dwmckee

The rain has not slowed them down much aparrently. They are about 250 miles in so far and are cookin' with gas! Made it through Ludlow, Kane, Wilcox, Emporium, Austin and may make Coudersport today. Not sure when they will stop. Less than 600 miles to go!

unterhausen

It's great they got 250 miles in, that's a lot on gravel.

No, it's a really big storm. Right now, remnants of it stretch from South Carolina to Maine. The storm track didn't go through Pennsylvania at all, but we got 5" of rain in some parts of our county. Which isn't quite as far north as this route.
Actually it looks like the storm track is headed north of where it was forecast, and is about to enter Pennsylvania pretty far east of here. But that's kind of academic when it covers such a large area.

dwmckee

Well, th

ey have made it across the state and will be on the way back to Meadville starting Saturday AM.

mstateglfr 

Is routing it from border to border not possible? Maybe I missed the reasoning for not riding the last 40ish mi to the border.

Not criticizing the route, to be clear. Ragbrai in Iowa almost never actually starts on the Missouri river, even though the ride is across the state. Just curious on the routing.

dwmckee

We considered it but those end extensions just added miles and not improve the experiene much. I wanted each end to be near a very accessible place for practicality (I79 and I81), and extention to the borders would have been mostly pavement not gravel.

Colorado Kid

When are planning to release detailed maps? Will you or Adventure Cycling sell them? Can't wait to ride it!!

dwmckee

They are already tested and available on ridewithgps.com, and we are maintaining them to keep them current as we get feedback from riders. John and Will have already send back some info on a closed road and one that has grown up to single track which we will be updating in the route info. Once we have the updates added we will post updated routes and the new links here as well..

We are interested to see how you will compare a Colorado route to a Pennsylvania route! This one is tough to do more than 120 miles in a day, though it is all public roads. PA is typically 100 feet of vertical climbing per mile of route, and we have a lot of steep grades.

dwmckee

Just a heads up that Will and John made it across the state and back to complete the route on schedule in 8 days. They have provided some route update suggestions that we will incorporate and they are planning to write a full trip report. We will post updated links to both soon. Here is their Spot Tracker trace if you are interested (their battery died so the last 50 miles or so are not recorded unfortunately. As FYI, the route will be available to all, and because the north and south routes are so close together it makes it easy to create shorter routes by cutting across from one route to the other to make basically any distance you have time to cover. For example, if you wanted a 400 mile route you could start in Emporium, ride east ~80 miles, cross over to the northern route, ride west ~180 miles, cross back to the south route and ride back to Emporium for a loop that is about 400 miles long. Overall, the route is about 75 - 80% gravel roads.

stevel610 

This is a fantastic project. May have some time in the Fall and will look at the route more closely. Thanks for your hard work!

force10

I'm interested in studying the route also. Many thanks from me as well.

At the risk of seeming dense though, how/where can I find the route on RWGPS?

dwmckee

Sorry folks, I have a couple of other priorities that have slowed me down on making a few adjustments to the final route. When I get that done I will post info and new links here. Fall should be some great riding on this!

force10

Please, no need for apology.

I was just afraid I was missing the information somehow.

dwmckee

And I have a question. We likely are going to have the two riders come in to our shop around the end of the year and do a talk about their experience on the route, show pictures, etc.. We have also done a few of these talks on ZOOM when we have interest from folks that are not in our local area. Can you post a note if you might be interested in attending a ZOOM call to hear from Will and John about their 8-day bike packing experience on the route? If we have enough interest we can set up the presentation for ZOOM attendees as well.

stevel610 

I'd be interested. Where is your shop (and name).

colleran

Awesome Thread!! 38k feet of climbing and the whole route sounds amazing.

dwmckee

The whole loop is over 80,000 feet of climbing, according to the tracker, but RWGPS says about 75,000.

dwmckee

We are west of you near Pittsburgh. We specialize in gravel and in a normal year have about 20 or so different models of gravel bike from 9 brands in the shop to try out (Open, Cinelli, Jamis, Giant, 3T, Bombtrack, Salsa, Liv, Wilier, and soon Rodeo labs). For several brands we only carry their gravel models. We also run several gravel races every year. I will PM you our shop name.

dwmckee

On Saturday, January 15th there will be a presentation on the route (now called Penn's Woods Passage) at 1:00 PM EST at SweetWater Bicycles, 518 Merchant Street, Ambridge PA. Food and refreshments will be served to compliment an overview of the updated route, and Will and John will present on their experience riding across the state and back in 8 days. If you want to attend, please go to Facebook and RSVP at the link below. The event also may be livestreamed, so check back here for details if you are interested. https://fb.me/e/41GCNBRlU

force10

Just checking in to see if either the route, the presentation, or both are available somewhere to check out.

Its February and I want to look at something other than a zwift screen!