Cycle Tour: W & OD Trail to the C & O Canal Trail
DAY FOUR: Brunswick, MD to Washington, DC to NYC (69.77 miles)
I got down with the final breakfast at our best hotel of the trip (not pictured: the delicious cinnamon roll I convinced myself was totally necessary, given it was the last and longest day of riding).
And then, you guessed it! Polly and I were gifted with one final, beautiful morning of riding along the C & O, which would take us all the way back to DC. We wanted to start riding pretty early to avoid having to stress about missing our train so we were rolling before 8 AM.
After about twenty miles, we made our first stop at White’s Ferry. This was supposed to be our lunch stop but we were making great time and got there pretty early. I was noticing some trigger points and a lot of tightness in my right shoulder on the ride, so I spent a lot of time stretching it out before doing some of the other exercises for my back. I didn’t want to have to deal with that pain for the remaining 40+ miles of riding I had ahead of myself, and I noticed a huge difference after a solid fifteen minutes of stretching my shoulder.
I wolfed down a BLT and then we were on our way once again! We rode twenty more wonderful miles on the C & O before another stop at the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center, located at canal lock 20. We refilled our water bottles (which I was getting almost desperate to do since we had trouble finding water this morning), used the restrooms, and made some mechanical repairs.
And with that, we finished our final rest of the tour. It was just another twenty miles back to DC, but we still managed to squeeze in one last bit of excitement: we had a VERY close encounter with a snake that I was convinced Polly was going to ride right over! She didn’t realize it was a snake until they very last moment but no parties were injured, and we gave it some space as it slithered its way off the trail and into the water.
Before we knew it, we were back in DC.
We hustled back with enough time to try and catch an earlier train. We made it in time, but ultimately missed out on one of the last two available tickets. In the end, that worked out for us because we now had plentyyyy of time to clean up, change out of our dirty kits, and address all of the dust. Oh, and to eat, duh.
Eventually, it was time for us to head over to the tracks for our 6:05 PM train back to NYC. The train wound up being delayed a bit, but the Amtrak staff was amazing AGAIN, and they made sure that Polly and I could get down to the track ahead of time. Since it was going to be a full train, we agreed to each just find a bike car and a seat without going through the trouble of trying to find two seats together. The ride back was fast (traveling with my bike on Amtrak was such a great experience and now I know I need to do it more) and I started getting my bike put back together before getting to admire all of my temporary souvenirs from this tour.
I’m still convinced the majority of that bruising was from climbing the stairs to cross the river into Harpers Ferry.
It was close to 11 PM by the time I started my ride back to Brooklyn.
It was fun to actually ride back to Brooklyn, rather than taking the subway home. I was feeling pretty elated after what I accomplished over the past few days, and decided to make my usual pit stop at Gold Star. It was a Friday night, so the place was popping, but I ordered a beer at the window before sitting myself on the sidewalk where I called my sister, and then my friend, Trish, to celebrate. I grabbed a couple of beers to go before I finished up the last mile of riding on my way back to my apartment.
I am so thankful to Polly for planning such a great tour for us, and I am so happy and fortunate that I got to go on this adventure. I am also really proud of how strong I felt on every day of the ride; this has been my longest bike tour to date (it’s also only my second one LOL) and I was worried that I would start to feel worn out as we approached the end of the riding. I felt so good on all four days and really noticed all of the progress I have made after trying (sorta) to ride more consistently throughout the year.
There were so many great experiences on this trip, but my biggest takeaway is how much I fucking love this tiny bike that got me through it.
