Julian Cope – "Psychedelic Revolution" (2012)

If you’re a greedhead, you’re going down

If you’re a fat cat, you’re going down

If you’re a moneybags, you’re going down

The greedheads, fat cats, and moneybags – moneybagses? – who made up the “Fuller Syndicate” hoped to create a transcontinental railroad by buying up a number of smaller, interconnecting railroads.

But the financial crisis that resulted in the stock market falling 50% in October 1907 threw a monkey wrench into their plans.  Several of the railroads that were controlled by the syndicate were forced into bankruptcy, and that was that.

The easternmost of the syndicate’s railroads was the Western Maryland Railway, which operated independently after the Panic of 1907 brought an end to the syndicate.  It hauled mostly coal from West Virginia and Pennsylvania to Baltimore, which was the railroad’s eastern terminus.  

The Western Maryland Railway’s logo

In 1975, the Western Maryland merged with a larger railroad that served the same territory.  So most of the its lines were abandoned in favor of those of its merger partner – including a 90-mile-long spur line that ran northwest from Cumberland, MD, to Connellsville, PA. 

A few years later, the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad – another railroad that depended on coal for most of its revenues – decided to abandon a 60-mile-long line that continued from Connellsville to Pittsburgh, PA.  

By putting those two connecting railroad lines together, you had a continuous 150-mile-long abandoned rail corridor just waiting for someone to turn it into a hiker-biker trail.

*     *     *     *     *

The Great Allegheny Passage – or “GAP” – got its start when a nonprofit group acquired the chunk of the Western Maryland’s right of way that ran through Pennsylvania’s Ohiopyle State Park, which includes more than 14 miles of the best whitewater-rafting river in the eastern United States, the Youghiogheny.  In 1986, that group opened a 9.5-mile-long stretch of rail trail to the public.

The GAP Trail project really took off in 1995, when seven trail-building groups formed the Allegheny Trail Alliance. 

The GAP Trail

Construction moved in fits and starts over the next two decades, but the final piece of the GAP Trail opened in 2013.  

And since the C&O Canal towpath connects to the GAP Trail in Cumberland, that meant you could ride all the way from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC – a distance of 330 miles – without worrying about cars.

*     *     *     *     *

Wilderness Voyageurs is one of several companies that offers guided bike rides along the GAP and C&O.  

The company offers a six-day tour that goes all the way from Pittsburgh to the nation’s capital, but that requires you to ride as much as 73 miles in a single day.  (I don’t know how your ass would feel about riding a bike 73 miles in a single day, but my ass said NO F*CKING WAY when I asked it what it thought about trying that.)

The Wilderness Voyageurs HQ in Ohiopyle, PA

So I signed up instead for a condensed, three-day GAP/C&O ride that required “only” 106 miles of riding.  (That’s more than I’ve ever ridden a bike in three consecutive days, but I was able to talk my ass into giving it a shot.)

Last Saturday, I cleaned and lubed my bike, packed every pair of padded bike shorts I owned, and drove to a cheap hotel near Wilderness Voyageurs’ Ohiopyle headquarters, ready to hit the trail early the next morning.

*     *     *     *     *

I introduced myself to the other members of the tour while our guides loaded our luggage and the food and drinks that would sustain us through the 39 miles we would ride on day one of the tour

Our merry little band of bike riders

Our merry little band consisted of three married couples, two pairs of female friends, and me.  I had expected to be the oldest person on the trip, but I wasn’t: most of my fellow travelers were within a few years of me in age.  (Two of the women on the trip were significantly younger, but they certainly weren’t spring chickens.) 

Almost immediately after saddling up, we rode past the Youghiogheny River’s Ohiopyle Falls – not something I would ever want to take on in a kayak, but a lot of people do exactly that:

A kayaker takes on Ohiopyle Falls

*     *     *     *     *

After 16 miles of riding, we took a breather in Connellsville, the only sizable town on this stretch of the GAP trail.  Our guides had laid out a spread of rice crackers with peanut butter, carrot sticks, apples, and the like for us.

Chowing down in Whitsett

We then rode another 16 miles or so to Whitsett, a tiny hamlet that was once a company town built to house coal miners and their families.  After chowing down on some turkey-bacon-avocado-tomato wraps, we mounted our bikes and rode a few more miles to the 479-acre Cedar Creek Park, which was the end of our first day’s ride.

At milepost 100 of the GAP Trail

Once the guides had loaded our bikes on to the roof of our 15-seat van, it was time for an hour’s drive to the Trillium Lodge, which was our destination for the evening.  After beer and wine on the lodge’s wraparound deck, it was time for a guide-cooked meal.  Everyone was in bed by 10 PM.

In the next 2 or 3 lines, I’ll tell you about our second day’s journey from Meyersdale, PA to Cumberland, MD – which is the end of the line for the GAP trail.

*     *     *     *     *

You probably remember Julian Cope’s 1986 hit single, “World Shut Your Mouth.”  I prefer his follow-up release, “Trampolene,” which I featured in a lengthy 2014 post about Cope.   Click here to read that post, which discusses Cope’s love of Krautrock music and his expertise regarding Neolithic and Bronze Age archeological sites in the UK and Europe.

Today’s featured song, “Psychedelic Revolution,” is the title track of Cope’s 2012 double album of the same name:

Cope, who is about as left-wing as it’s possible to be, dedicated that album to Che Guevara and Leila Khaled, a Palestinian terrorist who became the first female to participate in an airplane hijacking in 1969.  (Khaled later underwent six plastic surgeries in hopes of changing her appearance enough that she could participate in future hijackings without being recognized.)

Click here to listen to “Psychedelic Revolution.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: