Pork Product! White Bread! Imitation Butter Spread! Gooooooo.....Allegheny!

It started at the carbo-intake capital of Western Maryland -- The Waffle House in Hagerstown...

...and ended, after 130 miles winding through southern Pennsylvania, back at the Crabby Pig outside the bike shop in Cumberland, Md. At the outset, The Great Plotnik, The Great PunkyDunky and the Great Chris-Baba were filled with energy.

They ended up looking more like this.

What a grand three days. Plottie, PD and C-B pedaled 40 miles the first day (half day, really), 50 miles the second (with an unforgettable side trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Falling Water' in the middle) and 40 more the last day. The first day was flat, the second and half the third mildly uphill and the last half of Day Three was basically downhill all the way down into Cumberland.

(Yes, some people pedal all the way from Pittsburgh to Cumberland in one day. Like, so?)

The countryside was beautiful -- though many of the leaves had left the trees in the rainstorm Plot and PD drove through coming down from Brooklyn.

The fun, of course, had nothing to do with the bicycles, but with all the laughing, telling of tall tales, singing, beer drinking, cigar smoking and consuming of vast amounts of what no one would mistake for Health Food.

You get into such a nice rhythm on the bikes. The trail was wide enough for three to ride abreast at various points, though usually the alignment was one following two or two following one. The old railroad right of way had at one time hauled coal and coke from the mine country along the Youghiogheny ("The Yock") and Casselman Rivers up to Pittsburgh to be smelted and shipped out on the Great Lakes. Now, after being dead for decades, the tracks have been pulled up and the trail has picked up bicyclers and hikers and river rafters.

The little town of Ohiopyle is the jumping off point for a ten minute van ride up to Falling Water, which is Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece. He built it as a summer home for Edgar Kaufman in the 1930s. Kaufman owned the largest department store in Pittsburgh and the property had been a retreat for his employees until Edgar Kaufman Jr. met Wright and convinced him to consider building a home for his parents, centered around two small waterfalls.

These are really tame photos. The inside of the house, filled with Wright's furniture, with a great room that is the style today but was unheard of in the 1930s, is what makes it even more unique. But you're not allowed to take any photos inside. You'll just have to figure out how to get here some day, because for sheer beauty mixed with great taste Falling Water ranks right up there with Doris Duke's Shangri-La in Diamond Head.

Trip's over. Five hours in the car Sunday night to get back to Brooklyn, pastrami on Monday from Eisenberg's (more on that tomorrow) and then six more hours on a plane last night sitting next to a v-e-r-y- jumbo-sized man in the middle seat.

But it's all good. Plot is home. He is somewhat muscle-sore but just a little bit.

He knows now that there are few cooler sounds than the whistle from a steam engine. But if you try to chase it down on your bicycle you will only f*#&$ up your knee. Here's a tip: don't do it.

Kids everywhere love bridges, even abandoned bridges.

Riding through tunnels is very disorienting when all you can see is the light at the end of it.

Laughter, beer and pizza always make sore butts and creaky joints feel better.

Next year in Portugal? Why not?