Over the last few weeks, the ride organizer performed some partial pre-rides of the Dark Skies route. Due to complete lack of fitness, the organizer rode slowly and during daylight (the wimp). The current cue sheet version 3 (generated 2024-06-30 18:57:55 EDT) is correct and will remain unchanged.
At the risk of being overly redundant, please be advised
that there will be very few services on route.
Only 2 establishments will be
open during the ride. There is a Nittany
Food Market (nice convenience store) at mile 48.8 and a Sheetz (really nice convenience
store) at mile 83. Trust me that you
will not pass anything except trees during the rest of your journey.
There is also limited/spotty cell phone coverage and little street
lighting. I would highly recommend that you
have a redundant taillight and, if possible, a redundant headlight (and headlamp
on your helmet). Particularly while you
are riding through Cherry Springs State Park you will have zero ambient
light. Although there aren’t that many
turns, it’s still difficult to navigate potholes etc. without adequate lighting, so bring all the lights you got!
The current forecast is predicting rain during the day on
Saturday and low temps Saturday night of 55 degrees. It may be prudent to bring arm warmers and a
wool base layer. 55 degrees is comfy
warm in daylight but if it’s wet and you’ve ridden 80 miles, you can get miserable
pretty quickly.
The ride starts at the world famous (well maybe not world
but it’s famous in Allegany County) Texas Hot.
There is a parking lot across the street at the Allegany County WIC
program that can be accessed from Park Ave:
See you Saturday Night!
