(upbeat music)
♪ Together we can do it ♪
♪ Anything we choose ♪
♪ Nothing's stopping us ♪
♪ Let's make our dreams come true ♪
♪ Never know what you may find along the way ♪
♪ With your friends ♪
♪ Till the end ♪
♪ On the Trailheads ♪
- [Cheryl] Hi, welcome to REI, Pittsburgh.
Today we're gonna talk about bikepacking
The Great Allegheny Passage, which we call the GAP.
My name is Cheryl.
I am your instructor.
I've been with REI for about seven years
and I work in action sports.
Have any of you done bikepacking before?
- No.
- No. - Never.
- Never.
- No.
(happy music)
- [Kelsi] You guys!
- This is so pretty.
- Getting to see the country by bicycle
- Whoa.
- [Colin] Is something else.
- Whoa.
- I love the scenery here.
- This trail, honestly, is so dope.
- Coming from the west coast,
you just don't get to see this very often.
- Mental photo, got it.
- [Cheryl] Before I did this, I had never bikepacked at all.
I had it in my mind, you know,
what I thought this was going to be like,
but it was so much better.
- This is fun.
- Man, this is so cool.
- We raced a train yesterday. (excited screaming)
- There's something a little exhilarating about that.
- So good!
- Like, that's going in my diary.
- I'm impressed with myself.
- [Cheryl] It's super fun, it's beautiful, it's challenging.
- Boom.
- So I grew in ways that I never would've
if I hadn't done this, so I think, at the end,
you're gonna be really proud of yourself.
- Where are we headed, Kels?
- Let me check out where we are.
- This is a trail guide and all the proceeds go to the GAP,
but it comes out every year and tells you all the places
along the GAP you can visit.
(class exclaims)
In it, my favorite part of this is
this wonderful trail guide which I never put far away.
So, there's 12 official trail towns on the GAP.
- Fort Hill!
- Meyersdale.
- Connellsville!
- Frostburg.
- (mumbles) we made it!
- Yes!
(Colin grunts)
- To Pittsburgh!
- All the trail towns love bikers.
- [Guy Running] Good morning. - [Bikers] Good morning!
- Morning!
- [Cheryl] Everybody's so friendly.
- Hi.
- And people on the trail are friendly.
More than a million people every year do this.
- [Kelsi] Really?
- Oh, wow. - [Group] Wow.
- [Cheryl] So,
it's kind of amazing. - [Anna] Wow.
How many miles is the GAP trail?
- It's 150.
- 150? - [Elena] Oh, okay.
That is a one five zero, correct?
- [Colin] That's a big, triple digits.
- [Anna] Write that down.
- About how long do people usually take to ride the--
- [Cheryl] The GAP?
- Yeah.
- Real talk, we've gone point four miles.
- That's it?
- We've only gone a half a mile?
- We'll get there next month.
- [Kelsi] This is a question we should've asked a month ago.
- Probably three days.
Three days.
- 150 miles?
Is that all you got?
That's not 140 miles, it's not 130 miles,
and I hope it's not 151 miles.
- Yeah, that feels like a far amount.
- I think this is the most I've biked accumatively
in my entire life.
Well, we just passed mile marker number 78, which means--
- We are burning this trail to the ground.
- We are more than halfway done!
What kind of challenges can we expect on this trail?
- You've trained a little maybe, maybe?
(upbeat music)
- This is what we trained for!
We did not train.
- Is it uphill the whole way? - Oh, man.
- Alright, our first hill, our first hill, y'all.
- Okay.
- Wait, how do we do this?
- Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal.
- Woo, my quads, my quads, y'all.
- If I don't see another incline for another hundred miles,
I will be so happy.
- Mile marker 21!
- 21!
- I think at 22 it becomes downhill
and then also it stops raining.
- Would you say it's coming down like cats and dogs?
- Not supposed to let up for nine hours.
- Raining, lightening, you know the change of weather.
- It goes from sunny to raining to sunny.
- The weather here will just shift on a dime.
- This weather is perfect.
- My body cannot tell if it's burning hot or freezing cold.
- To drizzling, to rainy.
So overcast, but hot.
It's sunny, then it's lightening.
Then it's sunny, then it's raining.
Then it's snowing.
- You really gotta be prepared for literally all weather.
- You should check what's going on on the trail
before you go out.
- What I've learned is you don't have to be
an expert in it to try it,
but it does help to ask an expert.
- Yeah. - Absolutely.
(funky music)
♪ Beat don't stop ♪
♪ The crack, the snap, ♪
♪ The crackle, the bass ♪
(funky music)
- [Elena] How do we stay comfortable?
So even if our legs can go and our arms can go,
what about your bum?
- Is anybody's butt getting more used to
the saddle or less--
- Less used to the saddle, Anna.
- Less used.
- Oh, my bottom hurts.
- You need to make sure your bike fits you,
because if your bike doesn't fit you,
your butt's gonna hurt.
- I feel all points of where I sit down.
- [Colin] Yeah.
- This is a new stretch I made up in yoga.
It's called I Live Here Now.
This is where I die.
- One thing I would never, never ever go without.
- Chamois butter!
- Chamois butter, let me tell you, makes the world
of a difference.
- Oh, boy.
- One of these will last me a whole trip.
- Do they sell them in any bigger size?
(Kelsi laughs)
- Buy seven of those.
- [Cheryl] You know, you put it on at night
and then when you wake up in the morning,
it seems to be gone.
So, that's kind of a little trick.
- Butter me up, buttercup.
- [Elena] I'm gonna take that.
- Thank you, Cheryl, for that pro tip back at REI.
Appreciate you, girl.
My body appreciates you, too.
♪ Party people rocking and the beat don't stop ♪
- So, Cheryl, thank you so much,
this has been super helpful.
I think all of us are feeling really good
about our chaffing strategy.
(laughing)
Any last things that we need to know before we go?
- The best thing about this is the comradery.
You're gonna remember the little adventures you had,
you know the fun you had together,
the obstacles you overcame.
Be flexible and just see everything
as a really fun adventure, and you'll have a wonderful time.
Go out there, and I think you're ready to roll.
(soft, elated music)
- I'm so excited! (shrieks)
(train engine rumbling)
- Here we go!
Oh, ticket, gonna need that.
- [Kelsi] Morning, guys.
All right, I've got the coffee order.
Anna, double tall latte. - Thank you.
- [Kelsi] Plain, drip coffee for Elena.
- Thank you, need.
- And a green monster spirulina smoothie
with extra B-12 and two shots of seaweed extract.
- What is that?
- [Colin] I'm in training, so.
- [Anna] Oh, yeah.
- [Elena] Cheers. - [Kelsi] Let's go.
- Okay, we need to get on the train.
Come on, I've got everybody's tickets.
- [Colin] Let's do it!
- We're going to Cumberland!
- [Anna] I cannot believe it.
- [Kelsi] We're doing it!
- [Anna] We're doing it!
(upbeat music)
- It is real early.
(cheerful music)
- So I am very excited for the adventure ahead,
although my biking experience is minimal.
- Done a spring triathlon in my day.
It was an indoor biking, I rented an e-bike.
- And I'm just kind of realizing how far 150 miles is.
Colin, you excited?
(Colin mumbles)
- So we'll see how it goes.
- But we have always been really good
at trying new activities together as friends.
- Should've got a four tandem.
- Do they have Saris?
- Guarantee you one thing,
my backside is not ready in the least.
- But you know, I've done harder things.
- We're gonna make it.
- We are gonna make it.
- We're here, it's happening, oh my gosh.
- Let's do it.
- [Kelsi] You guys!
(happy music)
- [Anna] Gosh. - [Elena] Oh my gosh,
you guys, look at this town.
- [Anna] This is so cool.
- [Kelsi] Yay, we're doing it!
- [Anna] I can't believe we're doing it.
- [Elena] Smell the history, Colin.
- [Colin] What does it smell like?
- [Kelsi] This is amazing.
- I don't know, but it smells old.
- [Kelsi] You guys, we're about to bike
- [Anna] 150 miles.
- [Kelsi] Great Allegheny Passage.
- [Elena] This is the beginning, y'all.
- [Kelsi] Oh my gosh.
This is exciting. - [Anna] Remember this moment.
It's all downhill from here.
(laughing)
- [Kelsi] It's all downhill from here.
- [Elena] All downhill.
- [Kelsi] After we go a little uphill first.
- [Colin] Yeah, first it's very much uphill.
- [Elena] Uh, it's mostly uphill from here.
- [Colin] Then it's all downhill.