Zoo Ride 2: Was not so zooy since it was raining (june 3rd in Frederick, MD)
We started at South Mountain Creamery where we parked cars next to some giant furry dogs. We got there by late morning. Ironically almost everyone is sporting a Brooks except for Johnson. (By the way Hutch observed that your bike looked “dirty”- I think he just meant beat up). Damien is sporting one of his bikes freshly pinstriped. Mark riding fixed and no helmet (there’s always a badass). Christine and Rob with their newish Bianchi touring bikes. James and his “dirty” SS Witcomb. Me and my wood fendered beaut. And Hutch in his Bell trailer which he peed in then Damien ate the wet fruit snacks off the floor. They must taste better soaked in brine.
The goal of the ride was to go 14 easy miles to Gathland State Park eat lunch and look at the weird war correspondent monument then loop back to the creamery. If it had not been for non-stop rain and the gazillion hold ups, we would have arrived at lunchtime. Of course we didn’t. Rob could barely pull Hutch up the giant hills that we weren’t aware of (thanks to Johnson since we don’t live there anymore). So Damien pulled for a while. It would have been a beautiful ride had we been able to really see. It was so rainy that visibility was minimal and some of us were getting cold. At one point Christine and I fantasized about being under a big afghan sipping tea and watching Jane Austin movies.
It took us three hours to get to the half way point and instead of eating at the park, which some of us did, we just went to Damien’s house to warm up and get into clean clothes. We snatched the Clark family’s wardrobe from them like a pack of wild gypsies. I was happy since I got to play with their new puppy and watch racing on TV. By racing I mean men on bicycles with shaved legs. What?
Overall this ride was better than Zoo ride 1 when we rode in 20-degree weather and lost feeling in all 20 of our personal digits.
Love,
Mel
What a fun ride…for sure the wettest I’ve ever been while riding a bike, even all my time mountain biking up in Juneau, AK during the fall. I can’t believe that I predicted the rain would end by our start time and everyone believed me! HAHA! It was slower than I thought it would be, but I was pretty much going as fast as I could pulling that trailer. I only walked once while towing that thing and it was only for about 500 feet of roadway going up Gapland road on the first pitch of the ascent. Big respect goes out to Damien for tugging the boy and trailer for a few miles so I could get my legs back. It was REALLY cool to head down the mountain to the Clark residence and get all warm and dry and have a beer. Much thanks to Mrs. Clark for the love. Hutch was such a champ during this ride…it was like what…three hours in a sopping wet trailer. At one point he was telling me, “Daddy…I’m all finished….I want the car…”. If it weren’t for my dry North Face jacket to wrap him in for the run down the mountain to the Clarks house, he wouldn’t have even gotten back in the trailer. Anyway, it was great…I was totally channeling Cory on this one. OH!, and I’m stoked to have finally received a spoke card for the trailer!!!
WOOHOOO!
RobQ
Hey, where’s that pic of Damien pulling the trailer up the hill from that random bridge with the dodgy lip at the other end of the road surface?
James erased all the crappy pics. so he can answer that one- if we were the ones that took it.
just cause you dont understand my filing system doesnt mean that i erased the pics.
I’m sad I missed it. But I’m glad I missed it. What a paradox.
dont be sad. it was wet. so wet that my brake hoods lost half their pigment and turned grey, so wet that hands were stained red from my bar tape and didnt stop being wrinkly for 3 hours after the ride. so wet that fenders would only stave off the inevitable.
So where’s that pic of Damien then? I redid the routeslip map to reflect what we rode and it came out to 19.5 miles of underwater slogging to the Clarks residence. It would’ve actually been shorter to go back to the cars from the top of that hill I think.
Rob