This week's Bike Overnight story was written by newscaster Giles Snyder, whose voice you've no doubt heard if you listen to National Public Radio. Giles, along with some companions, did his first-ever Bike Overnight on the C&O Canal towpath last spring.
"I had hoped that a nice, sunny day and cool spring temperatures would combine to help make my bike overnight memorable," Giles writes. "And, while my companions and I did get a remarkable trip up the C&O Canal Towpath from Washington, D.C., the weather we wanted wasn't what we got.
"It started raining the moment we left our starting point, the downtown D.C. building where I work. It rained as we cycled through trendy Georgetown, where we got a little lost and I almost got mowed down by a big delivery truck in rush hour traffic. And it rained long past the time when we shivered ourselves to sleep."
But the rain didn't deter these riders, who pushed on despite the weather.
"The idea for the canal dates back to the earliest days of our nation," Giles continues. "George Washington himself championed it as a way to connect the western frontier with the more populated East. Workers started building it in the 1820s and canal boats used it to bring raw materials such as lumber and coal to market into the early 20th century. It was a lifeline for communities up and down the river.
"Boats may no longer ply the length of the canal, but today it's a haven, not only for cyclists, but for hikers and others who want to take in its natural beauty and gaze at history firsthand."
We think Giles is going to have an amazing time when he goes out for an overnight in dry weather.
"While the second day's sunshine was re-invigorating, the constant rain of the previous day should have made my first overnight cycling trip a miserable failure. It didn't. In fact, the adversity only whetted my appetite for more, if only to see what a cycling trip is like in a dry pair of shorts.
"We left more than 100 miles of the towpath undone. I'm hoping to tackle the Shepherdstown-to-Cumberland stretch soon. Once our plans come together, it's a good bet I'll be keeping an eye on the weather. But, since I've already cycled through one deluge, a little more rain won't be enough to scare me off."
Read the rest of Giles' story at BikeOvernights.org. There you can also scroll through our archives of posted stories and Photos of the Week -- including this week's image, which comes from the March 1, 2011, post Falling in Love on Skalkaho Pass, Montana, by Sarah Raz.
BikeOvernights.org Photo of the Week, 09.21.12.
Top 3 photos by Giles Snyder; bottom photo by Josh Tack.
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BIKE OVERNIGHTS is posted every Tuesday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s media specialist, and highlights content from BikeOvernights.org. Previously, from March 2009 through January 2012, Mac posted weekly at Biking Without Borders. He also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to nearly 46,000 readers worldwide.
Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/09/a-wet-ride-on-c-canal-towpath.html
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