Miscellaneous
The Great Allegheny Passage 2019... What's in store for the trail? Allegheny Trail Alliance's Doug Riegner returns to the pod with the full scoop on the GAP! Housekeeping XFL Tour: I'll be rolling my own route across central Florida from Tampa on the gulf coast to Cocoa Beach on the east. Preview episode drops in two weeks! Podcast sponsor slots are available starting in the new year... check out pedalshift.net/sponsor for more info. Meetups & Live Shows Miles of Portraits touring the US - join us for the two DC area events where I'll be MCing and helping out the Q&A... Tyson's REI on 1/22, 6:30-8:30pm DC REI on 1/24, 6:30-8:30pm, followed immediately by a meetup at Wunder Garten. XFL Orlando meetup Saturday 2/9, time TBA - pedalshift.net/orlando. Pedalshift LIVE Friday February 22 at 9pm ET! It will be the wrap up show for the XFL tour... takeways and a whole lot more. We'll do another AMA session too, so send me your bike touring or non-bike touring questions to pedalshift@pedalshift.net or come and ask in the chat box the night of. The Interview Another chat with Doug Riegner (check out our first discussion, right when we met way back in episode 051). The trip I refer to specifically was highlighted in Pedalshift 084. All tagged GAP content on the site can be found here. Doug Riegner is the Director of Community Relations of the Allegheny Trail Alliance, a coalition of trail organizations charged with promoting and enhancing the Great Allegheny Passage, a 150-trail system between MD, PA. During the off seasonDougworks to publishTrailGuide, an authorized publication of both the GAP trail and 184.5-mile C&O Canal Towpath. Through his work with TrailGuideDouguncovers, develops, and maintains healthy relationships with local communities & leaders, visitor bureaus, and trail related businesses along the 335-mile corridor. Doug is also a National Parks Service Trails & Rails volunteer serving on the Capitol Limited “Amtrak” train between Cumberland and Washington DC. In your best elevator pitch, what's the Allegheny Trail Alliance and what is it doing to make bike touring in the region better? 2018 was a challenging year for weather on the trails - what's the status of the tunnels and trail conditions as we head into the off season? There were some rumors that Ohiopyle was going to get a hiker/biker campsite at trail level - were those rumors true and is there any new info on that? Any other news on camping options on the GAP midtrail down to Cumberland? You've mentioned on some of the forums that the C&O is getting some resurfacing work done - do you know if NPS sticking to its guns on the historic nature of the towpath surface, or are they making some exceptions (like Big Slackwater's concrete surface)? We like crazy stunts in addition to tours around here - marathon through-riding of the CO/GAP is definitely one! How much of a thing is it? It feels like there's been a real growth in numbers in bike touring traffic the last few years. Does ATA have any data on that? What's your go-to order at Yough Twister? We're a solid few days into 2019. What's the thing you're most looking forward to on the GAP this year? Pedalshift Society As always we like to close out the show with a special shoutout to the Pedalshift Society! Because of support from listeners like you, Pedalshift is a weekly bicycle touring podcast with a global community, expanding into live shows and covering new tours like my upcoming XFL trip this winter! If you like what you hear, you can support the show for 5 bucks, 2 bucks or even a buck a month. And there's one-shot and annual options if you're not into the small monthly thing. Check it all out at pedalshift.net/society. Kimberly Wilson Caleb Jenkinson Cameron Lien Andrew MacGregor Michael Hart Keith Nagel Brock Dittus Thomas Skadow Marco Lo Terrance Manson Noah Schroer...