Mile 4008.2 - Of hills and heat

A few things were different about today. First, the forecast was calling for 100 degree heat across much of the northeast; second, I was getting back into the mountains. Between the two, I was taking frequent short breaks throughout the day.

I grabbed breakfast at the place recommended to me by the motel owner last night, a little kitchen owned by two women that only do breakfast and lunch. The food was good and so cheap, my standard minimum tip seemed a little ridiculous. I went back to the room to gather up all of my gear. The first goal for the day was to get into Franklin, about 25 miles away. There were a number of steep climbs, but thankfully they were largely shaded. I finally made it to the long, curving drop into downtown Franklin. I grabbed a sandwich at a little cafe and afterward went to the city park a block away. There was a nice fountain in the park and I decided to grab a bench and continue me break a little longer. As I pulled the gatorade out of my pannier to refill the bottle on the frame, a woman approached me. She said she had seen the gear on my bike and wanted to know how far I was going. As it turns out she and her husband are both cyclists and, in fact, her husband has crossed both the US and Canada on a bike.

She called her husband to come meet us, and I ended up talking to them for quite some time. So I met Paul and Terri Wittreich. Paul showed me copies of the books he had written about his journeys. This was certainly encouragement for me to work up this blog into a book form when I am done. I conferred with them about the route I was planning to take across Pennsylvania. As I had suspected, there was no way, north, south or center, to cross Pennsylvania without lots of up and down. They told me about a bike trail that I didn't know about that follows the Allegheny River into Oil City. After talking to them for a while and answering their many questions, I did need to press on. It was nice to take a respite from the day's heat, but an hour spent resting was an hour spent not getting home.

I went down to the river and found the Justus Trail. There was a bike shop right where I entered the trail, so I stopped in to replace the front light that seemed to no longer have interest in recharging. The man in the shop called me 'guy' twice. I don't know why, but being called 'guy' is annoying to me right below being called 'chief'. Please don't call me chief.

I followed the trail as it ran along the Allegheny. At one point, this area was one of the country's largest producers of oil and natural gas. While still a major employer in the region, the production isn't nearly at the level it was 80-100 years ago. Oil City still boasts of several Victorian mansions from the oil boom era. In fact, many of the houses in Oil City seemed oversized compared to most of the other houses I had seen so far in the state. From Oil City, I started climbing again, but thankfully, as the road was following the river, the highs weren't too high.

At one point a road wedged itself between the highway and the river, leading into the village of President. I rode down the smaller road to see if there was any place I could jump into the river. The heat of the day was now in full bloom and the cool river water seemed inviting. Unfortunately, most of the river bank seemed to be split up into private lots, so I couldn't find a way in without crossing someone's yard. Ok, I'll not jump in the river, I guess. The bigger problem I had in President was with the road itself. The road had been repitched recently, but because it was a lower quality road and very very hot, the tar was soft and sticky. I think, in fact, that the less than a mile that I was on this road did more damage to my back tire than the 1800 miles I had covered since the last time I replaced them. Looking at the tire the next morning, I found a couple cracks.

Unrefreshed by the cool river, I got back up to the highway. A couple curves down the road later I reached mile 4000 for the tour. It's hard to think that I had covered so many miles and had just over 500 left between me and home. If I had gone east from Lisbon, Portugal, I could be in central Afghanistan by now. Add in the miles left to New York, I could get to Kathmandu or Lhasa. That seems like a very long way to me.

The next town down the road was Tionesta, where the Tionesta River flows into the Allegheny. I crossed the bridge and found the office for the Allegheny National Forest. Sadly, the office closed at 5 and it was about 5:30. There was a map posted outside (and dated 1978) of the forest and its campgrounds. There was a place to camp right off of Tionesta Lake, just outside town, but the next place to legally camp was 30 miles down the road. Given the heat of the day and the strain of the hills, I decided not to push it, to just camp here.

Leaving town, I rode along the Tionesta River for a mile before coming to the campground. It was split into to sections on either side of the river, the south side was more appropriate for campers and cars, the north side better for touring cyclists with tents. I crossed a narrow bridge and established my tent site in the Outflow Recreation Area. I think Outflow is one of the more romantic park names I had camped in. I'm sure that it was busier a few days previously over the holiday weekend, but now there were only 4 of the 40 sites filled, so I got a site out of earshot of the families with kids at the river end of the grounds.

I was grateful that the campsite had a shower. I spent a good portion of the evening cleaning the bike. It's amazing how much gunk collects on the freewheel and gears. After dinner, I sat and read until the the light started to fade and the fireflies came out.

Day 68, Mercer, PA - Tionesta, PA
57.15 miles in 4:55:36. Now 4008.25 miles in 303:25:45 hours and a high speed of 45 mph.