Race a Steam Train Up the Mountain at the 3M Challenge
The 3M Challenge sends cyclists up the GAP from Cumberland to Frostburg against the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad on Saturday, September 26. Beat the train and win an engraved railroad spike.
There is a bike race in Cumberland next month where the thing you are racing weighs about 150 tons and runs on coal smoke and nostalgia.
The 3M Challenge sends cyclists up the Great Allegheny Passage from Cumberland to Frostburg on Saturday, September 26, while the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad climbs Mount Savage on the parallel grade. The three Ms are man, machine and mountain. Beat the train and you get an engraved railroad spike.
Riders leave the Western Maryland Railway Station at 13 Canal Street in Cumberland starting at 8 a.m., in groups every ten minutes. The train pulls out at 11:30. The course runs about 15 miles and gains roughly 1,700 feet, which is the whole point: the GAP climbs steadily out of Cumberland to the Eastern Continental Divide, and this is the steepest sustained piece of it.
You can ride solo or put together a team of up to six. Registration is $60 for an individual and $250 for a team, and the field is capped at 150. Everybody gets a shirt. Sign-ups close Monday, September 21, at 9 p.m. at bikereg.com/3m-bike-challenge.
Mountain Maryland Trails runs the event, and the money goes into maintenance and new development on the Maryland stretch of the GAP. That is the same trail that runs through Confluence, just 60-some miles down the line, so this is neighbors keeping up their end of it.
For riders from around here, the drive to Cumberland is about an hour. For anyone who has pedaled the Frostburg grade with a loaded bike and thought about how much easier it looks going the other way, here is your chance to find out what it feels like empty and in a hurry.
Details at gaptrail.org/event/3m-challenge.(opens in new tab)