The Great Ride

by the Katherine Mabis McKenna Foundation and UPMC with additional funding from these supporters.

(gentle music) Thank you.

(peaceful music) - [Narrator] History has its footsteps on this land, from Native Americans to an emerging nation and then progress carved a canal through the landscape, bringing commerce and building towns.

Soon the railroads would come through to push time forward.

(train whistle blowing) (gentle guitar music) And now, different wheels travel the path on two trails, the C&O Canal Towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage between Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh.

- It's gonna be absolutely beautiful and breathtaking.

- You're riding through a tunnel of green.

- I get to reconnect with Mother Earth.

- You meet people from all over the world.

- For me, it's about the bike, and I just enjoy the views.

- You may see osprey.

This is a gateway through the mountains.

And wonderful rapids.

And just upstream is Antietam battlefield.

- I like to be taken back into time.

- [Narrator] Journey through history 335 miles.

(gentle music) - I'm a city boy myself.

Being able to remove myself and get out into the woods, I think it's pretty cool.

- This is so beautiful.

- [Narrator] Along rivers, through forests and small towns, (train whistle blowing) hear the echoes of the region's industrial glory.

- A little piece of heaven on earth.

- [Narrator] All of it cradled by vistas that surround you on one great ride.

(grand music) - This is the perfect place to start.

Take in the memories, take in the beauty of these monuments and this landscape with me.

I get to take that back home.

My name's Nathan Babyak.

I am a United States Marine Corps veteran.

- [Woman] And my name is Sarah Babyak.

I'm a United States Air Force veteran.

There's nothing better than having just my husband next to me riding and being able to talk about our day and our life.

- [Nathan] Here we are at mile zero, gettin' ready to head out.

We're lookin' forward to gettin' it started.

Beautiful, the sun's out, the bird's are chirpin', ready to hit the trail.

- [Sarah] When we get on the trail, it's our chance to be together for a couple hours, to just enjoy each other, to reconnect.

(gentle music) Really kinda neat to see all this.

Being on the trail, the trees are tall.

It makes you feel very small, especially when you get deep into the trail.

- [Nathan] We're riding on the C&O Canal Towpath.

When the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal came through here, the mules and the horses walked this path as they pulled the canal boats.

Now it's the bike trail.

- What I think of her, she's really sweet.

Hi, baby doll.

She's one of the easiest-going mules I've ever met.

(lively music) The job of the mules was to keep pulling those boats from Cumberland to Georgetown and back again.

You made your money hauling coal.

- Most of the people who worked on the canal, they were called canalers.

The captain would own the boat, he'd bring along his wife, and they'd have a few children to help them run the operations.

The main job for the children was walking with the mules.

Not too many people know about the canal era in this country because once the trains came along, the canal building era stopped.

(train whistle blowing) - Riding along that canal and you look at what once was, it's eerie.

It's almost eerie.

It's a ghost.

I'm able to kinda put together my own stories, picture people workin' the canal, having the mule pull the boats out of dock.

I think it's pretty cool.

- It's Great Falls on the Potomac River.

This is the simple answer for why they didn't simply use the Potomac River for transportation and why they dug a canal instead.

You can't take your bikes out here, but you can park 'em at the bike rack, and from the towpath, it's a five, 10 minute walk out here.

- [Sarah] The water's crashing.

The noise is so beautiful.

It was very romantic with the love of my life after a long, hot ride.

- [Nathan] Even though the path takes you off the trail pretty far, it's completely worth it.

When you get out there, it's breathtaking, to say the least.

(gentle music) - [Carl] The lock houses were for the lock keepers.

And each lock had a lock keeper.

You got a very small house to live in free of charge, free of rent.

You had a little plot of land to farm.

You could raise some vegetables.

You might even have some chickens.

- [Sarah] I've been all over the world.

I've traveled and seen some of the most amazing places and sites that you can see, but this trail offers so much more than that.

- [Nathan] You never know what you're going to see or who you're gonna meet around the next bend.

- [Musician] My songwriting and singing name is Lunchmeat Larry.

(country music) - [Sarah] As a veteran transitioning back to civilian life, I have found this helpful because it is 100% the best way for me to relieve stress.

(gentle music) - [Nathan] You can't eliminate all your problems in your life, but you can really do your best to take 'em in stride, embrace them.

Being out here and just riding a bike really helps me do that.

A lot of veterans during their transition from military back to civilian life tend to venture down paths that aren't necessarily healthy.

We're able to go out there and do something healthy together, and it really gives us better attitudes.

- [Sarah] We've ridden more than 60 miles, and I am feeling exhausted but also rejuvenated in a sense.

It brings life back to you.

(peaceful music) - I live on Camp Hill, which is the upper town of Harpers Ferry.

To get to the C&O, have a big coast down Washington Street, which turns into High Street.

The reason I love Harpers Ferry is it's full of history, it's full of beautiful scenery, good bicycling, good hiking, all the things I love to do.

(soft piano music) My name is Chris Craig.

I played piano from the time I was a very small child.

I became a certified park guide for Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

I enjoy the history through this stretch.

John Brown in 1859 came here with the goal of starting a slave insurrection that would spread throughout the South.

And, of course, that would lead to freedom for the slaves.

Thomas Jefferson visited here 1783.

He commented about one of the great views in the region.

It's a great trail town.

The Appalachian Trail is a hiking trail nearly 2,200 miles long.

It goes from Georgia to Maine.

(cheerful music) Just like the C&O, it comes right through Harpers Ferry.

- I started in Mount Katahdin in Maine at the end of May.

- My name is Gonzo.

One of the traditions of the Appalachian Trail is that you take a trail name.

- My trail name is G-Man, and my real name is Mitch.

- From Mount Katahdin to here is 1,166.1 miles.

Ask me how I know.

- [Interviewer] How do you know?

- 'Cause I walked them!

- People coming off the Appalachian Trail can transition onto the C&O Towpath right here in Harpers Ferry.

In fact, the two are one and the same for the three-mile stretch downstream from Harpers Ferry.

To get to the towpath from Harpers Ferry, it has a few challenges.

There's a walkway across the old railway bridge.

You walk your bike across the bridge, and then you have to carry it down a circular iron staircase, and that's the big challenge.

(gentle music) The C&O is a slow ride.

There are long stretches where you're in largely forest, little glimpses of the river off and on.

Most of the canal is overgrown today, a lot of marshy areas, a lot of places there's no water at all, just trees and brush.

A lotta times in the marshy areas you'll see big old snapping turtles enjoying the sun and the insects.

You'll see herons and other water birds, just a real sight to see.

Along the C&O there are two things that unite the history of the river and the towns along the river.

One is the Civil War but the other is George Washington.

George Washington was just all over the place.

(peaceful music) In historical times, it was tribes like the Delaware, the Shawnee, Iroquoian tribes like the Tuscarora, who settled around the Potomac.

It was an important place.

You go within three miles of a national battlefield that commemorates the Battle of Antietam.

It's the site of the bloodiest day in American history, September 17, 1862.

There were 23,000 casualties in that one day.

So many lives were lost and so much sacrifice.

An aqueduct is a place where the canal would cross a river.

(gentle music) They would have to build these actual stone structures to carry the water as well as the mules or horses with their barges.

- Fantastic, absolutely brilliant, yeah.

That's why we like doing things like this because you can see so much.

If you just hired a car for two weeks, you wouldn't get to see as much of the real America.

- [Man] Bye.

- Bye.

- [Chris] The arrival of the canal was an exciting time.

It made a boon in the coal that was opening up in those early days.

I think it was a time of enterprise, and it formed quite a community, I think.

I actually arrived on bicycle more quickly than the canal barges would have.

70 miles, time to call it a day.

See ya in the morning.

(peaceful music) Hancock, Maryland, is one of the earliest settlements of Western Maryland, and it became pretty important early on.

It's a transportation hub.

It's a great town that's preserved a lot of that history and has some good food and good services for bicyclists on the canal today.

- Here we are on day three here in Paw Paw.

Yesterday, it rained quite a bit in this area.

The Maryland part of the trail is basically - Mud.

- mud, when it rains.

(upbeat music) - The Paw Paw Tunnel through the mountain carries the canal, just like you've been seeing it out in the open.

The amazing thing is that this tunnel, which is today a little over 3,100 feet, was all blasted with black powder and dug out by hand.

Many of those workers are lost to history.

Paw paw is a native fruit.

To me, they taste a little bit like banana custard.

I understand some bicyclists decide to ride through the tunnel.

That's not my ambition.

It's kinda tight quarters when you have two-way traffic here.

Hi there.

There are five million bricks in here.

It's pretty impressive to think they were all laid by hand.

That light is deceptive.

It looks like you ought to be arriving at it much more quickly than you are.

(church bell tolling) Cumberland is kind of a unique experience on the canal after you leave Washington.

It's really the only canal town that you could really call a city.

It became a pretty major industrial center.

It's a town that has a real vital downtown and a very supportive community.

They've done some wonderful things.

It's a great town to visit.

(gentle music) Cumberland is a significant midpoint.

For many, it can also be a beginning point or an endpoint if you're only doing the C&O Canal or only doing the Gap stretch.

I'm so glad that it's still possible to travel at this slow pace and to be able now to ride out my front door, get on the canal and end up here in Cumberland.

It's a real special experience.

(train whistle blowing) (upbeat music) - [Man] You gettin' a bike?

- Yes, sir.

All right.

Oh, get it to you now.

- [Cyclist] Just hand 'em down.

I'll grab 'em.

- Nothin' like gettin' ready for a good trip.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We gonna hit it.

We gonna do, make it do what we do.

We gonna have some fun, and we will check with you later.

Peace.

- I met these three women through our group, Black Girls Do Bike.

- We typically don't see our faces out here.

There are a lot of African American women, as long as we're, we're an all-inclusive group, and we like to cycle.

- She said that one of her goals was to ride the Gap Trail.

And we all said we wanna do it.

(women cheering) - Come on, come on, come on.

- [Woman] Slide over to the middle.

I'll take the outside.

- Did a lot of training for this ride and just practiced riding with our gear.

- [Cyclist] I think I could really do this.

(gentle music) - This is so beautiful.

We come from nature, and we're just reconnecting back to what's there for us.

- We can tell the story of the 50-mile ride we did.

I mean, we lost Diana because she kept looking at birds.

- Yeah.

It gets tough sometimes.

- [Deltrece] All right, come on, ladies.

Let's keep goin', let's keep goin', let's keep goin'.

We are here.

- [Woman] It is hot today, a little humid.

- [Nancy] Right here, 54.

That's where we are.

- Right now, we're just takin' a rest, getting in some protein, some fatty nuts, anything that our body needs, ice water.

- Refueling all the way.

(train whistle blowing) (gentle music) - [Cyclist] We're doin' good, ladies, making great timing.

- [Nancy] I love seeing wind turbines.

- [Bicyclist] Yeah, definitely in the middle of nowhere.

I have no idea where we are.

- [Sabrina] These girls mean a lot to me 'cause they push me, so I appreciate them.

- [Diana] I like history, and I like to be taken back into time and my imagination goes.

This feels good.

Y'all, we made it!

The Mason-Dixon Line.

I'm in Maryland.

Half in Pennsylvania, half in Maryland, so cool.

Oho.

(cheerful music) - Cramping, I'm cramping and yet making my achievements.

These cramps are driving me nuts, but I'm makin' it.

I'm making this accomplishment.

This is absolutely beautiful, breathtaking.

- Not just beautiful, serene.

- [Sabrina] It's like you could see for miles.

A little piece of heaven on earth.

- Um hmm.

- Yeah.

- [Woman] So it's a real true camaraderie.

It really is.

It's a sisterhood.

- [Deltrece] It's an amazement that we actually started down there and came from there.

(peaceful music) - This is fun.

- It is.

- It says Big Savage.

- Oh my goodness.

- Right there.

- That is cool.

(light music) - [Sabrina] That means everything'll be all right.

- [Nancy] Okay.

Everything is gonna be all right Comin' back.

(women laugh) - [Cyclist] There was plenty of times where I was like, I don't know if I can do it.

Maybe I should cancel.

And to actually be here from having it in our head, out our head, it's amazing.

- [Nancy] People say I whine a lot, but I don't want to do that.

- [**] Oh, crap, I'm so tired.

- I didn't know that the bags were gonna be so heavy.

And bugs, bugs, yeah.

Snakes.

- Snakes.

(women laugh) - Snakes.

- You don't have to be young to do this.

As a matter of fact, I see a lot of older people who beat us.

And we're like, whoa.

I'm deathly scared of heights, so I've actually looked at how high the bridges are because I'm afraid of bridges.

(gentle music) Ahh!

Ahh!

(women laughing) - [Man] Morning.

- I haven't slept in like two days, so I'm gonna be ready to pitch my tent.

- We're here.

(woman laughs) - Congratulations.

(people cheering) - Congratulations.

Where are you from?

- Cleveland.

- This trip has been definitely an adventure.

Favorite part?

I will have to say going down after the Continental Divide.

Having all of our gear did help have weight, and so we ended up going faster going down.

(peaceful music) Do you know how to light a fire?

- We did it together.

We pedaled it together.

We were tired, we were a little hot, but we stuck together, and we did it.

- When we go back to Cleveland, we're gonna take lots of memories back with us.

Lots of memories and pictures and video.

- And video.

- 'Cause I have video now.

- When I crawl in that tent tonight, I'm gonna remember everything I experienced today, the dos, the don'ts, the have, the have nots.

I'm just gonna remember the beauty of everything that I saw.

It will be like a motion picture replaying back in my mind.

- Okay, well, when I crawl into the tent, I'm gonna sleep.

- [Sabrina] (laughs) That too.

(gentle music) - You're just sort of floating over the valley, just gliding across the things that you're looking down on.

The sun's moving, so you get different angles, different shadows.

The clouds come in, the light changes to a whole different trail.

I'm Paul Wiegman.

I'm a naturalist, I'm a writer, and I'm a photographer.

And I've spent a lot of years riding the trail, walking the trail, capturing the beauty of the Great Allegheny Passage.

(train whistle blowing) Meyersdale is the top of Somerset County.

But more and more people are coming, staying overnight, riding one section, staying in a nice B&B and then riding another section.

(upbeat music) - It's really a lifeline to the economy now in this town.

- We're trying to get folks to understand what a goldmine we're really sitting on with the Great Allegheny Passage and a million bike riders two blocks from here.

There's so many walks of life, a lot of professionals, a lot of retired people, people from all over the world.

They're very interesting people.

- Meyersdale is in the center of a lot of maple sugaring.

They have a maple festival at the end of March into early April.

The Salisbury Viaduct is an amazing part of the railroad architecture.

You're crossing the CSX Railroad.

You're crossing new 219.

You're crossing the Casselman River, and you're crossing farm fields.

With the wind turbines in the background in both directions now, it's one of my favorite parts.

Yes, it's a bike trail, but, to me, it's a nature trail.

And it's 150-mile-long nature trail.

(peaceful music) This area's called mixed mesophytic forest.

Big words but mesophytic means wet forest.

So you have nearly 120 species of trees that you'll find in these valleys of the Allegheny Mountains.

The variety's just great, including the variety of wildflowers.

Approach the flower from the bee's viewpoint, which usually means getting very low and getting down and seeing the flower at eye level.

And learn the characteristics.

What makes it a wild geranium?

And making sure that in your photograph you have those characteristics.

We have a lotta rocks around, and we have a lotta wood around, we'll call it Rockwood.

Rockwood built around the railroads to some extent.

It's another one of the towns that was built on timber, coal mining, and, when those things were gone, the towns began to decay.

(gentle music) Businesses have come in and been built around the trail.

- I started hiking on the coast of Delaware, and I'm headed west.

- At the Pinkerton Horn, it's geologically interesting because the Casselman River turns and goes out about a mile and a half and comes back in a big long loop.

(gentle music) The railroad decided to cross the river in a short bridge and go through with a tunnel.

You'll be riding along and just feeling a little bit warm and suddenly go into the cool of the tunnel.

Underground is 54 degrees year round.

Going in there is a real delight.

You wanna stay in there a little bit longer.

And then get back onto another bridge almost immediately across the river.

(peaceful music) You're closer to the river here.

There are numerous places you can stop, park your bike, and walk down and dip your foot in the river.

This route was the route that was used by George Washington when he was coming to the area for exploration and finding open lands.

The Native Americans were using it, colonial British were using it.

It's been a route of commerce and exploration for many, many, many years.

Geologically, it's interesting because you're going way back in time, but it's also interesting from the fact that you're going through the mountain, not over it.

You're seeing so many different ecosystems, so many habitats, and a wide variety of plants and animals.

Back in 1975, Josh Whetzel, the president of the Conservancy, had a vision of a trail.

And a lotta people said well that's just crazy.

Who wants to ride their bike in the woods?

But he said this will work.

And now we have people from all over the world riding that same trail that he saw back in '75.

- Originally, I'm from Ghana.

- Born in Chile, and my sister still lives in Chile.

- Scarborough, which is in the northeast of England.

- You can also make friends along the trail.

I met Chris, and we biked since like mile marker four all the way out to Rockwood.

So it's pretty nice to have someone else tag along with you.

It makes the ride a little easier.

(gentle music) - Confluence is called confluence because the rivers confluence.

It's the confluence of the Youghiogheny River, the Casselman River and Laurel Hill Creek.

(lively music) And the Yough continues north towards Ohiopyle.

Once you go through the water gap, then it begins to open up and you do a run right into Ohiopyle.

During the summer, you know you're headed for Ohiopyle 'cause all the rafts are on the river beside you, and you can hear them whooping and hollering on the rapids as they go in.

(camera snapping) It's a zen-like feeling.

It's soothing and relaxing.

The rest of the world goes away, and the only thing that exists is this valley and this forest and this trail.

(gentle music) I'm 75.

I expect to be riding the trail probably another 75 years.

I just love this place, and as long as I can make my legs work and I can get in and get out of this trike, I'll be here.

- My name is Clarence Johnson.

I live along the Gap Trail, and I'm a trail monitor.

And I'm part of a maintenance crew and a work crew that takes care of the Gap.

As a child growing up, there was probably one TV in town, and there was one bike in town.

If you wanted to ride on a bike, you asked this guy who owned a bike could you have a ride on a bike.

So growing up, I never had a bike.

(upbeat jazz music) Joined the Air Force right outta high school, and I was actually a Russian interpreter in the Air Force.

I got out of the military, and the first thing I did was bought a bicycle.

I like riding this part of the trail from Ohiopyle to West Newton.

It's nice to remember the Pittsburgh, the Lake Erie Railroad came right through here, right where I'm pedaling.

The thing I like about cycling is the seclusion.

You're by yourself.

You have time to think about the things you want to think about.

Nobody to intrude upon you.

I'm a family man, so it's important to have a little seclusion every once in a while.

(gentle music) Every town through here was known for something important.

Here in Connellsville, British General Edward Braddock led his troops across the Youghiogheny River.

And, later, Connellsville would become the coal and coke capital of the world.

My favorite part of the trail is what they call the Outback.

And it's called the Outback because there's very few interactions with the community.

Sometimes you're five, six foot from the Yaugh, and you hear the river running across the rocks.

You hear the wind coming through the trees, and it's the ultimate calming.

You can ride like that for five, six, seven miles, 10 miles, and it's all you hear.

If you know any of the history of Western Pennsylvania, it's dotted with thousands of coal camps.

The coal companies bought the property, they started a mine, and then they had houses built to their conformity for rent, for usage by the miners who worked the coal mines.

I was born and my younger siblings were born here in Whitsett.

My father, Clarence Johnson, Sr., was a coal miner.

My family is huge.

(family cheering) I'm one of 14.

Whitsett is what every local community around wants to be like.

- Hello.

- Hi.

- [Clarence] It's as close to a melting pot of America as you can possibly find on that community day.

- Thank you, come again.

- Thank you.

You're welcome.

- I have five uncles down here, and they all live in town.

We get to see each other.

Spend a little time, two or three hours, eat, talk, reminisce.

They're all a bunch of good people.

They're willing to volunteer.

They're willing to give their time and their effort.

It took a lot of commitment and work from volunteers to build this trail.

My family were an intricate part of it.

- I love this trail.

I love the Great Allegheny Passage.

I wish every town had access to a resource like this.

(gentle music) - [Clarence] When you cycle through these little towns, you see what everyday life is like.

There's a couple of old buildings, the old mine buildings are still around.

Rachel Sager bought one, and she has the mosaic place there.

- I had bought what is left of Banning #2 coal mine, which is the ruins, and that's what I've called it, The Ruins Project.

As an artist, I saw that as an opportunity to create a giant substrate for mosaic, and that's what I've done.

I come from coal.

My father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather all mined coal.

That coal that came out of this mine that is now The Ruins Project built the skyscrapers, it build cities, it fought wars.

It did so many things.

This is a slice of time, a slice of history that has been forgotten, and it deserves its own story.

- I think it's just an excellent way for the town to grow.

Mostly, when you ride through these towns, they were diminishing until the trail came in.

They were slowly going downhill, but the trail has revitalized a lot of 'em.

(light music) Cedar Creek Park is an entity unto itself, a lot of amenities.

There's water facilities.

There's a boat ramp to the river.

There's campgrounds.

People who've never been on the Gap, they're missing something that's really outstanding.

They don't understand that just a simple walk on the trail could change their mind about a lotta things.

The reason I'm happy to take care of the Gap Trail is because it's a part of my front yard.

At heart, I'm a volunteer and a helper.

I think our only purposes here is to be of help to our fellow man and to anything you can do to help.

To me, it has everything that I want.

It's just a beautiful place to live.

It never gets old, never gets old.

- My name is Doug Riegner.

I kind of think of myself as an ambassador on the trail.

I'm out here quite a bit.

I spend a lotta time out on the trail.

You'll see me out here.

(gentle music) I like to start here at West Newton Visitor Center, which used to be the train station.

From here to Pittsburgh, it's about 37 miles.

(gentle blues music) This time of year, you'll see a lot of leaves changing along the trail.

What I love most about the trail is the freedom, the ability to park your car, take your bike off, and just head in either direction and pedal as far as you wanna go.

The trail offers you a disconnect from everything.

There are a lotta interesting waterfalls along here.

They call it the Red Waterfall, and the red comes from iron.

It always feel a little cooler when you go by.

The White Waterfall gets color from aluminum oxide.

Autumn's a great time to be on the trail because the trail is open year round.

Something about the autumn light makes it cool to stop and visit Dravo Cemetery.

Well, well - [Doug] Soldiers from the Civil War are buried here.

- [Doug] Some people say it's haunted.

(upbeat music) You can tell we're getting closer to Pittsburgh because the landscape is feeling more urban.

Here in Boston is a great little visitors center.

Inside, they have souvenirs and a map you can see where people come from.

- [Man] Look at that, someone all the way from New Zealand came up here.

Iowa.

- [Woman] Missouri.

- You can put your pin now.

- [Woman] I should.

- [Doug] I meet so many people from all over the world.

You could, on any given day, find riders as young as four and five years old biking with their grandparents to elderly retired people.

It's easy.

Right here, the trail gets closer to the track.

It goes through McKeesport.

This is one of the old steel towns on the Monongahela River.

(blues music) This is the Riverton Bridge.

It was one of the last pieces to be completed on the trail heading into Pittsburgh.

Back in the day, trains ran between the mills on both sides of the river.

The last train crossed in 2008.

Trail Alliance built an access ramp.

They put on a new deck, and people can cross the river now.

This is the pump house in Munhall.

There's some pretty important history here.

The Homestead steel strike happened here in 1892.

It was a big clash between armed guards and steelworkers, and that eventually led to changes in labor.

(tense music) And now people can actually rent the pump house for events.

(people chattering) There's always a crowd at this part of the trail here in Hays, and everybody's looking up.

- We usually have spotting scopes set up for people to look at.

(light music) You look that way you got bridges and neighborhoods and they're urban eagles.

- Eagle up.

- He's up!

- It's been more than 100 years since people have seen eagles in Pittsburgh.

The cool thing is is when people come through, either jogging or biking or just walking, hey, what are you guys lookin' at?

And then we tell them, and nine out of 10 of them show a lot of interest.

- The leaves are down, and you can see a lot, a lotta wildlife.

- Once you see one of these eagles fly over you for the first time, you're hooked.

(camera snapping) - I'm walkin' the Great Allegheny Passage and, hopefully, the C&O Canal.

It's a great walk.

- To get to downtown Pittsburgh, you have to cross the river one more time.

(blues music) You go from the south side of Pittsburgh, across the Mon River on the Hot Metal Bridge.

They call it that because trains used to carry molten iron to the steel mills on the other side.

Steel was so important to this city for so many generations.

There's a nice wide deck on this bridge, and you'll see all types of people using it to get to and from work.

What you're seeing with a trail like the Great Allegheny Passage is a testament to the commitment of the towns and the people, the trails groups that still maintain the trail.

For over 30 years, people raised money to build the trail.

This is a great vantage point to see the city.

I never get tired of lookin' at that skyline.

Lots of groups like veterans ride this trail together.

Earlier this year, I rode with them.

(gentle music) Riding a bike kinda feels like flying.

That's how it feels to me.

When you're in the home stretch, there's this sense of accomplishment.

I think everyone shares that feeling when they get to the end.

- What a great ride.

- [Doug] You get to take home these memories.

- [Deltrece] That was such a great ride, 150 miles.

- [Doug] Knowing that someone's waiting for you is like a homecoming.

Hey, Anise.

Good to see ya.

- [Clarence] I think this trail will always be a part of my life.

- [Nathan] I am so glad that we did this together.

- [Doug] This is the way to see America.

(upbeat music) (people cheering) - [Announcer] The Great Ride was made possible by the Katherine Mabis McKenna Foundation and UPMC with additional funding from these supporters.

Thank you.

at Ride, visit WQED.org/ride.

(gentle music) (upbeat music)