I spent a great deal of time planning for my trip, much of it on the internet. I tried to added some of web addresses in the body of my journal. Here are the web addresses of some that I found most useful.

Maps

State highway administrations are getting better at helping us out. Maryland has a road map with highway routes identified by their bicycling utility. See www.sha.state.md.us.

Pennsylvania has signed bike routes. See www.bikepa.com/routes/index.htm.

For Ohio, I relied on the maps from Columbus Outdoor Pursuits. See http://outdoor-pursuits.org.

And for those big cross country trips, and loads of other touring information and stuff, you can't beat the Adventure Cycling Association at http://adventurecycling.org.

Bikes

Two brands of bikes with very devoted followings are Easy Racers recumbents and Bike Fridays. See www.easyracers.com and www.bikefriday.com. The Easyracers club is also a helpful resource (www.geocities.com/e_r_r_c).

Rail Trail Information

The Great Allegheny Passage and Allegheny Trail Alliance have websites for the Appalachian Highland Trail, The Yough River Rail Trails and The C&O Canal Towpath. They can be found at http://gaptrail.org and www.atatrail.org/ata-home.html. The mother lode of information regarding trails leading into DC is www.bikewashington.org.

DC Area Bike Shops

There are beaucoup DC area bike shops. The ones mentioned in my journal are:

Spokes Etc., my local bike store, located about 1/2 mile off the Mount Vernon Trail just south of Alexandria, VA. Despite being inundated by flood waters from hurricane Isabel, they remain good-humored, understanding folk, who try mighty hard to help cranky bike commuters and tourists. See www.spokesetc.com.

CityBikes is located on the Capital Crescent Trail in Chevy Chase, MD and in the Adams Morgan section of DC. They have a mechanic named Paul who consistently solves bicycle problems that stump just about everyone else in town. If he can't fix it, it's really broke. (See www.citybikes.com.)

BikesatVienna is located right off the W&OD Trail about 14 miles west of DC. They sell and repair regular bikes, but they specialize in the unusual, recumbents, tandems and folders. See www.bikesatvienna.com.

And if you happen to be a little further north of the Potomac River, Mt Airy Bicycles and its sister store in College Park, cleverly named College Park Bicycles, are two more helpful establishments. In addition to "regular" bikes, they also sell recumbents, folders and tandems. The owner can occasionally be seen riding his penny farthing at local events, and the manager of the College Park store has extensive touring experience.

Camping Stuff I bought my camping gear at REI. They have a big store in Falls Church, Virginia and a smaller one in College Park, MD. See www.rei.com.

This is only a partial list. I benefited greatly from reading tour journals, many of them on crazyguyonabike.com, and browsing bicycling forums. Beware, these things are habit forming.