Carole was having a surprise birthday party for Biker Chick Andie at our house Saturday, so I knew I needed to stay away until it had started or else Carole would put me to work. So, I decided to do the Ride for Health in Westminster, MD from the site of the Maryland Wine Festival. I did this ride for 10 years when it was the American Lung Association Wine Festival ride, but that folded a few years ago and the Access Carroll charity picked it up. Carroll County is one of my favorite areas to ride - lots of up and down, but beautiful rural roads, not much car traffic and lots of variation in the scenery.
The weather was party cloudy and 50 degrees when I left the house and when I got to the Agricultural Center where the ride started, I decided to the do the longest ride, a 62 miler. I haven't got any long rides in this year, with 52 miles tops in 2011 - but with such cool weather I figured this would be a good time to do one.
I almost know the route by heart, but there were a few changes. A section of Salem Bottom Road was in mid-repaving, so a .5 mile stretch downhill was actually on dirt/gravel, never fun. The first rest stop was at 11 miles, shared with the 31 mile ride. That was a bit early for me, so I just waved at them and continued on to the second rest stop at the 23 mile mark at the Union Bridge fire house - but no one was there! While I wandered sadly around the firehouse looking for water, a nice lady and her son pulled up in an SUV and started setting up the rest stop. I filled my water bottles, ate a banana and was on my way, cycling through downtown Union Bridge and all the beautiful old houses.
The ride passed by the Marble Hill Quarry, where I'm sure they dig up many fine aggies, shooters and taws, and there were lots of cows to moo at. I was still keeping a decent pace, and once again no one was manning next rest stop at the 36 mile mark. There was a High's convenience store across the street, so I created my own rest stop by buying some Vitamin Water and some Fig Neutrons.
At the 45 mile mark, my various body parts started doing some peer-to-peer communication: Rear end: "OK, he must be almost done. I'll send him a few signals to remind him" Legs: "Yeah, we'll join in." At the 48 mile mark it started to rain, first lightly - but then steadily. I pulled in to the last rest stop in New Windsor at the 51 mile mark, and all the body parts said "OK, he got the signals" but I just quickly glugged some more water and a breakfast bar and hopped back on to minimize my time standing around in 56 degree rain.
The crowning glory of this ride is always about 2 miles from the end when you have to climb up Kate Wagner hill and all my body parts where going "What?? Really??" but I dropped down to my granny gear (the first time I had to talk to granny the entire ride,) told all the body parts to shut up and slogged up the hill at a whopping 6 mph. I made it back to the start and enjoyed a nice homemade lunch (with apple brown betty for dessert!) by the ride organizers. When I got home, the birthday party was in full swing, with 30 women in fancy tea dresses all talking at the top of their lungs. That drove me into the basement and the man cave radio room - after stealing some of the fine food Carole, Christine and Sue had put together.
The next day Carl and I decided to switch from biking season to hiking season, and also combine a hike with some ham radio action. We hiked on the Appalachian Trail from the Reno Monument area up to Lamb's Knoll, which is recognized as a "summit" by the Summits on the Air organization, with the catchy name of W3/WE-007. Carl carried the K1 transceiver he built, his portable drill battery, a 20m dipole, feed line, a German straight key and some string. I carried a Vibroplex paddle, keying cable and the all important Blackberry for announcing our activation on the SOTA web site.
After about a three mile hike were were at the summit, found a small clearing and started setting up. I threw rocks into a few trees and in short order we had the dipole at a whopping 10 feet up in the air - there just wasn't a good spot to go higher. We powered up and in short order talked to hams in Minnesota, Indiana, New Mexico, Oregon, Albert CA and Russia. The K1 is an amazing rig.
We then took everything down (take only memories, leave only footprints) and hiked another .5 miles south on the AT to take in the official view, then hiked the three miles back to Carl's car. A great way to combine exercise and radio nerd-dom.
