Getting the flavor of...A bike trek’s unexpected climax

The scenic towpath runs along the Potomac and the Maryland–West Virginia border to Washington, D.C.

A bike trek’s unexpected climax

Sometimes when a journey is winding down, you reach the most exciting part, said Bruce Weber in The New York Times. On a coast-to-coast bike ride that started in Oregon, “I presumed the great rides were behind me” as I pedaled into Pennsylvania. That’s when I dipped south to ride the rugged Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath, which runs southeast from Cumberland, Md., to Washington, D.C. A stiff wind was “occasionally roaring through the treetops” as I followed the Maryland–West Virginia border. The “gracefully winding Potomac, with the autumn sun angling off the surface, was simply beautiful.” There’s a tunnel near Paw Paw, W.Va., where you’re forced to walk your bike half a mile in darkness. “For reasons I can’t entirely explain, I loved it,” and such challenges made the next, well-paved stretch of road feel like “pure luxury.” Veering north, I “rose and fell with steep, rolling hills.” Better yet, “nature’s museum was on full display.”

A landmark’s conflicting nature

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