Biking and Hiking and Kayaking: Be Careful Out There

Hiking and Biking, and Not So Much Boating

Even though global warming has thrown a number of weather events our way, Carl and I have gotten in a lot of hiking recently. One rain-threatened Sunday we did the venerable 5 mile loop that visits the 3 peaks of Sugarloaf Mountain. Carl brought along his shiny new Samsung Android 7' tablet with GPS, but we were unable to get a WiFi connection to have it download the topo map for Sugarloaf. But if we got bored and wanted to play Fruit Ninjas we were all set.

Lot's of people out on the mountain trying to beat the rain. On the final stretch back to the car we passed the oddly decorated tree shown above. The ornaments were used gift tags, old luggage tags, dry cleaning receipts, etc. Interesting but puzzling - were they trying to point out man's inhumanity to trees? Apparently this is new tradition at Sugarloaf - another hiker here has pictures of more elaborate decorations.

Carole and I managed to sneak in a 25 mile bike ride on the North Central Rail Trail, which is apparently now called the TCB trail - either because of sponsorship by some national frozen yogurt chain or in honor of former Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources secretary Torey C. Brown, who knows. A very nice middle of the week ride - until we hit bumper to bumper day camper teens on balloon tire cruiser bikes clogging up the trail. A few hundred "On your Left! No, your other Left!"s and we made it past them and went up to the rattlesnake infested waterfall, turned around and went back to the start in Ashland. Which is where we noticed the statue of a bunny humping a bench - I guess symbolizing rabbits inhumanity to concrete structures.

We closed out the morning with a great lunch at one of our favorite places in Timonium, the Baltimore Coffee and Tea Company.

Carl and I followed that up with something I haven't done in over 15 years - we drove down to Shenandoah National Park and hiked on the Appalachian Trail and some side trails. First we went up Compton Peak, at about 2900 feet in elevation with right purty views.

Being radio nerds, there is only so much scenery viewing you can do before you get out the slingshot, put wire antennas in the trees, connect Carl's Elecraft K1 to the antennas and Carl's drill battery and start sending Morse Code cries for attention out into the ether. Our antenna was only 15 feet up and we were not loud - and we had no cellphone connectivity to announce our operation at the Summits on the Air Watch site. But we perservered and eventually made contacts with hams in Oregon, Califormia, Saskatchewan, Minnesota and other places.

From there we drove further south on Skyline Drive and did a short hike up to the top (3300 feet)  of Mount Marshall, locally known as Mount Moron for some reasons. More great views, then we turned around and drove 120 miles back to Frederick, Maryland. Shenendoah National Park is a phenomenal place to hike but it is harder these days to justify 8 gallons of gas for the roundtrip...

Carole and I did get out on the boat and explored Whitehall Bay and Whitehall Creek, looking for Cantler's seafood restaurant. But it turned out Cantler's outfoxed us by hiding on Mill Creek until we left. That was supposed to be followed up by the first annual Radio Nerd Raft-up where 11 of us spread across our boat and the Makowski's boat would head out for a three hour tour and then anchor and consume mass quantities of radio nerd wife produced vittles. However, the weather didn't cooperate so it turned into doing the exact same thing but replacing the boats with Mike and Kathy's house.

Which turns out might have been a good thing - apparently at our marina a boat owner left candles burning in the boat, which overnight caused a conflagration damaging several boats and some dock spaces. Luckily our boats were safe in their little boatel shelves. Details here.

Yes, But Can He Receive Morse Code at 35 Words per Minute??

Angering the Cycling Gods at the Cumberland Valley Century Ride

I did the Cumberland Valley Cycling club ride  out near Hagerstown on Sunday. I've done this ride a dozen times over the past 25 years but they have changed the course and this one kicked my butt. Set out to do the metric century, 64 miles. First, at the start they had no bagels/bananas/powerbars, etc - just coffee and water/Gatorade. I said OK, I had already made a traditional 7-11 coffee and muffin stop on the 60 mile drive out the the ride, and I had a granola bar in my bag and ate that. The first rest stop would be at the 20 mile mark, I would grab something there. Bad move.

The course marking was pretty good and the first 20 mile stretch was rolling hills in fantastic weaither - temps in the 70s, partly cloudy after a rain storm and front had moved through giving us a temporary break from global warming. At the 20 mile mark, the markings said turn left at a stoplight intersection at a Sheetz near Williamsport. I was following a few other cyclists, including two women with long ponytails and that Olympic Volleyball player style of multiple hair thingies. I was contemplating why that was so attractive when  we all turned left and continued on. I stopped seeing any markings but kept following those ponytails straight down the road - until we hit the dead end, oops.

There is probably some Jason/Argonauts/Sirens lesson to be learned there, but I just turned around, retraced the road - and at a cross road saw cyclists going east, and markings on that cross road. Turned left onto that crossroad, and found I had bypassed the rest stop in the confusion. Turns out the rest stop was right *before* the turn, which is sort of like saying "cut the red wire *after* you cut the blue wire" in bomb defusing instructions...

I've been doing 35 mile rides without a stop, so figured, OK, will just keep going, cloudy skies/rolling hills meant I wasn't sweating that much, and could live on one water bottle. The cycling gods don’t like that kind of attitude, any more than the car driving gods like it when you scoff at them after the picture of a gas tank lights up on your dashboard and you say "Feh - I can get to where I'm going and back with what is left in the tank."

Unfortunately, the sun came out and the route turned into sharp, steep, momentum robbing up and downs. I remember this stretch from many years ago and it included what I call "antigravity sections" - stretches of road that look level or even slightly downhill, but are actually going uphill. Psychologically, this is very damaging - you think you are bonking - but I think it just where the road grade and the terrain grade cause an optical illusion.  Each state has these hautnted downhill sections where tennis balls roll uphill...

This included going through the Antietam battlefield, very scenic with many  random historical markers: "Tom McFee sheltered his horse here"; "General Farnesworth Vanderlay beat Colonel Angus McCrangus at checkers here"  etc. Interesting reading but two problems: (1) over steep hill and dale is the norm; and (2) they couldn't spray paint course markers on the road in the Battlefield, so they put up cardboard signs on stakes that weren't very visible - much route retracing here.

I ran out of water at 40 miles and kept thinking I would be coming back to the start soon, as the start would serve as the second rest stop. Hit Keedysville and thought about hitting a grocery store for water but figured nah. A few miles went by and hit Boonesboro and said nah - then with 47 miles on the clock the route started to head straight uphill and I regretted both of those "nahs." Saw some woman in her carport with her dog, and stopped and asked if I could fill my water bottle from her hose. She said "even my dog won't drink that water" and she went in and filled my bottle with some ice cold filtered water - ahh...

I said thanks and started up again and emptied that bottle in a few miles. By now I was at 48 miles, but remembered this stretch as being the climb before a nice downhill to the San Mar facility that was the start and rest stop. This was a steep stretch - I  had to talk to granny (shift to my eensy beensy front sprocket known as a granny gear) here for the first time in the ride. Coming the other way was a cyclist who had passed me earlier - he missed the first rest stop, had also ran out of water, had lost hope that one was near and was heading back to Boonesboro. I convinced him we were almost there, and two miles later we reached San Mar.

It was set up for a very nice lunch (barbecue pork/chicken, chips, pasta salad, ice cream) but this was actually supposed to be the 2nd rest stop before the final 17 mile loop for the metric century - I was expecting bagels, fig neutrons, bananas, etc. I've never been big on a big meal and then hopping back on the bike. Had a sandwich and some pasta salad and lost my enthusiasm for getting back on the bike - closed out the day at 50 miles.

Still a great ride with lots of scenic views, low traffic roads, many historical buildings but next year I will make sure to carry more water and food as offerings to the bike gods.

A Weekend of Biking and BREASTS

I've been biking on the Rock Creek Bike Path since I first moved to Maryland in 1978. The addition of the Capital Crescent Trail  makes for a nice 25 mile or so loop that I extend to about 35 by starting further north in Kensington. Even in the worst of DC-area summer weather yuckiness, an early morning start on this mostly shady route is a great ride with a variety of scenery.

Now, I've blogged in the past that the sports bra has taken away one of the more enjoyable types of scenery, as oncoming female cyclists and runners now deploy SSS (Secure Sheaths of Spandex) to disrupt the VVV (Valleys of Vicarious Viewing) that once lead to CCC (Cavorting Cornucopias of Cleavage). This past weekend, most of the female runners were wearing Teams In Training t-shirts, as they are training for their first marathon. I had to continually navigate around clumps of these women on the CCT, and rather than use the crude acronym that Teams In Training suggest, I began to think of them as Beginner Runners Enthusiastically Attempting Serious Training, Seriously.

Once I reached Bethesda there were no more BREASTS around, so I was able to increase my speed and finish with a 17mph average, pretty good for me. I always keep score: I lose a point every time an older, fatter biker on a cheaper bike passes me and I gain a point every time I pass a younger, skinnier biker on a more expensive bike. I ended up +2 on this loop, as I blew a way a group of 4 "all hat, no cattle" riders all decked out in Tour de France outfits on lighter than air bikes.

 It turns out there was another connection between Bethesda and BREASTS, however:

Carole and I went to see "The Queen of Versailles" at the Bethesda Row movie theater over the weekend. If you are ever feeling bad about yourself, go see this documentary about these mega-rich idiots and you will start feeling much, much better.

Fete for the US Women Olympic Rowers, Feh for Badmintoners

This picture makes me miss playing team sports. The US Women's Olympic rowing team won the Gold medal , and in this picture you can see the range from total exhaustion to celebration by a team of people who worked together and gave it their all.

It doesn't get any better than that - I would gladly pay a lot extra for an Olympics TV service that only showed me moments like that, and filtered out badminton birdie bashers taking dives, or anything with judges scoring things - or any event where the athletes look more relieved to not have screwed up than  exultant in having really competed at their best.