Spring ride

Looking for suggestions for a ride late April on the passage. Looked at the possibility of taking the train from Cumberland to Connellsville and riding back with a stop in Rockwood. Also would be interested in any feed back on out and back rides totaling about 50 miles.
Thanks for your response,
David Beier

The itinerary you described is a nice, doable trip and leaves time each day for sidebar adventures if you choose. Note, the train arrives in Connellsville around 10:00 pm. If you want a challenge, you can ride up the hill from Cumberland to the Eastern Continental Divide. That’s about 23 miles and the return trip back down the hill to Cumberland is quite easy. You could make your way up to Frostburg for a snack or bite to eat. Note, it is fairly steep up to Frostburg. Meyersdale to Confluence and back is around 50 miles round trip with nice small towns on either end and passes through Rockwood and the Pinkerton Tunnel. Just my thoughts.

Bike riders travel on their stomachs, so you might plan around places to eat. These are just places we ate that I'd recommend for hungry riders. There are lots of other choices, but we enjoyed these. Plan accordingly. :)

Crabby Pig in Cumberland. Not amazing, but nice patio, and you can park your bikes where you can see them.

Cafe Mark in Cumberland for breakfast. Nice heavy breakfast before that ride up to the Continental Divide.

Toasted Goat in Frostburg. Good food, good service, awesome old hotel you can poke around in. Worth the climb up from the trail.

Frostburg to Meyersdale would be a sweet little ride, with the divide and bridges and tunnels and windwills.

Fran's Bar in Meyersdale. Such a dive. Have a beer and a burger with friendly locals.

Mill Shops in Rockwood. Cool old building and history. Inexpensive and delicious pizzas and ice cream.

Mitch's Food & Fuel in Confluence. So good. Nice bike parking.

Kickstand Kitchen in Connellsville. Good bike parking, sweet owner, really good food.

We spent the night in Buena Vista, and dinner at the country club was really good and also inexpensive. It's a pretty tough ride from the trail, so you'd only eat there if you were wrapping up the day there, not jumping off the trail for lunch.

Gary's Chuckwagon and the bakery next door in West Newton. Just what you'd expect. Perfect rider food.

Yough Twister in Sutersville for ice cream. They had a long menu, but we only had ice cream.

I know PGH locals can get it all the time, but Primanti's in Homestead had easy trail access and good bike parking. I had the biggest most amazing steak sandwich ever there.

Over the Bar Bicycle Cafe in Pittsburg had hearty food and a bike rack.

Like I said, plenty of other choices. Those are just the one I can personally vouch for. As always, check with them ahead of time to see if they will be open on the day you are there.

Wow Bill. You've hit a lot of the haute cuisine locations along the trail. You've also identified a few that I've not wandered into over the years.

I'd add Morguen Tool for dinner and the GI Dayroom Coffee Shop for breakfast in Meyersdale. I'd add Lenora's in Perryopolis for dinner albeit you may need a reservation and a clean set of casual clothes.

Duke's Upper Deck Cafe in Homestead has the old steel mill feel about it from the yesteryear when the largest steel mill in the US was in Homestead. The Trailside Inn in West Newton is another decent option there.

Just note you'll have to ride a lot of hard miles to burn off all those calories consumed along the way not to mention ignoring your cholestorol count for awhile. :-)

Oh, yes, I only eat the finest food in the classiest places. Ha!

I have heard good things about both of those places in Meyersdale. We decided to hit the dive closest to the trail. :) It was sprinkling rain and we weren't in the mood for exploration.

For Lenora's, I think she publishes the dress code on her site. We weren't compliant, so we went to Randall's, another example of haute cuisine. Lenora's is a steep climb from the trail and I think she only does dinner.

When you're riding the trail, you gotta stay well fed so your body can recover! We will lose any weight gained when we get back to regular life!

In Meyersdale, I stayed at the Maple Festival Park Campground to shower up.
Right across the street is Donges Drive-In which is a diner. Pretty good food and super cheap prices, breakfast, lunch, or dinner and they have ice cream.

Because other cyclists were at the campground, I just left my bike there in the band shell (where I ended up putting my tent) and just walked over but I could have locked up if I wanted. It’s nice not to have to walk far after the grind up the continental divide! : )

Bill, a couple places we like are the Trailside which is expectedly just beside the trail in West Newton above maybe the best bike shop around.

Also just behind the Yough Twister is a nice place called Driscolls owned by the same people. While the GAP trail from Boston goes away from places, you can cross the bridge and take a parallel trail on the other side of the river. We like a place called Puzzlers which is about 2 miles from the bridge. They have a bike rack right off the trail, and a huge outside dining area. My wife loves their chicken salad made Pittsburgh style with french fries and cheese. The trail then connects back to the GAP at the 15th St. bridge in McKeesport.

There's a place very close to where we live called Muddy Waters. We don't go there much because it's too close by, but the food is pretty good and it's just a short distance off the trail.