Big Bird's Adventures

When I started this adventure I wasn’t really sure I would finish it. That is kind of how I feel about documenting it as well. Ha! It takes a lot of effort to put these posts together, even when you are retired. Now here I am (or was) in Pittsburgh PA after more than 3000 miles and getting ready to start the next phase of the trip. At least this begins with friends as my friend and buddy, a brother really, committed to joining and put in the miles and effort training so that he could spend 4 days on the bike riding with me. To show my flexibility I allowed him to alter my plan to ride the GAP and PANTS rides to get to his cabin into starting on the GAP, and then heading about as East as you can go through Pennsylvania, stringing other rail trails together so that we keep the mileage in the reasonable category and get to his cabin outside of Woodward PA by Thursday. My friends Bruce, Terry, and Ed arrive on Friday to hang out with me for a weekend of zeros that still warms my heart. The format for this post will continue to be copied in logs from my Strava account that I was pretty good at keeping up-to-date. Each entry will have a link to the ride on Strava, my Insta posting for that day as well as a flyover of the route from Relive.cc. I will also embed a stitched together video from all the Live photos I took during the day and now that I have company, there should be more photos to work with as well as videos.

August 11, Day 56 Pittsburgh PA to Blairsville PA – Ooooo boy was it hot today.

Today I was joined by my good friend and brother, Larry Butler for the next four days as we ride to his cabin outside Woodward Pa in Penns Valley. Larry was the one who suggested I ride to Pittsburgh so that I could eventually ride past his cabin. I turned the tables on him and got him to commit to riding his bike more to train so that he could join me. At first I was planning the GAP route and then the PANTS route up through the center part of PA but Larry wanted a route that was no more than 200 miles and that worked for me because it took me a little longer to get to Pittsburgh than I originally thought I would need and so we really don’t have the time to knock out the route I planned. To be honest, I am not even sure I could have knocked it out on my own!

Today we rode out of Pittsburgh on the GAP trail through a lot of rush hour traffic noise. It’s amazing how much infrastructure they crammed into the space between the river and the hills which included our bike path. The GAP is one of the most ridden bike trails in the country and goes all the way to Cumberland Md, however that was too far South and so we got off the trail near Braddock PA and worked our way on local roads through some very tired communities, past a beautiful Carnegie Library, until we got onto The Westmoreland Heritage Trail, the first of the alternative rail trails to get from Pittsburgh to Larry’s cabin. Larry was a little wary of the distance we would ride going my original way and lobbied hard to find something that was shorter, and the elevation on PANTS was a wee unnerving to him. As I update this I am sitting in his cabin now, and he did fine on the shorter version, and he would have done fine on the longer route, but it did take longer to get to Pittsburgh than I expected and I didn’t really leave enough time to do the longer route and get to the cabin before all the guys showed up on Friday.

The Westmorland trail was a very nice trail except there was a section missing so we hat to route onto some local roads to join the route, and as soon as you get off the well graded rail trails, the hills of PA hit you immediately. The Westmorland was mostly a cinder path and was very nice however whoever was hired to “repair” worn portions ordered the wrong kind of surface and “filled” the breaks with a crushed rock that was way too large for comfortable riding on a rail trail. Clearly that organization didn’t ride bikes or the crushed rock would have been better suited to a rail trail and not the kind of rock to run heavy equipment on.
Rail trails tend to follow some kind of waterway in PA as those are the only terrain features where you can blast out a level grade for trains in the state, and as Drew stated, “Driving these legs is 40 ish miles, however with the rail trails and the roads-less-traveled that distance adds up to more like 60+ miles.

The connector roads on this route had some steep biting climbs involved and along some sections I noticed that when the embankment was built up from the road the earthworms moved down the embankment and onto the road surface where if they didn’t vacate early enough, they got caught when the sun heated the road too much and so I noticed hundreds if not thousands of dead earthworms carcasses along the shoulder we were riding on. Just an observation. When I mentioned it to Larry we were on a section where the embankment dropped away from the road and no earthworms were to be seen in those sections.

Somewhere along the second section we stopped and talked to someone who has walked many sections of these trails, and he mentioned that when we got into Saltsburg the trail switched to the West Penn Trail that would take us nearly all the way to Blairsville, which I was aware of, and that I had determined was all rail trail so i had no reservations about the route until he mentioned the grades on some parts of that trail. “Grades? You mean rail grades?” And he said “No”. I was confused, and looked at the route a little harder. The issue was the Conemaugh River Dam. I could see we would cross the Conemaugh 6 or 7 times and there was a squirrely looking dodgy section early on.

The West Penn was fine until we reached the Dam and then it all went to hell. See, there was an rail line, however when they built the dam, thus creating the “river lake” that lake can rise above the level of what was the existing rail line and drain through the tunnels bored into the mountain, so they plugged the tubes. The railroad was defunct. When it got converted to a rail trail they had to route the trail over the mountain, and that was not an easy path. Not at all. We hit some really steep sections climbing and then it was single track on top which then fed into a “Do not ride down this” descent that ended in stairs. I am so glad I didn’t have my panniers with me so my riding weight was less, but that was still a lot of work.

Once we were back on the original rail grade, in the flooding section, then we were good most of the way to Blairsville. I had moved our route to go through Blairsville, where our hotel was, so when the trail ended we were back on local roads to finish off the day. The day was very hot (90+) and very humid and by the time we rolled into Blairsville we were both ready to call it a day, however we still had some miles to ride and we hadn’t really eaten all that much during the ride so we were quite hungry. By the time we routed into the downtown section we finally saw that our hotel was actually another 5-6 miles on the East side of Blairsville just off Rt 22 and we looked for the nearest bar that had food in town and headed for that. The Blue Diamond. A smoking bar with no draft beers, and lousy food but we were starving. There were 3 patrons inside, all smoking, when we walked inside weary and sat down. A young man took care of us and we ordered up some apps and water and each had a couple of Yuenglings. The idea popped into both our heads “Hey, why don’t we just get Drew to pick us up here?” That is how our ride ended on this day, at the Blue Diamond Inn.

Cleaned up at the hotel, a Days Inn, which I would say was between 1 and 2 stars, closer to 1, we got in the truck and drove up to the Levity Brewing Company in Indiana PA. There Ed, our bartender, took care of us and it was taco night!! We finished off the evening there before retiring back to our 1 star hotel to ride another day.

Want to add something here. I had my bike serviced again at the Trek Store when I was visiting with Frank and Lisa where among other things, the brake pads were replaced. I noticed a little bit of a “rubbing” noise when I rode down into Pittsburgh that was annoying, but not concerning. On this day it was a little more noticeable heard mostly when I did not have any pressure on the brake levers, but abated as soon as I touched the brakes. Also I was noticing more and more that my front wheel seemed like it had a mass lump attached to it. It wasn’t out of round, but it didn’t rotate completely normally either, and I felt it more on downhills when it was rotating faster.

Tomorrow Holidaysburg and Horseshoe Curve. Day 56 Strava, Instagram, Relive.cc

August 12, Day 57 Blairsville PA to Holidaysburg PA – We awoke in our 1 star double queen Days Inn room, dressed and headed down to get some of the food. The front desk said “Coffee, Waffles and Bananas” but there was also toast and jelly. A road crew was just finishing up before heading out to their where-ever location so there were few tables left, but the waffle machine was available for use. We were going to spend half the day on The Ghost Town Trail before navigating local roads through Galitzin to get to the upper entrance to Horseshoe Curve so the opportunity for dining later was weak at best. The name “Ghost Town” should be an indicator of the areas of PA we would be riding through. Larry had one waffle, I ate two and as we were walking back to our rooms the bananas finally showed up and we grabbed 2 each for the road.

To get to the GTT we started on the 22 shoulder for a short way and already the heavy truck traffic was out in force. It was also already hot and humid. Our time on 22 was short as we cut through a corporate park with brandy new pavement which curled around towards 119 where we were to get onto the Hoodlebug Extension Trail. The turn-by-turn in my ear said turn left and there was a left, so we turned onto something that looked like a trail, but it also looked like a driveway, and that is what it was. We turned around and found the correct left right on the edge of 119. From there it wasn’t too bad getting to the Ghost Town Trail with another slight wrong turn.

The Ghost Town follows Blacklick Creek and though there are some towns along the way that are basically gone, there are still functioning towns along the way. The one town we needed to hit was Vintondale by 10:30 when we were to meet Drew to give him his shot. After that the GTT runs into Ebensburg high up the Allegheny front. Our elevation getting on the GTT was about 1000’ so we would steadily gain another 1200’ over the course of the next 32 miles. The trail was gorgeous and smooth cinder, weaving through the surrounding terrain as the Blacklick had cut its way through the millennia into that terrain. We could see the terrain but our path was a very nice false flat. Our mile markers started from 1, and progressed from there as we passed by the now-very-small towns of Heshbon, Claghorn, Dion, and Dilltown. Of those Dilltown had the most functioning structures still in use, but no services. Wehrum was the last ghost before riding into Vintondale where 250 people used to live. All structures abandoned over time.

As we approached the road crossing for Vintondale we saw Drew drive by. The timing for this was perfect and we rolled to a stop at 10:28. We took care of the shot in the shade of a Gazebo in which there was a very small jail cell constructed out of strap steel. There was no explanation, but I hope no one tall ever had to be put in there. It was tiny.
With the shot taken care of we moved on into and through the next town of Nanty-Glo. If it looks Welsh then it probably is Welsh and we finally found an information sign explaining that it was renamed Nant-Y-Glo some many years ago which means literally Streams of Coal. The Blacklick we were following is a compound of Black for Coal, and Lick for a creek. There was a lot of coal taken out of this area back in the day, and the old railroad was how they transported that coal to the cities around Pittsburgh that needed it.

The GTT came to an end in Ebensburg which is the Cambria County seat and still a functioning town. With the trail low by the creek we of course were hit with a 20-22% climb to get up and into Ebensburg proper where we found a small bar that was open and served much better food than The Blue Diamond did the previous day. Beer selection wasn’t all that good but we were only having 1 since we still had more miles to ride. With only 15-18 miles left ahead of us we didn’t want to over-do ourselves and so we split a delicious club sandwich with homemade chips made with a ranch dressing powder. They were awesome. Our bartender was a good-sized woman emblazoned with many fine tattoos one of which I complemented her on, a giant Lion tattoo which covered her right arm. When our food came out they had divided it onto two plates and gave each of us a serving of those tasty chips.

Satiated we paid up and said our farewells and back onto the bikes we went. The full heat of the day was on and we had to navigate to Galitzin which was higher up on the plateau than Ebensburg, so the general terrain ahead was rolling while always gaining over all. It was at least 3 or 4 roads, and all of them had some climbs on them, when we finally rolled into Galitzin where we could see across the town a road that looked steep as shit and clearly took travelers to points higher than we were. While I was pretty sure we would eventually be that high, I was sure we weren’t going that way, and fortunately we weren’t. However our path did include a steep AF hill where Larry and I stopped and considered options. There were two: continue and swear a lot, or turn right and climb a less steep option from which we could achieve the necessary elevation a little more gradually. We chose that option, but by no means was that an easy option.

The views both ahead and behind were pretty nice, and after sitting a while we moved on up the road until we reached the road that would take us down to Altoona via Horseshoe Curve. If you don’t know the only way that train traffic can get from East PA to West PA is via Horseshoe Curve, a giant curve that carries rail traffic up the East side of the Allegheny front. Anyway, to see a train on the curve is really quite impressive however there were none when we came through. We had planned to stop in at the visitor center but to our collective disappointment the center was closed. No choice but to ride on descending through 3 different reservoirs built to control the erosion of the curve.

Halfway down, Larry asked me to stop and posited the idea that maybe we should target Levity Brewing in Altoona instead of our B&B and just have Drew meet us there and drive us to the B&B. It worked last night, so why not tonight?

The only issue with this decision was the routing engines desire to route us over hills to get into downtown while flatter options existed though longer. After memorizing the route, I ignored the constant reroute instructions until we were downtown on the correct side of the tracks, and in the right area when I spotted the place. We parked the bikes and entered the Altoona satellite location for Levity Brewing which we had hit only the day before. The plan was to have a beer or two and have Drew pick us up and transport us to our B&B in Holidaysburg as it was too hot to continue, and we were too tired to ride it ourselves. Larry’s brother Bruce had a recommendation for food and beer in Holidaysburg with the only clue being that it was in the basement of a downtown hotel. The only hotel that had anything resembling that descriptive clue was the U.S. Hotel and Tavern only 6 blocks from our B&B.

So, now the B&B. Holy crap did we pick a nice one. I took the suite since it had two Queens and Drew and his father could share the one and I would take the other. They were separated by enough of a snore buffer that they probably wouldn’t hear me.
When we pulled up, the first thing we noticed was this giant Cyprus tree in the yard. The house sat on a corner lot and had a huge front porch over which the second floor extended. The third floor had many dormers of which 3 or 4 of them were part of the suite. Might have been one in the bathroom as well. Each of these dormers were areas to sit and read or simply meditate. Jyoti was our host, and together with her husband, have run this fine B&B since they bought the house some 25 years prior. Her husband was a musician as well and appeared to love Dulcimers as there were at least 25 that I could see all around the first floor parlor areas. We secured the 7am breakfast slot for the next morning and then we left for our dinner.

The US Hotel and Tavern was a fine old world bar in an old world hotel with a lot of wood features. We sat at the bar where there was a terrific selection of local craft brewing that gave us options other than Levity and allowed me to continue my craft brewing quest to sample as much craft beer during my journey as possible. The bartender was very knowledgeable and offered up samples when we seemed undecided. After dinner we topped it off with a tumbler of Wigle Bourbon, another PA produced liquid and then we retired back to our B&B to get the rest needed to continue on the next day.

Note the brake rubbing is getting worse each day.

Destination tomorrow would be the Tussey ski hill just outside of Boalsburg near State College. Day 57 Strava, Instagram, Relive.cc

August 13, Day 58 Holidaysburg PA to Boalsburg PA – With the 7AM breakfast slot we were up early today and downstairs on the dot for what would be an incredible breakfast provided by our host Jyoti, A fruit bowl, juice, French Pressed coffee, pastries, lox, shrimp, yogurt and then eggs and toast and more coffee. As I was eating, a painting in the corner caught my eye, knowing immediately that my mother had the exact same painting. I snapped a photo and sent it to her asking “Why does this seem familiar to me?” (Because it has been hanging on the wall of everywhere she has lived since the 60’s) Jyoti came into socialize with us and see if we needed anything more and we retired to assembling our stuff together and getting on the road.

We bade our host and Drew good day and set off across the tracks and onto a road that took us out of Holidaysburg and eventually onto Juniata Valley Road, which for a road was actually quite nice and reasonably flat as it wound through the terrain never rising all that much. Eventually you reach the end of the valley and rise you must, and rise we did before being dropped onto 22 for a short spell of heavy traffic. We didnt have to endure that long as we were dumped quickly onto something called The Lower Trail, a rail trails that would take us all the way to water street. A beautiful trail it was, flat, shaded, and the right kind of cinder surface that make a rail trails such a treat to ride on. Larry and I just kept cranking out rhythm as the miles bled away. Surprisingly there weren’t many other trail users out there on this day. As a resource, it seems a terrific one, and within an hour in any direction are any number of good source towns for people who would enjoy it. It is 40 miles in length and allows horses, though horses must use the grass and not the cinder. A few road crossings but generally it followed the Franklintown Fork of the Juniata River offering up nice vistas over the river at times.

We rolled into Williamsburg where RideWithGps said we would have to “go around” on local roads to pick up the trail again and as we know that means “climb”. We stopped into a local freezer of a convenience store to sort it all out. Looking at the map it appeared that the trail simply continued on with a couple of river crossings built in, so maybe one of those crossings was out. Larry, in his want and need to avoid unnecessary climbing saw a USPS person at the station and asked him if he knew anything about the trail. “Goes all the way to Alexandria as far as I know” and so after remounting our steeds we set off down the trail and indeed it was the correct decision.

The humidity was building as was the temperature rising and we were both soaked in our own sweat as we rode along, perspiring heavily anytime we stopped to check anything out along the route. Eventually we reached the point where we would leave the trail in Water Street PA using another small section of 22 to reach 453 towards Tyrone which would allow us access to the West end of Rt 45. This area was very familiar to me as this was the southern end of one of my college cycling team long loops to the South of State College. I never did that loop on my own, however on the few times I have ridden a bike from Altoona to State College I came this way twice.

State Route 453 is a short 1 mile rise until Rt 45 branches off to the East an North and had a substantial shoulder, as it also had a slow lane for heavy truck traffic. Once onto 45 we enjoyed a quieter time on this relatively less used portion of 45 and rode this right into Spruce Creek where we stopped in at Spruce Creek Outfitters.

Now it is hard to cover the events that transpired as we stood there at the door to the outfitters. The sign on the door said “Open when we are here, Otherwise closed” and a paper sign taped to the door “Out Back” and while we were standing there a couple walked up from around back to see if we needed anything and that is when the conversation began. The owners, Allan Bright and his wife talked us up for awhile and through the exchange with someone who drove up to talk to Allan we determined that Allan was from Aaronsburg originally so once we returned to the just us conversation Larry started quizzing Allan about his roots and it turned out that the number of mutual acquaintances that they both knew was un-ending and a long chat grew out of it full of tidbits that Larry couldn’t wait to chat up with his Father in law Gerry the next time they would meet in a couple of days. It was very entertaining from a 3rd party point of view but the gist of it all was that Allan was closing the shop for good. Too small an operation for the big companies to deal with and a general decline of interest in fly fishing among the younger crowds of the day Allan just wanted to fish and hunt and tending the shop was no longer a priority. Retirement was now.

As we stood there I was glancing around and recognized that I had ridden through here on many a daily ride back in the day when we would ride through and pick blackberries in late July during those summer months when I stayed in State College. Many fine memories.

We bid our farewells and hit the road East on 45 which in that locale was really North. Out of Spruce Creek 45 did a lot step rollers that generally gained elevation for the next 10 miles always exposing terrain that was familiar to me with decent should all the way and not much traffic. That is until we reached Ag Progress Days, an event going on near Rock Springs where there were only about 10,000 people all checking out the latest in farming gear and it was approaching the end of the day for many so as they exited the event that put more and more people on the road so that we had a steady stream of vehicles all the way to Pine Grove Mills at the base of Tussey Mountain, a mountain I have climbed more than a 100 times on my regular morning rides when I lived there in all seasons of the year. We stopped for some refreshments and respite from the traffic as well as the heat before knocking out the final miles of the day. Again, we decided that there wasn’t really any point in riding directly to the camp site and then have Drew drive us to Boal City Brewing, we might as well just ride to the brewery direct and finish there. The place didn’t open until 4 do we had to lallygag it but we still arrived with 15 minutes to spare. It was hot and humid and we tried to find shade but it was scarce until Larry convinced someone to let us onto the outdoor area where they had some umbrellas and we sat there until a tap in the window told us they were open and we went inside and saddled up to the bar. Beers ordered we chatted up the barkeep until Melanie and Drew arrived with our stuff and after hugs Larry and I retreated to the parking area to put on dry clean (relatively) clothing and returned for more fun awaiting the food truck that would feed us. We sat and enjoyed ourselves as the crowd grew and grew. It turns out the Ag Progress Days was also hosting there so for a Wednesday it got really hopping exciting busy there! Afterwards Melanie went back to Aaronsburg and we found the ski hill where we were allowed to set up our tents for the night and take in the beauty that is that part of Central PA. Drew had packed 3 chairs into the truck so we were able to relax in comfort as the sun set and chat about days adventures. We had already worked out that Drew could sleep in the next day and Melanie would drive out and retrieve our things the next morning. All was good.

Since we are tracking it, yes the brake rubbing is getting worse with every mile. I am starting to feel like something is definitely wrong, but I still have to ride. We will do something about it in State College.

The next day would be an easier 32 miles to finish out this phase of the ride and then my friends would roll in the next day for the glorious zero days. Life is good. Day 58 Strava, Instagram, Relive.cc

August 14, Day 59 Boalsburg PA to Woodward PA – Three creek ride, Sinking Creek, Penn’s Creek, and finally Pine Creek.

The day began early on Tussey Hill. While we were up early, we couldn’t leave early as we needed to await our gear transport, provided this day by Larry’s wife Melanie. We agreed that 8am was a good time to meet, so Larry and I took the time to sit and enjoy our spot again taking the time to boil up water for coffee. The view was fantastic. I had verified with my friend Sue Bellew that her Grandfather’s cabin that we had visited once back in the day was in fact just further up the road from where Larry and I were camped and that her family knew the family that owned the land we were camped on.

Melanie arrived, we loaded up and we were on our way. Just one problem. We were holed up on the South side of 322 so we had to cross it, and we were in a section of the valley that other than using forest roads, there was no option other than riding to Rt 45 and riding that until we could escape into the back roads of Penns Valley on the S side of 45. Rt 45 today is not the Rt 45 we were on yesterday and certainly not the Rt 45 of my college years. Yes, it’s the same route, but Penns Valley Rt 45 has a lot more traffic, and a lot of that is Trucks going fast, and those motherfuckers have no respect for bicycle life. They have little respect for Amish life but our section of R 45 was just shy of where the real Amish presence begins. Once we hit that, the shoulder widened immensely and I felt safer until we turned off of it. One motherfucker logging truck neither slowed nor did that piece of shit move over. A true shit turd was he.

Anyway, once off that blasted road, the stress level decreased back to zero and Larry and I rolled on. Larry said at the start of the ride “Let’s lolly gag. We only have 30ish miles” but once off 45 Larry was on fire and I was trying to keep up. The squeal in my rear wheel even louder, I knew I was fighting my bike, but after stopping to investigate, determined that I couldn’t do anything except ride it and take it into State College while I was zeroing at Larry’s cabin. So I struggled to keep up. “How is this Lolly gagging?” I asked and he decided that he was a little motivated and slowed down to enjoy the scenery a little more. This part of Penn’s Valley was really quite scenic and the only real traffic we had was a trash truck that was on its route which overlapped our route at the time.
Eventually we came to Spring Mills, where Penns Creek and Pine Creek meet, is also close to 45, and has some semblance of a downtown economy as we found a local country store open and we stopped in for proper nourishment and a rest. Larry informed me that besides Elk Creek in Millheim, this town has a distillery with decent food and beer from Otto’s in SC, so I noted that for the future, and we moved on riding out onto Pine Creek Road. Pine Creek is not the Pine Creek you will read about in a later post, this is a smaller (much) pine creek and is more a creek than the other one which is really more of a stream/river than a creek. Anyway this is the creek that runs by Larry’s cabin in Bald Eagle State Forest so we were clearly getting close. I never rode these roads south of 45 when I lived in State College because I knew where I was and what I wanted to ride and exploring wasn’t in my genes yet. Too bad for me because these back roads are “Gold!!” Really! Little to no traffic the only thing we did run into was a tree harvest that was in operation and put those giant piece of shit logging trucks on the road. They really should limit the size of those crap machines to what does the least damage to the local roads. I hate those mother fuckers.

Soon we rode right into Woodward and crossed 45 onto Cemetery Road which would take us to another road through Woodward Crossing and finally onto Pine Creek Hollow Road. When we got to PCHR proper Larry texted Drew asking him to go to the top of the hill and get a shot of us coming up the road to finish off this phase of the trip. Larry’s only phase, but my phase 5.
Drew was at the top of the hill, and struggle up the final climb we did and then we rode down the driveway and up to the cabin where I dismounted not to remount until Monday. A true long rest was ahead of me. 😛

There was beer there, and so we had a glass of course as we got the stuff together we would need later in Aaronsburg. We stashed the bikes in the shed, had our beer, grabbed what I needed and Drew drove us into Aaronsburg to Gerry’s house. Gerry is Melanie’s father, also Mike Smith if you recall from my Chicago and Freeport Il posts, we could shower there before going into Millheim to eat and drink at Elk Creek. Elk Creek came to Millheim 20 something years ago and has been unchallenged for local beer, and food supremacy, and is still the goto place for both. Larry and his family have been fervent supporters for all that time and spent a fortune there. If you want a resource like that then you better spend your money there because otherwise, it wont be there for long.

A good time was had, we chatted up the folks that work there as well as maybe the owner, sat there while the local Thurs cycling crowd gathered and set off on their weekly excursion and finally paid the bill and retreated to the cabin. Hung out on the porch all evening as the Hummingbirds fought over the feeder and the sun finally descended behind the Western horizon. A good day indeed.

I am here for three 0 days, so a real rest that hopefully is well deserved as my total days off since June 17 have been 3, so I will be doubling that in one go. Yea!! Day 59 Strava, Instagram, Relive.cc

August 15-17 Zero Days At the Cabin – Didn’t spend all the time at the cabin and I won’t bore you with all the details of having my friends in town to see me, but I will spend a few words on the squealing brake issue that I have been complaining about since my last service just before Pittsburgh. We loaded up the bike and drove into State College, choosing Freeze Thaw Cycles on the South side of town. They took my bike immediately and put it up on the stand and sure enough the squeal was there, and I forgot to mention how the front wheel “felt funny” but it wasn’t long before the mechanic came and found me and showed me the issue and asked me if I wanted him to take a look see at it. I gave him the “ok” and a few moments later he found me again to show the size of the mass that he pulled out from inside the front tire. These are tubeless tires which means there is no tube. The tire has a bead that seals tightly against the rim, and the tire is filled with sealant so that should a small puncture occur, then the sealant will, like its name implies, seal the hole and on you ride. So, the sealant tends to bind to the tire material. Under normal conditions it should stay “wet” but if say there was some detritis inside the tire when you pour the sealant in then over the course of time the sealant would start to bind to that, and that is what happened to my front tire. Back in May, I added sealant and something else must have gotten in and the number of rotations over the course of 3500 miles created this giant mass. That problem was solved.

For the rear wheel apparently my brake line needed to be bled as air/water got in and caused the pressure to rise. This pressure pushed on the pistons into the pads, and caused the squealing. The mechaninc bled my brakes, both front and rear, and that problem was solved as well.

The shop had some vintage bikes hangin from the ceiling including a tandem Landshark that the proprietor says someone brought in for service and then abandoned it. John Slawta is the real deal in artistic painting of his custom built bikes. I owned one from 1989 through the aughts and here was a tandem. I neither have anyone to ride it with and it wasn’t my size, but it was a beauty. There were some other classics there as well.

Joining us for my zero days were Bruce, Terry, and Ed, making for a very nice outing at the cabin. We breakfasted, we lazed, we drove around the area saw some sites, and of course hit Elk Creek and drank some beer. Fun fun fun.

One more thing I got to do while I was zeroing was to go to Bellefonte to see Larry’s father in law, Gerry Smith. When Larry and Melanie were given permission to build a cabin on Gerry’s land, that brought a lot of their friends to the area and we all got to meet and get to know Gerry. A few years ago, Gerry finally had to accept that he couldn’t keep living in the Aaronsburg house, and moved to assisted living in Bellefont and usually every time I visit, we go over to see Gerry and catch up. Gerry was 93 this past summer and had been following my progress across the country as Larry, Melanie, and Drew kept him up-to-date on my progress and was excited that I was coming through the area on my adventure. So we stopped in and Gerry was a smile ear to ear while we sat with him and he threw questions at me one after the other. You could see the happiness in his eyes. Gerry passed away a few weeks later. I like it that he stayed alive long enough for me to see him one more time and while I was doing this trip. That gave us both a great deal of satisfaction. Rest in peace Gerry.

This concludes a short phase of my adventure. The next post will cover the final miles to home.

Tagged: adventure, Bicycle Touring, Bike About 2025, Bike Packing, Bikepacking, Cycling, Hiking, Nature, Pennsylvania, Travel