300 km Along The Potomac

C&O Towpath Ride Report

Before we moved to DC, I was doing some reading about bike riding in and around the DC area, and I came across the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) canal towpath, which runs from Cumberland, MD to Georgetown. It’s about 300 km (184.5 miles). It instantly appealed to me, and before we left DC, I decided I would do the whole thing in one day. Mostly because it was there, partly because I wanted to extend my PR for longest ride. I had done one ride almost as long, across Florida in 2014, which was about 168 miles. It was supported very well, and my awesome wife (Nan) helped me a lot.

The towpath, on the other hand, is entirely gravel (except for maybe a mile) and I did the deed utterly alone. I decided to go a little easy on myself and start in Cumberland so I could enjoy the ride with a 1.5% downhill decline, and Nan graciously agreed to stay the night in Cumberland so that I could start on the uphill side. This is the narrative of that ride, intended to be both useful for those who also want to tackle it, and for those who just want to know what the experience was like. I received some great suggestions and ideas from folks on Reddit (r/towpath, r/bicycletouring, and r/bikedc were all helpful), and I changed my plan some from the original, seen here. For those who are interested in the hard data, I did manage to record the entire thing with Strava, thanks to the battery pack.

Gear Details

First, the boring stuff. My outfit consisted of the following: old Pearl Izumi cycling shorts, a DeSchutes Brewery jersey, old Pearl Izumi shoes, and a new pair of Smartwool socks. To top it off, a pair of cheap sunglasses à la ZZ Top. I also wore an old 2L camelbak filled with water, a spare tire, my wallet, and several other just-in-case items.

As for the bike, it’s a 2016 Surly Straggler with stock rims, handlebars and drivetrain, Brooks Imperial B17 saddle, Speedplay Zero pedals, and 35c Schwalbe Sammy Slicks. I also used possibly the best-value frame bag ever, purchased just for this ride. In the pouch I carried my food, a USB power pack, an extra tube, first-aid, ibuprofen, my air pump, sunscreen, salt tablets, extra body glide, and a few other odds and ends. I also used a saddle pouch for another tube, multi-tool, and tire changing tools.

For food, I carried about 3 pounds comprising banana chips, sunflower seeds, beef jerky and stroopwafels. After consulting Reddit, I was persuaded to bring an additional water-carrying vessel and it took the form of a regular water bottle tucked under the frame bag. The frame bag and camelbak were the most notable changes from my original plan, and I was very thankful for both. The frame bag made keeping the phone charged very easy, though I had to slit a tiny hole in the bag for the charging cable. It was also handy because I could easily reach my food stores while riding. I decided not to use the rear rack and panniers because I didn’t need to haul very much. I could fit everything into half of one pannier, so having the rack and one pannier seemed like a lot of dead weight (and an uneven load). If I had planned to spend the night on the trail, the rack would have certainly been necessary.

At first I was hesitant about the camelbak, but I came around after many people cautioned me about the possibility of losing/breaking a water bottle and the fact that the water on the trail is not always potable at every stop. I am also pretty lazy when it comes to hydration, so having the tube next to my mouth made hydration much less of an effort (a key consideration considering the weather that day).

Weather

Speaking of weather, in areas around DC, the weather that day was venutian. Temps at the airport and in the city reached 100F and the humidity was as high as 90%. While it was difficult to get weather forecasts that applied to the towpath itself, it was a safe assumption that hydration and electrolytes would be a major concern, which is why I reached straight for salt tablets instead of drink mix or gu. I wound up drinking about one liter (one quart) per hour, and I think it served me well as I had no heat-related problems during the ride.

The Start

We rose at 3:45 am (on July 14, 2016), and I quickly smeared body glide and sunscreen all over and donned my kit. I downed some day-old coffee that I remembered to bring in a thermos (pro-tip), and absolutely inhaled a breakfast of healthy muffins and hard-boiled eggs, compliments of my awesome wife. We packed up our things and “checked out” (left the key on the desk). I pulled my bike out of our hatchback and set up my phone (can’t forget Strava), kissed my wife and headed into the abyss of the dimly-lit pre-dawn gloaming of Cumberland. We had walked down to the trailhead the evening before, so navigating that first step was a breeze. I found the trail and turned east. The cool morning air felt great. There were some sort of far-off stadium lights lights that lit the trail for about the first mile or so, after which I dove into the stark night of the forest. I saw no one, and the only sound was the gravel crunching under my Sammy Slicks.

I’m not a huge fan of the dark, and having grown up in Michigan, where there are legitimate predators, my adrenaline was seriously coursing. I found myself hurtling through total darkness, illumined only by my little handlebar headlight, on completely unfamiliar terrain 190 miles from home, totally alone (I did see a really weird-looking, possibly homeless guy on the trail in town, and that definitely didn’t help), and collecting what was starting to become a dragnet of spiderwebs (and I really don’t like spiders). So I’m thinking about all this, and it is starting to freak me out a bit, and I hadn’t really been attuned to what my bike was feeling like or anything, and suddenly it occurred to me that my rear wheel was fishtailing and seemed very soft. I could feel the hard jar of metal on gravel whenever I hit a bump. I had a flat, and I was only 5 miles in. :)

So I did what any determined, confident, calm, clever randonneur would do, I wished really hard that what I was feeling was imaginary and would definitely go away once the sun rose. I kept pedaling, and about a quarter of a mile later I came to my senses and fixed the thing. Once stopped, I was even more acutely aware of how alone and in the dark I was, but at least I had come prepared. I quickly changed the flat and patched the tube before replacing it in my saddle pouch. I only brought two extra, and they had to last. I jumped back on the bike and continued on my way.

The sun started having a gloriously illuminating effect on the landscape around 5:30, and I could make out some details about the country in which I was immersed, and which did not vary hardly at all throughout the ride. On my left was the canal, in parts dry and in parts filled. On my right was almost invariably the Potomac river, or dense forest. The trail itself varied between grassy two-track or single track, gravel road suitable for car traffic, and wide gravel trail. Knowing that many, many hours of mentally tedious riding lay before me, I started counting wildlife. Between when I could see and about 10 am, I counted more than 50 deer, 15 rabbits, 10 or so cranes, a groundhog, and a turtle. I also saw, but did not count, dozens of cardinals and bluebirds, and other birds of various descriptions. The trail proved to be a veritable wildlife reserve! I was fortunate to have witnessed a beautiful owl silently glide over my head in front of me and light on a branch, dropping its prey on the grass along the trail. It was so spellbinding that I stopped and fumbled for my phone and it got away before I could snap a shot.

Shortly after it became light, I refilled my camelbak and met a group of what appeared to be a group of Jewish teenage boys and chaperones on a week-long canoe trip along the Potomac. They were fun to talk with and had lots of questions about my adventure.

Paw Paw Tunnel

Around 7:30 (I think, it could have been as late as 9:30), I found the Paw Paw tunnel. Again, I was a bit anxious given the length and pitch blackness of the thing, but I charged in. When I entered the tunnel, I could see the light at the end, but it was very small. I went toward the light. The path was very narrow, maybe 3 feet or a little less, and the path itself was very uneven, but serviceable. The rail between me and the canal appeared to be in good shape, so I had no fears about falling into the inky, mysterious, mirror-smooth water (I had some thoughts about what was lurking in those waters, however…).

There were spots where water was dripping from the tunnel wall onto the path, which gave the illusion of a large hole or washout, and they grated my nerves a little until I could come close enough to see that the path was indeed intact. Soon enough I was out. The tunnel opens into a rocky gulch with some very interesting geology.

I stopped at 8 and again around 10:00 for a salt tab, a bite of food and to stretch, and to tally up the wildlife I had seen in my phone. At some point after 10:00, I was getting a bit bored with my thoughts and the wildlife had mostly thinned out, so I started listening to music. Fleet Foxes and Matt Jones were great for riding through the woods.

Lunch

I proceeded toward lunch. I didn’t really have a plan, I just sort of stumbled on Williamsport, where there was also fantastic dam and waterworks right by the trail, at about 12:00 and knew I wanted a larger amount of food than the rations I’d brought. I saw the Desert Rose Café on the C&O companion app and followed google maps. The short incline up to the café was much harder than I had anticipated looking at it from below, and the sun was beating down mercilessly out in the open. I realized I was starting to get very tired and thus decided to rest for at least 30 minutes even if I’d finished my food sooner. Conveniently, the stop was at about the 85 mile mark, so I knew I had 100 miles left and was almost halfway done.

I highly recommend the Desert Rose, they have a great selection of food and are used to cyclists coming in and sweating all over everything. I ordered a tall glass of chocolate milk, a water, and a turkey, bacon, avocado, lettuce and tomato wrap with chips. It was really nice to sit and not move and replenish. I chatted with a couple who were doing a subset of the same ride. They thought I was a little crazy but didn’t seem to think that what I was trying to do was impossible or unsafe, so that was encouraging.

Lunch consumed, I hobbled back to my bike and picked up the trail where I had left off at about 12:45. Unfortunately I was unable to listen to music anymore as I had destroyed my headphones somehow as I pulled into Williamsport for lunch. I pulled the buds out of my ears and one of them had become entangled in my front wheel. It ripped out wires before I even noticed anything had happened.

How the day slid by

After lunch, I settled into a regular rhythm. Every two hours, I stopped and stretched and ate and filled my camelbak. There were some really beautiful spots, and I can’t quite place them because most of the ride after lunch sort of blurs together. Much of the trail after this was isolated and very rural until I started to get close to DC. I had kept expecting the heat to gradually become stifling and slow me down, but I was able to maintain about 14–15 mph throughout. There are small mileposts placed every mile or so for the entire length of the trail, which made doing the mental math of keeping track of my speed fairly easy. I really wanted to make sure I rolled into DC as close to sunset or before as I could, so the speed calculations were pretty important. I had lost a bit too much time with the flat and with lunch, so I tried to step up my speed for the rest of the ride. My average was around 13.7 mph for the whole ride, and I think if I had averaged 14 or 14.5 I would have completed the ride before sunset.

Points of Interest

Along the way, I found some very interesting rock/cave/grotto formations.

There were also several moldering foundations from old industrial installations and houses.

There was a section where the canal ended and the towpath ran along the shore of the Potomac where it ran very wide. The towpath had evidently eroded away and was recently replaced with a magnificent concrete platform that seemed magically supported by the rocks at the water's edge. The concrete section stretched at least 0.75 miles and was a welcome respite from the gravel. On my left was a sheer cliff and on my right the wide Potomac and a wide vista downstream. Luckily the cliff shaded me from the sun on most of it.

It had rained earlier in the day across the greater DMV area (but never where I was), so things got progressively wetter, muddier and more humid as I approached the final stretch. There had been quite a bit of mud throughout the ride, but there was more toward the end. About 15 miles from the finish, I met a lady on a hybrid bike who asked me whether she was really on the C&O towpath. I gave her what was probably a very strange look and assured her that she was. She then asked me if I thought it was safe, and I assured her that I had been on the trail for about 15 hours and hadn’t seen anything that made me feel unsafe. It was funny and we had a nice conversation, and she happily rode off, hopefully more comfortable with the trail (and maybe taken aback by the crazy people who share the trail).

The End

As I neared DC and the sun started to lower, I began to really look forward to seeing Great Falls. I was really starting to get tired, but I was becoming more concerned that I was slowing down. I had wanted to stop for a longer rest at Great Falls, but once I reached it, I knew that I couldn’t stay longer than about 5 minutes. I stayed about 15.

The final 14 miles were really tough. I hadn’t replenished my anti-chafe cream for my saddle area, and I was experiencing some really bad things down there. Furthermore, the gravel had pummeled the area around my sit bones into inflamed bruising. So just sitting hurt immensely. Bumps were intensely painful. I struggled on and called Nan about 5 miles out. I knew I wasn’t going to make it at the time I had expected, and I also had to cancel my plan to ride home after reaching mile zero. There was no way I was going to make it another 3.5 miles uphill to our apartment. She happily agreed to come get me. She could tell that I was losing it; I was slurring my speech and going on about how many deer I had counted.

As I rolled into Georgetown, I wondered about the other people out on their bikes in the pleasant cool of dusk. How far had they ridden today? Where were they going? Where had they been? Could they tell how tired I was, or that I was in pain? When I rode under the Key Bridge, I knew precisely how much further I needed to go and basically sprinted the last bit, feverishly and desperately wanting to have an end of the ride but immensely satisfied at having made it without real problems. It was just getting dark (8:45) when I arrived at the mile zero milestone in Georgetown, only 15 minutes later than I had predicted hours earlier. I laid my bike down on the milestone and laid down on it, totally spent.

Nan had parked closeby, and we had some trouble finding each other. It seemed easiest for me to bike to where she had parked the car, so I reluctantly tried to pull my helmet from where I had strapped it to the seat. I had decided after Paw Paw that I really didn’t need a helmet as the terrain was very safe and I wasn’t going very fast. I strapped it under the seat. When I unclipped it and tried to get the straps free, the saddle came off in my hands! The rails had completely broken and the tension bolt had also sheared. So I didn’t ride back to Nan. I started stumbling around Georgetown pushing my broken, muddy bike instead. Eventually we found each other and she drove me home to pizza, chocolate milk and a cold beer.

Postlogue

I thank God that I made it back safely. There are a lot of dangers to ride that long, and especially during hot weather. I saw some really beautiful country, and met some interesting people along the way. I prayed, thought, sang, counted animals in two languages, did math, and generally emptied my head of my concerns for an entire day. All I had to do that day was ride my bike, drink water and eat.

If I were to do it again, I would use a different saddle and reapply anti-chafe cream several times throughout the ride. It took nearly 2 weeks before I could sit normally, and I think I have some scars now.

There was serious bruising as well. Otherwise, I recovered very quickly and my legs were hardly sore. I had some soreness in my arms and shoulders from the weight of the camelbak, but it wasn’t serious. In addition to the saddle, I would bring a friend, or go with a group. I like doing things on my own sometimes, but I did get lonesome after ten hours or so. Next time I’ll bring a friend (or Nan)!