Photo by flickr user mikebikes

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sums up much of what you need to know to ride to Washington DC

Laboring for more than an hour to get up and over the eastern Continental Divide, the Capital Limited twisted and turned as it made its way through the Allegheny Mountains outside Cumberland, Md.

The 300-mile route between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., that took us seven days by bicycle would take about seven hours by train traveling in the opposite direction. Still, even a train pulled by a modern diesel locomotive has to struggle to get through the mountains that straddle the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Those mountains are evidence of the challenges in riding the trail.