What style tires should be used on the Gap/C&O? I know chances of mud or poor conditions on the C&O are possible, so I am wondering if Cyclecross tires would be best. I'm going later this summer or early fall. I will be using my Tricross, which I'm told can take up to 38mm tires. I currently have 28mm Gatorskins for road riding on it.

My favorite tires for the C&O and GAP are Vittoria Voyager Hypers, as wide as possible... My experience is that wider is better and mud tread adds no benefit.

How much weight to you plan to carry.

When I did it, we had three bikes. We had one light weight packer, the other two of us had four panniers each. One bike with 35 or maybe 37mm tires, one with 47mm tires and I had 50mm tires (Schwalbe Marathon Dureme front, Marathon Extreme rear). All three of us thought that we had the perfect tires for the trail. It rained constantly for two or three days, but the trail was still quite solid.

The first photo has two of the bikes, the second photo was the light weight packer's bike (he even took the bike computer off to save weight), the third is what the trail looked like for about a day when the rain was ending.



But if it is dry and you pack pretty light, narrow tires might work fine.

I honestly do not know how much I will be carrying yet. This will be my first tour. Which means I will probably overpack.

If your frame can take 38mm, 35mm would have a little bit of clearance in case you ride through some mud, thus that would be a good size. Or, if you pack light maybe 32mm. If you pack really light, use the 28s you have on the bike already.

I rode from Pittsburgh to Washington DC during Hurricane Irene. I had no problems using 26x1.5, 38mm, Continental City Contacts, despite the heavy rain on the C&O due to the hurricane. Don't overthink it. If you can go up to 38s I would, or just go up to 35s.

If you don't have fenders, I would suggest it. Just make sure you have decent clearance between the tires and fenders. I ride the GAP often and got tired of cleaning the drivetrain on my wife's fenders bike. The drivetrain gets a lot of the crushed limestone on it. She now has fenders. On the C&O on a rainy, muddy day, you'll be happy you have them.

Remember you can get a lot of what you need along the stops on the trail, so no need to carry a lot of food.

I ride the Pittsburgh/Connelsville section of the GAP weekly and the entire thing several times a year and never carry food, there are more than enough trail side options for sure. I've never been received with anything less than a smile when asking a business to fill my water bottle either but water gets a little harder to find between Rockwood and Cumberland. Food is a little more challenging on the C&O, how you deal with food really depends on the experience you're looking for, I'm not into camp food. I wholeheartedly agree with fenders but that's a whole different debate.

My favorite tires for the C&O are 26x2.35 Big Apples. They don't pick up much mud, and roll nicely over the bumps.

Big Apples are nice on both the C&O and GAP. Continental Touring, Continental City Ride II's, Continental Country Plus, and Continental Travel Contacts are other tires that have worked well on the GAP/C&O for me. All wider, floatier, tough tires that do well on both the crushed limestone of the GAP and mud on the C&O. My personal favorite is the Continental Travel Contact in 700X37 that would fit your bike.
Lots of tires will work though. In general, go as wide as you can and run fenders.

Wide as possible (with the cross bike) for C&O, it can punish even young & fit riders.

I've become a huge fan of wider tires the past year. The reason I like the Hypers so much is that they roll really fast on hard pack and crushed limestone, they come in 35mm and 38 mm wide offerings, the 38mm measure out at 40mm on my bike. I may try a set of Compass Barlow Passes at some point as they are supposedly really nice as well.

I rode on a pretty tame set of 32 tires for a couple of seasons and never ran into anything they couldn't handle.

I currently have 25mm road tires, so I've been avoiding it, but at a minimum I'd want so 28mm gravel tires (and that's at a minimum).

My wife and I rode DC to Pittsburgh last year. Now in about three weeks time we are taking our teenage kids from Pittsburgh to Cumberland. We both rode what were basically fat slicks, 35 and 38 mm. That is fine on the GAP which is well covered, but could have turned into a disaster on the C&O if it had gotten more muddy.

On the C&O there are areas of exposed dirt and small mudholes that you can come up on pretty quick. We were both using aero bars at times (highly recommended on long, flat tours). Imagine coming up on a mud hole at 15 mph on a heavy, slick tired touring bike while down in the aerobars. You can either hit the water full on, or hurry up and try to skirt around the hardpack and sloped puddle edge. You have about 2 seconds to make a decision and commit to the line.

We got lucky and it was very dry so there were usually semi solid paths around the edges of the mudholes. We also knew that if it got wet wet we were going to have to stop and buy some new tires, at least for the front end. Basically with slicks on both bikes it was sometimes sketchy under very dry conditions. Under any other conditions, without some tread I could have definetly seen some accidents trying to hit and hold a line through the puddles at high speed.

My advice would be to go gairly wide in order to stay easily up on top of any soft areas of dirt, gravel, or crushed limestone. You don't want to have any tendency to sink into softer areas. Contrary to road riding it has been my experience that on crushed limestone, gravel, and dirt wide tires roll better, especially when carrying a lot of weight.

35mm or so would be a good target width, but you can move up or down a few mm if you find a tire you like. If you are buying tires for sure, then get something with some tread. CX, hybrid, urban, or whatever tread design would probably work. You won'the need that much tread, just something to help stick those tires when the trial suddenly gets slick and wet.

On the other hand, you can also try whatever tires that you have and buy new ones if you need them. Plenty of little bike shops along the way. However our CX frames can fit some pretty fat tires including most hybrid bike tires. If you are limited to 38mm then your choices may be more limited.

I would shop around and look for a tire that meets the criteria. It doesn't have to be that special, just fairly wide with some tread. I kind of like what might be called "hybrid" tires that try to compromise between rolling resistance and traction. It is a long trail so you do want to stay fairly efficient and not push big, sluggish, knobby tires the whole way. You just need some kind of tread pattern.

Anyway, good luck. Whatever you pick will be fine and probabaly not make or break the trip.

You might pass me if your ride is over the 4th, I can't maintain 15mph on the GAP loaded. I'll either leave from the West End after work on Friday or the East End on Saturday depending on weather and work schedule. Unfortunately my wife and son bailed out on me this year.

Plan ahead, Bring a 3rd tire .. then even a 1 tire failure won't stop you.

Conti Travel contact is their adventure touring past the paved roads of the world, tire. 622-37 (or 559-47) gatorskin sidewall.

you have Oodles of clearance around those 28mm ones ?

It's counterintuitive until you try it, but the best thing to do with most puddles is ride right through the middle of them slowly. This keeps you out of the squishy stuff on the sides and keeps your tires fairly clean. Obviously slow down, but the puddles are only a couple inches deep (most of them anyways) and there is plenty of traction underneath them. Another plus to riding through the puddles is you don't have to turn, so you just let your momentum carry you through.

Not on the C&O Canal, in my experience. I didn't find a whole lot of "what I needed" along the trail on the section I rode (from Harper's Ferry to Cumberland). At least not a reasonable distance from the trail. I even made a detour from Williamsport to Clear Springs (to find a hotel on a cold rainy day) and didn't find anything. Even at Harper's Ferry, I had to do a 14 mile detour find a grocery store.

Even on the GAP, it was a bit difficult to find "what you need".

I've got to disagree. I've ridden sections of the C&O a few times and never found it "punishing". It's a bit rougher than most trails but it's not exactly rocky or even that rough. Perhaps my perspective is colored by mountain bike experience but I found lots of trails in the eastern US that I've ridden on a loaded touring bike that were rougher.

I rode the GAP and C&0 last spring on 32mm Panaracer Ribmo tires. Even in a day of rain (on the C&O), I never found them to be particularly slick or difficult to navigate puddles. The trail doesn't have a lot of sharp turns nor twists so I never found a need for tread. I did reduce the pressure slightly...from 100psi to 80psi...for the C&O but I pumped the tires back up to 100psi on the GAP. 28mm tires might be a bit narrow, however. Not for handling the terrain but because you don't have as much cushion if you reduce the pressure.

Edthesped

We are riding the week before you. 2 days to Ohiopyle, a layover day in Ohiopyle to hangout and maybe go rafting, and 2 more days to Cumberland. We are trying to keep things fun and easy going for the kids. We don't want to make them hate cycling.

Oh, and one more tip we have is to consider carrying weight gainer like weight lifters use. It takes up very little space and is nice to be able to glug down hundreds of calories quickly. Instead of eating breakfast where we stayed and getting a late start, we would chug some weight gainer and get on the bikes as soon as possible. It is nice to have 20 to 30 miles under your belt and then stop for brunch when you get hungry and tired. It beats waking up fresh and eager, only to waste some of the nicest riding hours cooking or waiting on breakfast.

9:00... 9:30..... 10:00.... temperatures rising, waiting on slow service at some diner, temperature climbing, 0 miles riden, a 70 mile day still looming ahead of you. "Hey, um, can we get our check? We ned to get riding..."

Vs.

Scoop, shake, chugg, rinse, go... 25 morning miles later, "Hey you getting hungry? How about some brunch or lunch? We are all set up for an easy afternoon."

Yep, wieght gainer. I wouldn't tour without it.

This has to be one of the most-asked questions on the touring forum! :-)

I've ridden both the GAP and C&O on 26x1.25 tires, and indeed was just on a section of it last weekend on those same tires for a day ride. I'd recommend wider, though. The GAP is a good surface of crushed stone, but if it it gets wet it can be a bit soft, especially if you are carrying a load. The C&O can have tree roots, rocks, and lots of puddles if after a rain (like last Sunday, we were dodging puddles a lot). Wider is definitely better for both of these trails.

Oh, and be sure to ride the Western Maryland Rail Trail when you get to it, to bypass part of the C&O, which is about 20 miles of glorious asphalt, split on both sides of Hancock.

Fully agree for the C&O. Even though it had rained for several days before I rode it, the ground under the puddles was quite solid and hard packed. I started trying to ride around the puddles more to keep my feet drier than for any other reason, once my feet were soaked, I just rode thru the puddles. GAP might be a bit softer, so that might have more mud?

I would never use time trial type bars (I assume that is the type of aero bars referenced) for loaded touring. For those that do it and feel that they can maintain an adequate margin of safety while riding, when you loose control and crash please do not take me out with you. I will use the drops on drop bars to try to cut the head winds better, but never anything that offers less control than that when carrying a load on the bike.

I've ridden the GAP-C&O trails twice, all the way from Pittsburgh to DC. The first time, my bike had 700x32 Panaracer Paselas, which were fine much of the time but not wide or grippy enough for sections with mud or deep gravel. The second time, my bike had 700x33 Clement LAS (which measure 35-36 mm wide on my rims), and they were much much better. I had no problems riding on either trail with the Clements. In sum, I would recommend tires at least 35 mm wide with some tread. The tread doesn't need to be aggressive but slick tires are no fun in mud.

I've been contemplating riding the GAP/C&O, and have been pondering tire choices as well...

As an off-pavement newbie, I've been contemplating which bike(s) to take. My fendered road touring bikes are 27", so my tire choices are a bit more limited. They both are currently wearing Pasela TGs in 27x1-1/4 (32mm) OR I have the option of late '80s/early '90s rigid MTBs -- my Schwinn Woodlands and the MUTT (unknown brand, but possibly a Raleigh Elkhorn) that both ride on 26x1.75s. Neither of the MTBs have fenders, but that can be remedied easily enough.

On the C&O you might have to ride a little farther off the trail to get food, but there are towns and grocery stores. I didn't find it difficult at all. You may have to plan a little, but it isn't hard. I ride the GAP often since I live near it, and honestly, it isn't difficult to find food. Once again, a little advance planning helps, but it wasn't hard.

I see you're from Philly... How hard is it to get from the Philly Amtrak station to Ocean City, NJ? I'm thinking of riding to DC then hopping a train to Philly then riding to NJ to spend a couple of days on the beach with the family. I thought about PA route S but am not sure I can do PGH to OC in 5 days.

The GAP is really easy to find food, I believe a there's a grocery store in West Newton, I can't remember, I eat at the Trailside Inn or turn around at the rail car if I'm joy riding. There's Martin's Grocery next to the Adirondacks in Connellsville. My only advice and Alan S may be able to chime in on this is avoid the Ohiopyle House Cafe. Told me it would be a couple of hours to be served breakfast. Falls Market in Ohiopyle has an excellent brunch on Sunday, I'm not sure about Saturday and breakfast comes up very quick on weekdays. I always say I'm going to hit the Smokehouse BBQ in Confluence but either arrive too early to see a closed sign or am not hungry, but the BBQ smells great. In Rockwood I go to the Opera House.

Definitely got to make it fun with kids. My daughter loves to ride and my son would rather hike. My thing is that I tend to eat healthy but when I'm doing bigger rides I rationalize that it's okay to eat less than healthy fare so I take full advantage of the restaurants along the trail.