Heat and "jungle-like" humidity. Muddy conditions on the Chesapeake and Ohio Towpath. "Potholes with potholes." Flat tires. Mosquitoes. Pelting rain. Morning temperatures in the low 40s. "Purple" knees. Head winds. Side winds. A lack of "connectivity."

Jonathan Kersting of Edgewood and Geoff Tolley of Mt. Lebanon are having one of the most memorable bicycle rides of their lives.

Kersting, 36, director of marketing, communications and publications at the Pittsburgh Technology Council, and Tolley, 46, owner of GBL, an advertising agency, are members of the PNC Legacy Trail Ride. They and 83 other cyclists left Washington Saturday and will arrive tomorrow afternoon at Point State Park.

Along the way, they will be joined by the last team of cyclists completing a 24-hour relay ride from Washington. The relay riders are scheduled to depart at noon today and expected to arrive at noon at the Point.

Both groups will be expanded tomorrow by PNC Community Trail Riders who will join them at the Hot Metal Bridge or the PNC FirstSide Center. The combined groups will ride to the park via the Boulevard of the Allies which will be closed to traffic.

"It's going to be great," Kersting said yesterday afternoon as he and Tolley were riding on the "much smoother, much better maintained" Great Allegheny Passage toward Rockwood, a major trailhead town in southern Somerset County.

"I have purple knee caps and purple hands," said Kersting, a veteran rider who decided he didn't need bike gloves or long pants to go over his padded bike shorts for the 335-mile ride. He planned to buy a pair of full gloves at Lynn Sanner's bike repair and rental shop in Rockwood and said he would warm up last night at Carol and David Kemp's RiveRest B&B near Confluence.

Kersting said he doesn't mind extreme conditions, such as pedaling 25 miles from the Paw Paw Tunnel to Cumberland in unrelenting rain. He just didn't expect them.

"Thank goodness for the Cumberland Trail Connection," he said, referring to the bike shop only 37 feet from the trail in Cumberland, Md. "They had a bike wash all set up for the riders with brushes and sponges and everything. They were great."

"We were ready for them," said Kurt Detwiler, a manager. He said the shop sold arm and leg warmers to chilled riders, front and rear fenders to riders tired of having mud thrown up at them from their tires and made some minor repairs. Its Web site is www.ctcbikes.com.

Kersting, an avid cyclist since he first learned to ride as a child, is a sport-class mountain bike racer, a 24-hour aficionado, aspiring roadie, cyclocross junkie, and dabbles in ultra-distance mountain bike racing. This is his first extended trail ride.

He has been using technology and gear from council members and other regional companies and, when he has "connectivity," has been able to use his cell phone and has been providing updates via his blog -- www.dc2pgh.wordpress.com. The updates include pictures, video and reviews of the gear ranging from GPS devices to body monitoring hardware to camping gear.

"It was great to check in to the Holiday Inn in Cumberland [Wednesday evening] because I was able to update my blog, upload pictures and catch up with everything," he said.

He said the memorable sections of the trip so far include the Great Falls of Virginia, Harpers Ferry, the Antietam battlefield, the Paw Paw Tunnel, the town of Cumberland, Big Savage Tunnel, Salisbury Viaduct and the wind turbines near Meyersdale.

Commemorative T-shirts

The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank will be selling dark blue commemorative PNC Legacy Trail Ride T-shirts for $15 as part of its "Imagine Ending Hunger" food drive at two locations tomorrow:

Liberty Avenue and Commonwealth Place, across from Point State Park, Downtown; and North Shore Drive between PNC Park and Heinz Field. All proceeds will go to the food bank. Buyers are asked to bring a non-perishable food item.

It's a great buy for a great cause.