Day 5: North Mountain to Indian Flats

Phil and I awoke to find Mark (the chef of the group) cooking up pancakes. After a good breakfast we headed to Williamsport so Phil could go to the bike shop and have his rear rim fixed. I believe we left the campsite around 9:40am.

On the way there I got a flat tire (I was due for one)! Phil went ahead to the shop and Mark stayed back to assist me. Looked like the valve ripped away from the tube so it was of course unpatchable. I had a spare tube so like a NASCAR pit crew, we tore in and got 'er done. We met up with Phil in Williamsport and headed to Tony's Pizza for lunch (was about 11:30 already). Delicious lunch and fantastic service! In fact everywhere we've ate I believe we've been offered to have our water bottles filled.

After stopping by the bike shop for me to buy a spare tube (my 2nd spare was still in Phil's car in Cumberland), we headed down the trail. Ride was a bit boring and long. Not so muddy today, but there were some washouts so bad that we had to stop and walk our bikes across.

We met a guy named Sam from London who was headed to Seattle on bike. He was going northbound to Cumberland and had about 100 miles to go at 2:00!

We had the typical road detour (where the C&O towpath has been washed out for years) for 6 miles which was a killer with hills. We also had a 3 mile section of trail where we jumped out on a paved road that paralleled the trail and used it. (No, it's not cheating!)

We rolled into Harpers Ferry around 6:30 and walked the bridge into town to look for dinner. Nothing was open in town but an ice-cream shop. Phil and Mark got some drinks and ice cream and sat around for awhile until I pointed out really dark sky coming our way. I checked the radar and sure enough a huge storm was skirting passed us and looked like we were gonna catch it. So we quickly headed back to our bikes (other side of said bridge) while we started seeing lightening. We got to the bikes and prepared for a downpour. We sat there a few minutes and watched as the storm skirted right passed us without as much as a single drop! Just as we were about to leave Diane rolled in. We exchanged hellos again, griped about trail conditions, and then we parted ways.

We got to Brunswick late, so we decided to cancel trying to get dinner there and push on to the campsite. It was getting late, so we thought we'd drop back from the planned campsite due to losing daylight. The first campsite was down a steep grade from the towpath and the next one was only 2.5 miles away anyway so we continued. That next campsite was flooded (we'd heard reports of flooded campsites from other riders) and had a sign saying closed. By this time we'd lost all our daylight and needed to go another 5.3 miles to the next campsite, the original planned stop. So with flashlight-headlights mounted we pushed on.

We finally got to the Indian Flats campsite around 10:00pm and got our tents setup. Then Mark fixed up a wonderful gourmet smorgasbord of leftover foods for he and I while Phil ate. Poptart and went to bed. (Phil's knee has been bothering him the entire ride.)

Tomorrow is our final day and we should easily finish. Our ride home is available at 6:00, so we might even have time to kill in Great Falls or Georgetown. We now only have 44 miles to go!

By the way, again I have been able to upload a few more photos (from Harpers Ferry) to my Picasa site.