A successful bike tour is a series of rides interrupted by decision making. Most of my decisions worked out well. I learned there is often no way to tell if the road ahead offers a better option, or no option at all. The best you can do is to ask bicyclists and local people for information.

The best decision I made was to turn down the ride from Hites Bicycle shop in Cumberland, Maryland. Had I accepted it, I would have found myself on a rail trail in the middle of nowhere, possibly without food, with a busted rear wheel. My trip would have been over. Instead, I rode uphill to Frostburg on a bad wheel, an arduous ten miles indeed. I ended up, through pure dumb luck, at Adventure Sports' doorstep where Shane and Hunter saved the trip.

I am also glad I decided to take the roads from Frostburg to Meyersdale, PA rather than a still incomplete section of the GAP trail. There were a couple of challenging climbs out of Frostburg but the ensuing descents were breathtaking and the country roads along the ridge near Big Savage Mountain made for some of the best riding of my life.

The GAP trail is wonderful. Ohiopyle State Park, viaducts over rivers and valleys, turkeys and deer, and the Garrett wind farm all make the GAP trail the best rail trail I've ridden. I thought the C&O towpath was a disappointment however. It is in rough shape for long stretches and rather monotonous. The on-road detour was actually better riding than the towpath, as was the Western Maryland Rail Trail. The Paw Paw tunnel was fun though. I'd never do the towpath again without a trailer. I do not have a solution for the grit on the GAP trail, other than to use a different bike. The rear brake on my Tour Easy is just too close to the ground.

I was surprised to learn that a garbage bag made a better rain coat than anything I'd have bought in a store. My torso stayed warm and dry while my arms, which stuck out of the sides of the bag, stayed cool.

I used a cell phone for the first time and would never tour without one again. The same goes for the Topeak Road Morph pump.

My Pocketmail device worked well until the end of the trip. I had to call customer service once and they were very helpful. I could have done my journal on the fly with my Blackberry, but it would have been so frustrating that I doubt I would have kept at it.

The fear of hurricane Katrina's remnants kept me from camping out once. I saw what Agnes did in upstate New York in the 1970s and the memory of it told me not to mess with Katrina. I avoided much of her nasty remnants and had a pleasant time in Monroeville, IN to boot.