Meyersdale-Cumberland Bike Detour Report

Report of round trip bike ride from Meyersdale PA to
Cumberland MD to investigate the on-road no-trail detours
Summary: Horace Greely was wrong
when he said, "Go West, Young Man"

As we prepared for a bike trip from Pittsburgh to DC, and tried to decide whether to make the trip eastbound or westbound, we focused on the one segment of the trip we had no experience with- the section between Meyersdale, PA and Cumberland, MD.

We plotted the altitudes for the on-road detour from the info available at: http://spoke.compose.cs.cmu.edu/fwe/trips/cue.htm --

This suggested to us that the slope of the eastbound climb was preferable to the slope of the westbound climb, but we decided that it might be prudent to go see the route ourselves before embarking on our big ride.

Primary Resources for our planning consisted of the Detour Cue Sheets available at: http://www.atatrail.org/linkup/detour.htm. The detours listed are excellent, accurate, and fairly easy to follow. We'd printed up detailed maps elsewhere to follow the detour description and found that we didn't need them; the detour description was quite sufficient to navigate successfully. We did print out the "topo" charts for the ride area from http://www.titchenal.com/trails/ata/ which were way cool and gave us a sense of the gradients, but it turned out they weren't essential to the trip- the detour cue sheets above were sufficient. But you can choose the chart you want, change the print size to 8.5x11, and they were great to have available.

Meyersdale We drove to Meyersdale, bought cold drinks at the Sheetz, and parked at the new/old train station which is on the trail at the top of Main Street. The excellent ATA Trail website contained a message two days earlier warning that the trail was closed from the Salisbury Viaduct through to Frostburg. When we arrived in town and were unpacking our bikes a local resident (wearing a Great Allegheny Passage t-shirt, no less) stopped by to make sure we knew about the trail status and that the Savage Tunnel was closed.

She answered our questions and gave us a few tips about the local area. Apparently you can use the Salisbury Viaduct to cross over, then you have to depart the trail and teardrop down to the road, and ride the road into Meyersdale. There were guard-rail barriers across the trail which is under construction and closed.

The lady was quite friendly, as was everybody we met and saw throughout the day's riding-- people waved and were friendly, it seems like they've heard about the trail and people on bikes and they were all quite nice. There's a Porta-John at the Meyersdale train station which was the last public facility until Frostburg. I started out carrying four filled water bottles.

Meyersdale-Cumberland (Descending Eastbound). We embarked following the cue sheets, down Main Street with a quick left on Cherry (which was unmarked). We road quickly out of town, passed under the Keystone viaduct, and followed the detour. At times you can see the old railroad path that's going to be developed as the trail, and it generally seems primitive and not something you'd want to be riding on in it's current state.

We were out in the country pretty fast and there were great views of the windmill arrays, great giant white things rotating powerfully in the wind. This must be a great place for windmills because all through our round-trip today it seemed like we had a headwind.

The on-road detour from Meyersdale to the Mason-Dixon line was as advertised; we were climbing but it wasn't difficult. There is traffic on the road, when we were riding two-abreast we had to hurry to get out of the way; single-file is probably wise. Remarkably all the dogs were tied up and we didn't have a single dog-bites-bike event all day which was great.

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From the Mason-Dixon line you climb some more to the top of the Alt-40 Ramp. Just before you get to Alt-40 there's a potential drink opportunity at the fire station on the right with a Coke machine out front. On Alt-40 the traffic is driving at highway speeds. First you'll climb to the top of Little Savage Mountain. You descend 100 feet, climb 150 feet, and you're on top of Big Savage Mountain. This is the Eastern Continental Divide, a scenic vista followed by a remarkable downhill.

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The downhill ride into Frostburg is rapid, dramatic, and awfully fast. I started braking at 36 mph, Mark hit his breaks at 45 mph. If you blew a tire or lost your brakes it could be fundamentally problematic. Frostburg seems like a nice town. As soon as you enter town there's a soft-serve ice cream stand on the left which is a drink opportunity. The detour says to go through town to Depot Street; if we'd stayed on the main drag another few blocks past Depot St. there was a convenience store that offered drinks and snacks. We rode Depot Street down to the train station; everything was closed but it looked pretty interesting. The train out of Frostburg goes to Cumberland, and there's some comments online about developing a trail to Cumberland alongside the active train line. There's a trail along the tracks but learned that this is not a trail that goes to Cumberland. We stuck with the detour cue sheets from Frostburg to Cumberland, following Route 36.

Frostburg-Cumberland along Route 36 was one of the nicest ride segments we've ever seen. The road was in great condition, there was almost always a generous shoulder, and the Frostburg-Cumberland segment is gradually downhill. Even if there was a trail between Frostburg and Cumberland, I think I'd prefer to take the road option because it's such a nice and fast ride. Caveat: you are riding alongside cars at highway speed. One of the things that confused me as we prepared for the trip is that you climb Little Mount Savage and then Big Mount Savage, and when you depart Frostburg on Route36 you'll see signs informing you of the distance to "Mount Savage". We learned that this refers to the town of Mount Savage and not to a third summit that you have to climb.

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You cross into Cumberland in a well-named area called "The Narrows" where there's no shoulder, no curb, and the lanes are not wide. We stayed right and mixed with the traffic and it worked well. It took us 3 hours 15 minutes to pedal from Meyersdale to Cumberland with brief water breaks and one rest stop at the Frostburg train station.

Cumberland We rode into Cumberland and found the train terminal. There's a real nice plaza. The train terminal was well restored. We left our bikes on the first floor (not great). On the second floor we found rest rooms, a deli, a gift shop, and a vistor's center with brochures and local info. The gift shop was more train-centric than bike-centric, which is probably fair in a restored train station. We made our "arrived alive" phone calls and had lunch while contemplating the uphill return trip. Hoping for serendipitious relief I asked when the next train left for Frostburg and the answer was "in two days"; no help there.

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Cumberland - Meyersdale (Climbing Westbound) We refilled our water bottles in the train station. As you depart Cumberland the cue sheets point out the location of a bike shop that's nice to know about. The climb from Cumberland to Frostburg was persistent but not too terrible through Slabtown. In the miles approaching Frostburg it became much steeper. I needed every one of those four bottles to get to Frostburg, and they were all dry when I got there. We rode through Frostburg and stopped at the ice cream stand on the west side of town, where they were very nice about filling them with ice& water as I bought myself a Diet Coke.

Climbing the Big Savage Mountain (ie, Eastern Continental Divide) riding westbound is an enormous major challenge and I realised I wasn't going to get my Clydesdale butt and bike up the hill, so I flagged a pickup truck and begged a lift to the top. Mark actually rode up the mountain, which astounded me.

I don't think a weekend rider should plan to ascend Big Savage Mountain westbound, even on a road bike, let alone a mountain bike with panniers and kit. If you're going to do this westbound and you're not an athletic cyclist, you want to use a shuttle service. (Here's a new parameter-- if your body fat index exceeds the number of teeth in your small chainring, use the shuttle.)

Mason-Dixon Line to Meyersdale reverted to a normal ride. From the top of Little Mount Savage the ride across the Mason-Dixon line into Meyersdale is fairly straightforward. As you approach Meyersdale you'll see the windmills, they're so big you'll see them for miles.

If you were travelling westbound you'd pick up the trail uphill at the train station (if the trail were open) or (currently) you'd go through town on the roads and intercept the trail at the Salisbury Viaduct.

Lessons Learned

• It's 33.4 miles from Meyersdale to Cumberland. Riding eastbound it took 2.5 hours, including a 15 minute break in Frostburg. Riding westbound took about 4 hours.
• If you're choosing whether to ride Meyersdale-Cumberland (descending eastbound) or Cumberland-Meyersdale (climbing westbound), it's a fun ride eastbound.
• I'd use a shuttle service westbound from Frostburg to Little Mount Savage, and possibly Cumberland-Little Mount Savage.
• The detour cue sheets available online are excellent.
• You are riding on country roads and on some roads where the cars are at highway speeds.
• Water and restroom opportunities are limited along this ride.
• The detours are generally not under shade and you'll catch some rays; SPF recommended.
• The locals are very friendly.
• We found pretty good cellphone coverage along this segment.
• Route 36 from Frostburg to Cumberland (eastbound) is a wonderful ride.
• This is our only suggestion: There are no markings identifying the bike detours on the road surface; it would be perfect if there were some markings painted along the route, using signs similar tthe Western Pa Wheelmen markers.

MORE Lessons Learned Three weeks later we rode McKeesport-Georgetown, spending our first night in Meyersdale. Here's what else we learned:

• We'd had a suggestion to deviate from the detour and take Rt.160 to 36 since it's 8 miles shorter. This was a big mistake involving major hill climbing we would have avoided on the detour. Stick to the published route.
• The Sheetz about 4 miles north of the Narrows is a great drinks stop.
• When we got to Cumberland we found there are 2 visitor centers in the train station; the one downstairs is run by the National Park Service and had up to date info on trail conditions.
• As we departed the Cumberland station we saw a new row of boutique shops on the east (C&O) side of the terminal including a Trek dealer and: A Coffee Shop!

Click here for a report of our bike trip from Pittsburgh to DC.