of the Great Allegheny in a very nice section of a well maintained trail - so we can say that it makes the “best of” list. “The worst of trails” part of today is more fun to write and read about though.

We had about 40 miles of riding to get from Beaver Falls to Pittsburgh’s Point State Park, the point of confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. (We really loved the Point State Park area and spent some time just taking it in - it’s really a stunning area.). A not to be named popular mapping app – that we don’t blindly follow, but we do use - provided us with a route that included roads and some bike trails. The app brought us onto a different kind of rail trail, specifically it had us riding in an active CSW rail yard. This had us laughing out loud (i.e., that rail trails in Pennsylvania were so unrefined) - until we realized that the joke was actually on us.  Perhaps the sign that said “Positively No Trespassing” should have tipped us off, or the one that said “Violators Will Be Prosecuted” should have signaled that this might not be a typical trail.  But, looking back, we concluded that it was probably the barbed wire fences that blocked our way from riding any further that made us realize that the routing was a huge mistake and that CSW hadn’t determined that cyclists were trustworthy enough to allow them to roam among their equipment, materials and railway cars.   

We were several miles in at this moment of revelation, and the “trail” that we followed was rough and slow, so backtracking was not a good option.  Instead, Bill climbed over the edge of the fencing (which was pretty high and had a significant drop off to the side) and Mike then passed bikes to Bill over the fencing. Then we bushwhacked our way to a road and navigated our way into Pittsburgh. So, this so-called rail trail definitely makes it way onto the “worst of trails” list.

Once in Point State Park, we sought out the start of the Great Allegheny Passage Trail.  However, we found that the first 20 miles of the trail were not so great and, in fact, hardly provided any passage at all. Instead, most of it involved being routed around city streets, many of which were temporarily closed due to road construction. So this part of the trail system didn’t make the “best of” list either.  

However, we were in for a treat when we made it to the core of the Passage Trail.  It was well marked, nicely maintained and fun to ride.  We finished up the day on the trail and are looking forward to seeing the rest tomorrow.

Also, for the record, yesterday was Bill’s birthday.  We didn’t mention it because he didn’t receive his gift until today.  At the outset of the trip, Bill had said that, for his birthday, it would be great if he could spend some time in an active railroad yard, climb over some barbed wire fences and battle traffic in and around a major city in western Pennsylvania. Sometimes, things just work out.  Mike had also planned a surprise party for Bill which unfortunately didn’t quite work out - so he was unable to yell, “Surprise, Happy Birthday” at a service station curb. He’ll regret it forever.