Rockwood to Cumberland

I got up early Wednesday, and headed to the opera house for breakfast. Donut, coffee, breakfast sandwich.  Not the big hearty mountain climbing breakfast I'd prefer, but food, at least.

The folks at the opera house fell into two groups - the folks running the trains, and cyclists.
The train group was talking about the recent postal employee who left his train on the tracks - explaining the long loud and frequent horns I'd been hearing all night.  The cyclist were mostly talking about past or upcoming rides.  

They were mostly groups, talking amongst themselves, but I did chat with a couple of solo riders. There was an older gentleman who lived at the bottom of he mountain, hadn't ridden for a good number of years due to an injury and work constraints. He found himself with a few days off, and decided to head up and over the mountain with little more than a sleeping bag and good spirits.
There was also a younger fellow on a mountain bike covered with handmade bags and storage.  He was 'bike packing' his way down to Florida.


I took my time getting ready, packing up, since it was still in the low 40's.  Around 11:30, I had everything packed up on the bike, and headed out.

It was overcast, the sun never came out, and cold and windy. However, I only had around 20 miles or so to get to the high point, and then it was all downhill into Cumberland.  The ride up was rough, but the Salisbury viaduct was exciting, and a lunch stop at Meyersdale for a hot meatball sandwich gave me energy to get moving on up the mountain.





The best view of the trip - the continental divide, indicating it was all downhill from here.
The weather was still cold and grey, I even got rained on for a bit until I found shelter to wait it out.



Still, the ride down was great - there were a number of old railroad bridges to cross, and a few tunnels, all made the ride exciting.  


I rolled into Cumberland around 5:30.




Over the later part of the day, my gears had started skipping at an uncomfortable rate, every minute or so.  A bit worried about walking my bike to the next bike shop, I swung in to Cumberland Trail Connection and talked to the bike tech.  He suggested it could just be a dirty chain. I bought some lube, and took the bike around back where he handed me a bucket and a hose.

I flipped the bike over and found every size of grit from sand to gravel in the gunk that was my dirty lube.
I brushed and hose the chain and gears, wiped clean, and relubed, and from that point the ride was smooth sailing.

The trail guidebook suggested camping at the local YMCA, so I headed there.  Let me tell you, do not believe everything an Indian, a cowboy, a construction worker, and a police officer say.

It is NOT fun to stay at the YMCA. Bleh. The camping spot was a small field, right next to the parking lot, 20 feet from the road, and 10 feet from the railroad line.  With the CSX hub 2 miles up, the railroad line was busy.  Add to that the stream of people going to and from heir cars, and it was the Worst. Campsite. Ever.
A woman at the bike shop had suggested I could camp at a rough campsite 5 miles further on, but I was too tired to go on, so I braved the Y.  And beat it out of there at dawns first light.

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