2 Days; 200 Miles

This past weekend Justin and I rode from Plumstead to Jim Thorpe and back—200 miles in two days. I rode my cross bike, and Justin pedaled his full-suspension Fuji. Pavement, grass, gravel, dirt, woodchips, railroad ties and, in some parts, impassable rock beds—you name it, we rode over it!


We followed the Delaware river for a bit with plans to pick up The D&L Trail in Easton. From there, we'd ride alongside the Lehigh river. It was about this time a trail angel appeared wearing a wife beater and tube socks riding a Huffy. He showed us the way to the trail—and showed up again a few minutes later at a perplexing junction.

We found ourselves in Allentown at lunchtime, and stopped for pizza at Big Woody’s—where Monday night is clam night. A while later, we stopped for a snack in Slatington’s own Sunoco APlus. From across the store I yelled to Justin to pick out some Combos. An APlus employee (of the month) must have misheard since he yelled back, “You guys looking for rubbers?”

From Lehighton, it was a 10 or so mile climb to Mauch Chunk Lake Park, our lake-front camping spot for the night.

We anticipated covering a lot of ground—both days—by means of The D&L Trail. But it turns out, “Open, travel at your own risk” translates to, “Suckas!” We altered our route home to include more roads; however, we should’ve paid more attention to street names. Riverview and Rising Sun made for exhausting hill climbs.


Our trip proved both pleasurable and purposeful: Justin got some long days in the saddle in preparation for his big race, while I was just along for the ride. And what a ride it was.