Sheridan Family Takes A Bike Trip

On July 12, Evelyn Keever and her family rolled into Washington DC on their bikes after completing a 10-day, 335-mile ride from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The ride consisted of 150 miles on the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail that runs between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Maryland, crossing the Eastern Continental Divide, and then 185 miles on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Tow Path — operated by the National Park Service — that runs from Cumberland to Washington DC. The group camped the entire trip with the exception of a night in a hotel in Cumberland.

Evelyn, 8, of Sheridan, had ridden the same route two years earlier with her father, Jared, and his cousin’s family. Evelyn did that 2021 ride in a “Weehoo” trailer pulled behind her dad’s bike. After completing that trip, she and her dad agreed that the entire family should do the trip as soon as her younger brother Leighton was old enough to do the long ride in the Weehoo.

They set to work planning and earlier this year set a July date for the trip, which would again be ridden with Jared’s cousin’s family.

Originally the plan had been that Leighton, 4, would ride the Weehoo, with pulling duties shared between Jared and his wife Kim, and Evelyn would ride her bike with some sort of supplemental system that would allow her bike to be pulled on longer days or difficult portions. But as the family trained through numerous practice rides on the Monon Trail, Evelyn and her parents grew confident that she could do the ride on her own, provided they could carry enough snacks.

Snacks depleted, Evelyn completed this year’s ride without a pull or a push while carrying clothes and other supplies for her and her brother.

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