A proper recap of yesterday's ride has to include footnotes from the night before, both involving Irishmen:Spontaneous beer drop due to failure of the opposing digit to grasp a beer. Accompanying slurred speech and balance issues suggest that keg beer may have been a contributing factor.
Last man standing entertaining the ladies into the wee hours of Sunday (they we duly impressed). Included late night departure and then unexpected return on the lawn tractor, to continue hydration and entertainment for the ladies benefit.
Both individuals overcame long odds and showed up for the early morning departure on Sunday, a little green around the gills but still game for a ride. True Irishmen!
Sunday departure went better than expected - only 12 minutes of "dorking around" - which is a record for a group of this size (10). For the one hour drive we ignored GPS and were treated to another "Sebastian back road special" which got us to Fair Hill in a little over an hour. Unfortunately the back roads also got one rider carsick, and he spent 5 minutes in the WaWa bathroom getting himself straightened out before the ride.
The ride commenced with a jaunt over to the orange trail to see what the trail guide meant by "rolling terrain with ocasional steep climbs." It was apparently a typo and should have read the opposite. We got a nice view of the practice track (made us tired just looking at it - it's huge) and eventually worked our way over to the east side of the park on some really sweet single track which included a pretty hairy and rocky descent (so much fun that we did it again later in the day). We had lunch by the river and were treated to the arrival of about 20 horseback riders complete with rider in chaps and another alledgedly displaying signs of a long day in the saddle (or excess saddle soap, still unresolved).
We experienced the normal course of mechanical failures and crashes. Notables:
- Crash resulting in turf being embedded into the sidewall of a tire. We are still puzzling over the physics of that one.
- Family jewels embedded into toptube of a bike. The physics of that one are readily understood by anyone with jewels.
- Jim wins the pink polka dots for this ride. For those of you familiar with the Tour de France, the pink polka dot jersey goes to the best hill climber in the mountains. Jim had no equal on the hills yesterday.
Overall a great day in the saddle even with all the navigational challenges (resulted in some dead ends and open field crossings). See the attached satelite image to view our track.
I think that covers the highlights.
Weekday ride schedule:
- Tuesday night (8:30pm) UL
- Thursday morning (6:30am) LL
Chris
