By Jake Dziubla
Round Table online editor-in-chief
She peddled slowly. The bike wobbled. It nearly fell. She struggled. The bike inched forward. The muscles coordinated. Her dad leaped from his lawn mower and cheered. Nine-year-old Blair Donald could finally ride a bike solo. From this point, she and her father, Jerry, had a single mindset for their biking: “How crazy can we be?”
When Jerry Donald was younger, he rode the C&O Canal with a friend of his. After having children of his own, he wanted to share his experiences first hand by taking them on the canal for themselves. Two summers ago, Jerry Donald, a social studies teacher at Middletown High School, made this dream a reality when he and his daughter, Blair, an MHS senior, followed the canal from our nation’s capital to Cumberland, Md.
The past summer, Blair and Jerry decided to up the ante by beginning their biking excursion in Pittsburgh and finishing in Washington,D.C., using both the Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal. Since their first trip on the canal, Blair was eager for their next trip and the “bragging rights” that went along with it.
Before the duo began taking these lengthy bike rides, their steps were small. As Blair put it, “I grew up riding a bicycle.” Since Blair was a toddler, she tagged along with her dad on bike rides around their home in Braddock Heights, riding in an attached seat to visit a horse farm near their home.
The two then “upgraded” to a tandem bicycle, allowing Blair to share the biking experience with her father more closely. The turning point in their biking story occurred when Blair was able to ride a bike solo, allowing for the two to now ride in freedom around their home and offered to them a broad spectrum regarding their biking opportunities and travels.
These opportunities and future trips would not be possible without the friendship that the two share. Blair not only enjoys the trips because of the health benefits that they offer, but because of the time that she is able to spend with her father. The most recent trip was a “tiny vacation” to Blair.
“We’re not father and daughter. We’re just Jerry and Blair riding bikes.” Blair said.
The idea for the trip from Pittsburgh to D.C. sprouted from their first trip along the canal. The two had heard that the canal connects with the Allegheny Passage near the Continental Divide and instantly were hooked on the idea. Packing only bare necessities, the two embarked on a journey without any sense of urgency or rush in order to “see and hear nature more.”
“People always complain that there’s nothing to do here; well then why not do something different? What in five days are you going to miss in Middletown?” Jerry Donald asked.
The five day trip began in Pittsburgh along the Allegheny Passage. After an intense rainstorm in Ohiopyle,Pa., the two began a scenic, 20-mile downhill coast down the Continental Divide north of Cumberland. Their 110-mile uphill climb began almost as soon as the downhill portion finished. As intimidating as 110 miles uphill appears, Jerry Donald quieted this factor.
“It’s railroad grade. It’s not crazy,” he said.
In Cumberland, the two entered the familiar path of the canal and began their home-stretch to D.C. The average 70-mile-a-day trip ended with a trip from Brunswick to D.C. on the fifth day. Aside from the obstacles posed to them along the way, including a muddy encounter in White’s Ferry, the two had accomplished, together, a nearly 400-mile bike ride across two states.
