Cycling in Western Pennsylvania usually means lots of hills; it is the nature of the terrain.  None of the hills are big, but there are very few flat sections of road.  Today however, my route was almost flat. That is because I rode the Panhandle Trail to West Virginia and back.

The Panhandle Trail is a “Rail to Trails’ project.  These projects convert old, abandoned railroad corridors into public access trails. The Panhandle Trail was a railroad route that went from Pittsburgh to St Louis.  The section that we rode today was abandoned as a railroad, in the late 1990’s.

In order to operate efficiently, railroads were constructed to be as flat as possible.  This means the newly converted trails are also flat.  The surface of most of these trails is gravel or crushed limestone, but the section we rode today was asphalt.  Riding a flat, asphalt trail with no traffic was fantastic.  I was riding with some people from the local triathlon club and a couple of us really pushed hard.  We ended up with an average speed of well over 20 mph.

Riding to West Virginia and back was a great way to spend Memorial Day.  We were finished by late morning and I have spent the rest of the day, relaxing and cooking ribs.  Life is good.