Return to Little Bennett

Last night I got a chance to return to one of my favorite stomping grounds for night rides, probably the 2nd place I ever did a night ride, Little Bennett Park. It was a fabulous night for riding temperature wise. Looking back at my GPS logs, I see this as my 10th logged ride at LB, since May 2007 and my first in over 3 years! I think there may have been one or two un-logged ones, but I'm sure it's been about 2 years at least since I'd ridden there. Crazy!

The new trails Trail Conservancy has put in will be a BLAST once they bed in and dry up fully, even on a few of the dry sections we started to really pick up some speed! Kinda like Rosaryville but a bit more rolling at least on the Browning Run reroute so far. The final climb back up Kingsley towards Purdum sucks! Nothing like a 15 degree pitch or two to make you suck wind. Parking at the Burnt Hill lot makes it a fairly interesting and somewhat different ride. Flying down from the top of Tobacco Barn is still a BLAST! And Pine Grove is still a nice challenging climb. Good times. LB doesn't get the props it should, when it's dry its a real blast, when it's moist/wet in low area's like last night it's a real work out.

Also got in a quick pre-ride at Schaeffer, doing 2 laps of the whoops, the first was terrible the 2nd was better, need to spend some time learning the slight changes in the lines and the difference in momentum my 29'r requires versus the old Giant. Did white down to the orange whoops cut off, then at the merge I rode white down to the stream and took the green bypass over to yellow and did the sections of yellow I hate back to the lot, not bad. Saw Joel, Sharron and Mark getting ready to head out with the Tuesday Night group.

With the rain today I'm surprised both rides didn't have a WAY bigger turn out as I suspect tomorrow's rides will be canceled, the trails were still all on the marginal side. Maybe a CCT or a Bar Ride for Wakefieldians.

Is the Rodeo here?

Thats how my ride at schaeffer started today. I looked at the poor woman and politely informed her that the rodeo is at the horse farm off to the right as you turned in. I pointed to the drive and sent her on her merry way. I just couldn't be the grinch. Oh well.

I blasted out 2 nice loops for 16.5'ish miles. Doing the big yellow loop 2x. My first run was around 43 mins moving time. I was pumped and went out and did the harder version I like with the first yellow stream valley to blue. Then I did the orange section out on the loop then back thru the 2nd valley and back. Did some playing on various logs and cleared some new stuff! Yah!

And I rode the first skinny on white and almost got the 2nd one a couple times. I'm stoked as my technical riding I think is FINALLY improving. Now to work on off foot jumps/etc and try a few larger/unramped trees/logs.

The rodeo was really noise when on the close side to the farm. Avoided a couple close calls with huge piles of horse dookie.

That puts me at about 65 miles this week! Yah!

Thursdays at Schaeffer Farm

Did the first semi-regular Thursday at Schaeffer Farm ride today, didn't end up going out with a group but ran into several while out and about.

Great riding day, did 14.6 miles, though my garmin is getting really flakey now about powering off. Almost not worried about uploading new data, really only curious about my calories/HR.

Went to DFH with a few regulars afterwards and enjoyed a 75 and burger, AWESOME!

Time's Flying

Wow, time's been flying this month.

Lots of reasons, really pretty busy in general. I got 3 rides in last week including Cabin John tuesday and then Thursday I hooked up for the MORE Thursday ride at Schaeffer Farms and rode with the casual group. It was a good ride. Give me a month or more and I hope to be riding sometimes with the intermediate. Got back up there this monday and rode the white then yellow trails in an hour and twenty five minutes. I was pretty stoked, as it was with very little resting while riding.

Last week was a bit frustrating as I had both tires get leaks after my Tuesday at CJ. Boy was I suprised on Wednesday evening when I went down to prep for Thursday and saw the flats. The rear was slow enough I just waited to fix it till Friday. The front tire wasn't so good. So a quick stop by German Town cycles and Adam hooked me up by boring out the stem hole to fit schraeder valves which is all he had the big tubes I needed in. I also finally picked up a sweet floor pump and a new pair of gloves. All good purchases.

And I love my new HOSS shorts for style and general comfort. Still need to get the strapping/closure system a bit better adjusted but they are very cool and fit great.

Monday Ride

So after fighting on parts and stuff I re-greased my jockey/chainwheels and finally hit the road around 2 yesterday. I ended up only going up to Schaeffer Farm but still had a good and enjoyable ride. I did 9 miles out there in a bit over an hour. Not a great pace but not horrid. I spent a lot of time figuring out lines and what features I could handle and what I couldn't. Normally I'd be pushing to get outagain to even just Cabin John but we've got a pile or three of things going on this week, and I need to set my schedule, so we'll see.

Schaeffer is a rolling slightly winding stretch of singletrack in Germantown MD and its a good series of trails. Their are 2 or 3 loops, though the main trail (yellow) has a loop at the end of an out and back that can be varied by taking side trails (ORange and Blue). Kudos to MORE for providing an excellent riding spot. I hope to be able to contribute some trail work sometime this spring.