My plan is to take a series of mostly unpaved trails about 250-300 miles into southwestern Pennsylvania. Next I'll follow Pennsylvania Bike Route S which connects with US 40 into West Virginia and eastern Ohio. I'll take roads parallel to US 40 into central Ohio. I then will turn northwest for North Judson, IN which is roughly midway between Lafayette and Michigan City.

Starting from home I'll take the Mount Vernon Trail into DC where I will pick up the Capital Crescent Trail (CCT). If it is not raining, I will switch to the C&O Canal towpath and take it west until I reach the Western Maryland Rail Trail (WMRT) at Fort Frederick State Park. The WMRT is new and paved so I'll take that to Hancock MD and switch back to the towpath to Cumberland MD. At Cumberland I'll go over the road to Frostburg MD. If it is not raining, I'll continue on the roads until Salisbury PA where I will pick up a series of unpaved rail trails called the Great Allegheny Passage or GAP. The GAP will take me all the way to West Newton PA when I turn west on the roads following Bike Route "S" and head over the road to points west.

If it rains I have some interesting choices. The C&O towpath can become a quagmire in sections. As an alternative, I can take the CCT to Bethesda MD. I can then go west on the roads trading increasingly steep hills for the mud of the towpath. When I get to Frostburg, I can continue on US 40 which is a designated scenic route all the way to Washington PA, bypassing the wet limestone grit of the GAP. The scenery does not come without a price however. The hills of Western Maryland and Southwestern Pennsylvania are lung and knee busters. Once I reach Washington PA, I'll pick up Bike Route S.

There are not a whole lot of alternatives to the eastern half of my route that do not involve either big hills, bad roads or both. I do expect that at some point I'll take a road that differs from my plan. For example, I'd like to avoid as much of US 40 in Ohio as possible and that seems pretty easy to do. I'm also considering a slightly more northerly route through western Ohio, so that I can check out Monroeville IN, a town that is extraordinarily welcoming to bike tourists.