The Bike-Riding Adventure Team Supreme owes its heart and soul to the genius, meticulousness and overall selflessness of Cal Woodward. Renowned for the poetry and precision of his journalistic work for The Associated Press, Cal shows his true stuff in mapping out bike adventures that challenge the body and nourish the soul.

In August 2008, in a feat of astonishing logistical proportions and extraordinary generosity on the part of many, the BRATS embarked on a four-day trip along the Chesapeake & Ohio Trail from Cumberland, Md., to Washington, D.C.

Because we are, after all, AP journalists, this trip was perhaps the most well-documented in the history of bike trips.

Click the C&O Ride link to the left and come along on the ride with us in photos, more photos, video, more video, sidebars, more sidebars ... and lots and lots of turtles, snakes and mud.

Check out the Cal's X-Country Ride links for some amazing tales of Cal's solo trip, by bike, across the country in the summer of 2005.

And click the other links for Cal's new Web site, Gerald's tales of rides, past, Paula's blog on bike commuting and learning photos, and the shop where the best bike mechanic anywhere in the world _ Suzanne's husband _ works.

Be sure to roll over AND click all the photos on this and every page for still more photos _ and a video when you click each one.

Photo credits on this and all pages: Paula Froke, Suzanne Gamboa, John Gearan, Gerald Herbert, Cal Woodward

Video credits: Gerald Herbert (most of them); Paula Froke (one of them, but it's big)