alison

looking for someone that has done the C & O bike path (Cumberland to dc) in a day. I'm not into path cycling but my husband and I will be leaving the area in a few years and this is something I'd like to complete before moving. husband is a willing participant.

we will be riding light weight (22 lbs) full suspension race mt bike (scott spark rc 900) - would most likely have it fully locked out though. running tubeless.
will be rolling with camelbaks and all our own food. no plans to stop except for water and getting supplies/food from camelbaks.
planning to get additional water from pumps on path and use nuun so taste won't be an issue
planning to start @ 5... no idea how long this will take.

have several 6 hr mt bike rides in this season - significant climbing and of course technical/rolling resistance issues (rocks, logs, etc) to keep the speeds down). road cyclists too - several 70+ mile rides but have been hampered with weather this spring to get any centuries in.

no idea how prepared we are. but planning to do it 5/8. taking off work b/c we want to encounter minimal wknd warrior/casual riders.

would be great to know what folks completed this in - bike used, variation in speed over the distance, etc.

rhm

This link is several years old, but it's been bumped recently, so that's where I'd start:

https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/57...ml#post9445114

alison

unfortunately - I was the one who bumped it. I don't have enough posts to send a private msg to the person who completed it in one day. someone on that thread indicated I should start a new post on this forum. people on that forum appear to be more casual riders - short distances on the path like 60 miles.

rhm

Ah, yes! I could have figured that out. Well, since you're a new member (and welcome to the forum!) perhaps it will help if I point out that you can type someone's username preceded by an at sign, like this: @alison, and they get a notification. It's almost as good as sending a private message.

alison

thanks for the tip. the guy hasn't been on since 2013 so this is likely a long shot.

alison

hoping to catch up with @CCrew if he is still a member to get his feedback regarding the C & O.

unterhausen

my experience on surfaces like this is that it's a struggle to go more than about 12 miles an hour on the bike. I am pretty sure it would take me longer than 11 hours. Note that they were riding cross bikes, I find mountain bikes to be slower. I would make sure my lights could handle at least 5-6 hours of darkness. I know it's expensive, but I would contemplate some faster tires than the usual mtb tire. You still probably want a 40mm tire, but a slick tire should work fine.

The guys that just rode Crush the Commonwealth said that the GAP trail was in really good shape. Of course, we have had some rain since then.

You can leave someone a visitors message on their profile page.

alison

thanks for your thoughts. we ride the NCR in northern balto county - similar surface to C &o but it has a little climbing into York PA - like 1000' or so. we maintain 13.5ish but - so many roads to cross - slow to cross or outright stop then start from a dead stop and this occurs throughout the route. so not directly comparable to c&o. also - have only ridden that trail with our old 26 Mt bike - heavier, not as efficient pedaling, lot of people when we were there, etc. you know the line. and we are usually on that path b/c other riding is not working out (high winds, soft ground).

our tires are very fast rolling (29er 2.2 wide) on trail rides we can avg 8-9 mph over long durations (never flat). have been thinking about getting a linked-knob (solid center) for even faster rolling.... sounds like this would be your recommendation.

we are allowing about 13 hrs - starting @ 5 am - pickup @ 165 mile point @ 6 pm. didn't want to go into Georgetown/dc and deal with traffic on a fri eve. urban is not our preferred environment. have lights for 24 hour races but just bought light wt bar light - incredibly bright. ran them during the day (just to confirm burn time) this past sat on a long fat tire ride (our trails have been wet and an early am frost kept us from hitting the road bikes). they will last 4 hrs - which will cover us for the am and the paw paw tunnel with a lot to spare.

the ongoing joke has been - we're going to know a lot about level of effort on Friday night after the ride :-).

dwmckee

You will do it a lot faster with a 2 inch near slick tire. It is dead flat and you do not need any significant traction, You want fast fat road tires. And fenders if it is at all wet. The tow path is clay with some gravel on top. When a rut fills with water the clay keeps the water in like a swimming pool until it evaporates. It can be 4 or more days after a rain and still the puddles proliferate.

dwmckee

I would not worry about the crowds even on the weekend except real close to DC... I rode a significant portion in the dark 2 years ago. I ate a million spider webs (best to follow someone else) and had collected several large spiders on the bike as hitch hikers. We were on a tandem and my stoker actually screamed and jumped off when she saw one of the big ones crawling on my back. Yes, we had a great time! Also be prepared for millions of bugs depending on how damp it is when you go so have clear glasses. Just certain sections when it is really damp have all of the bugs. And you can still get mosquito bites at 12 MPH when they float onto the eddy behind your back... Remember that there are giant standing cannal pools along parts of the trail to be sure you stay close to teh native insect population.

We counted more than 300 turtle sightings on our trip.

alison

had not thought about bug spray.... thnx for the heads up on that. will coat ourselves before hand. weather looks good for this fri. we purchased wtb nano tires - solid/raised bead of knobbies in the center. bummer to have to run tubed though. disappointed to see that winds will be out of the south - but so far only forecast to be 5-10 mph. would not use a front fender due to additional drag but we have light wt fenders that attach to our seat post. will bring those.

maxine

It's been a long time since I've ridden the C&O, but based on my recollection, and what I have seen more recent riders report, I would not say that the surfaces are at all similar. The NCR is mostly reasonably smooth, packed dirt; I believe that you will find the C&O to be far more rough and rutted, and, overall, a tougher slog (especially if there has been any decent rainfall not long before your ride.) I would plan on your average C&O speed being a bit lower than what you're used to on the NCR (but of course, different bikes and tires might end up compensating, anyway.) Have fun!!

alison

thanks. we leave for Cumberland @ 2pm today - have decided to up our start time tomorrow to 4:30. Cumberland only received trace rain yest w/ storms rolling thru so I think we lucked out on that. we ended up buying wtb nano tires - have essentially the continuous raised center bead with very low profile side knobbies. i.e. fast rolling.

we now have new motivation for riding faster - hoping to be at growlers (in Gaithersburg) happy hour before it ends at 7. will be about 20 min drive from where we are meeting a friend at our designated end (Riley's lock). food, beer - I think this could help keep speeds high.

i'll drop a line on this thread with lessons learned and how it turned out. the ongoing joke is that around 6 pm Friday i'll be an expert on how to prepare for 165 miles on the c & o. :-)

dwmckee

Good luck. Weather should hold out for a great day of riding... If it stays dry you may be able to ditch the fenders.

alison

yea - did it! 162.5 miles in just over 12 hours moving - only had 52 min stoppage which included: refilling camelbaks, getting food out of main pack to accessible pockets, shedding knee/arm warmers and vest, a few too cool things not to stop for and enjoy/take a pic (us at the pawpaw entrance, huge snapping turtle, 2 oriole birds, and an owl in flight over the canal, etc). I wouldn't classify anything as a break though.

thanks to Cumberland hotel having alarm clock exactly 1 hour fast - we awoke at 2:50 and not 3:50... so we ended up starting an hour earlier than expected (rolling out of Cumberland at 4am). heavy fog and then unfortunate heavy dew/mist from about 5-8. sun had not really burned it off until 9. tons of glow eyes on the trail illuminated by our lights- rabbit, opossum, deer, etc. 1 stop due to waiting for the opossum to clear out.

we avged 13.4 mph for the 162.5 which was an effort. winds were calm in the early am but my mid am had picked up and were out of the SE (aka head wind). the rolling resistance with the surface did end up yielding a much harder effort than we figured. we believed we'd be able to draft off one another - but with a max spd of 18 (rather low in my opinion) if you tried to draft - you could get a 2-3 seconds of no pedaling but the reduction in speed would fall fast so drafting really just became a slight reduction in pushing the gear. our tires were 2.1 wide more/less solid center bead mt bike tires. I would think cross bike set-up/significantly more narrow tires would allow for far greater ability to draft.

time went oddly fast for first 6 hrs. was a daunting realization that when we finished a metric century - we had to do another 100 miles. the last 30 miles were mentally tough but just didn't allow ourselves to drop the gear and held on. at that pt back of neck/shoulders were very sore/stiff. both of us had 85 oz reservoirs and a decent amt of wt in pump, tubes, food, bug spray, shock pump (if there was a problem with susp could only regret not bringing it), basic bike tools, clothing, etc.

did not need bug spray but had we gotten a flat - would have been key. so would still recommend this - same as carrying a spare tube - ya hope you don't need it. ample chamois butter for reapplication was good to have.

we were not racing it but we were not taking our time either. finished strong and were quite functional sat and sunday. muscles tender but for both of us - the real issue was soreness/stiffness in the supporting tendons around the knee. iced fri night/sat am - no additional issues. perhaps in hind sight - more stretching would have helped. then again - not being soaking wet in 53 deg weather likely would have helped our tendons too :-)

I'm glad we did it - but would never consider a repeat - so damn boring and we love to climb. the continuous pedaling for 12 hrs was one heck of a physical challenge.

fyi - our prep for this - we ride few times a wk (year round) and for this season had built up to 6 hr hilly road and mt bike rides. we also ride our fat tire bikes often - believe this was key - minimal coasting on a fat tire (4.65" wide) b/c of the rolling resistance - so similar concept to maintaining a decent speed on a path like C&O.

unterhausen

thanks for the report. Now you're the expert

kimpw

Nice,

A friend and I did the C&O last November. Honestly, it was very boring. I was riding 26x1.75's and my friend was riding 700x25's I think. Both of us were sore in the ankles. That dirt/rocky surface does a number after 120 miles.

Probably would not do it again, although I heard Pittsburgh part is much better.

Steamer

Smoother and less dirty, but no less boring.