I’m not generally a charity bike ride guy. I don’t like hitting up friends for money to fund what’s basically my vacation, to support a cause that may not be at the top of my own giving priorities. I have made an exception in the past for Climate Ride, mostly because they allow participants to select their own beneficiaries. For their Green Fondo events, 100% of funds raised go to orgs selected by participants; I’ve fundraised for The Original Scraper Bike Team, Rich City Rides, and the Climate Equity Policy Center, which are all local organizations I personally support. I appreciate how Caeli Quinn, Climate Ride’s founder, de-centers the interests of her own organization. (She’s also fun to ride with).
Climate Ride funds the Green Fondo events with more traditional inn-to-inn group tours; these have higher fundraising goals, and only a portion of the funds go to participant-selected groups. Not exactly my thing. But when they announced that they were adding a GAP/C&O Canal ride, I had a talk with Nancy about her long-standing desire to visit Washington DC with me. Nancy did her master’s degree at American University, and she’s always wanted to share some of her favorite spots in the district.
So, we signed up for the event, did our fundraising (Nancy, of course, being the top fundraiser on the trip), and headed to Pittsburgh for a few days of fun and prep. We were joined by our friend Beverly, who had originally started training with us for a different fundraising ride, but switched to Climate Ride because she was having so much fun riding with us. The more the merrier!
GAP/C&O has become one of the premiere bike touring destinations in America; the GAP estimates over 1M annual visitors, and over 100K through riders, while the C&O Canal Towpath estimates 5M annual visitors, putting it in the top 10 among national parks. A bunch of friends have done or are planning to do it, and it’s easy to see why; it’s 95% off road, 90% on gravel, all rail-trail or canal path, so it’s pretty much all low-stress and easy riding.
Climate Ride’s plan had us doing the 340 miles in 5 days, which is more daily mileage than I’d usually plan, but it is pretty easy to make time when there are no intersections. We’d do two days of very gradual climbing up a rail grade to the eastern continental divide, then three days of very gradual descending on the tow path into Georgetown. Totally Doable!