Linking Up: Planning Your Traffic-Free Bike Trip Between Pittsburgh PA and Washington DC

by Mary Shaw, Roy Weil

The trails of the Allegheny Trail Alliance connect with the C&O Canal Towpath at Cumberland, creating a traffic-free route between Pittsburgh and Washington DC. The distance of 335 continuous miles on the ground make an outstanding bike trip. To help you plan this trip -- or a shorter trip along this route -- this book has brought together most of the information that you will need to plan your trip. This Fourth Edition (Apr 2012) is 48 pages and includes all of the information in the previous editions and more. The table of B&B, motels, campgrounds, restaurants,grocery stores, bike shops, and outfitters has been updated. Several shorter itineraries have been added. The book starts with the four BIG Luxury, Support, Distance, Direction. Followed by The Planning Checklist, Trail Surface and Terrain, Logistics, Preparation, Sample Itineraries, and more.

48 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2012

About the author

Mary Shaw and Roy Weil have canoed, biked, hiked, and XC-skied Western Pennsylvania for over 30 years. Many people have introduced them to trails, and they return the favor by writing guide books. They wrote Linking Up to encourage people to make extended trips on the trail between Pittsburgh and Washington.
They also wrote FreeWheeling Easy in Western Pennsylvania. This guidebook covers the easy traffic-free bicycling and walking trails in and around Pennsylvania west of US219. All of the trails in this 244 page guidebook are free of automobile traffic. Most are on wide smooth gentle paths, rather than rough, steep, undeveloped trails. There are trails for short family outings and trails for multi-day touring.

They also edited the definitive Canoeing Guide to Western Pennsylvania. The guides covers the canoeable waters that run westward out of Pennsylvania via the Ohio River. It includes some streams from neighboring areas, as well, The guide is the result of volunteer effort over the past 30 years by many, many canoeists, working through the Pittsburgh Council, American YouthHostels . It is currently in its eighth edition, covering about 3000 miles of rivers in 470 pages.