The 3-Mile Hill - Nomadic Research Labs
I arrived in Uniontown shaking with exhaustion after a mere thirty-four-mile ride from Washington & Jefferson college. The distance was short, but it had been a tense day of gusty crosswinds on the narrow and busy US40. Directly ahead was a wall — a three-mile hill that I had been hearing about for days. I considered briefly and decided to worry about it in the morning.
At about 4:00 in the afternoon I stopped at the Uniontown Mall to cruise the shops before seeking a motel for the night. I rolled the bike through the doors, clipped the security beeper to my sweatpants, and went for a stroll. A little window-shopping here, a scan of a magazine rack there — it was the usual mall experience with an unfamiliar constraint. I could buy nothing that wasn’t bikeable.
Loretta, a spry and diminutive 78-year-old, was holding forth on matters of local history. Annie, an attractive woman in her fifties, was studying the bike and making notes on a scrap of paper. Mary, her striking five-foot-ten, red-haired daughter, was looking directly at me and smiling. The ladies were energetic, fascinated, and filled with compelling stories, and when we got around to the practical matters of interviews and places to stay, Mary set off to make a few calls.
