This weekend was beautiful; (where) did you ride?

[Kitty]

With the multi-day treat of thunderstorms, and a bit of relief from the worst of the heat and humidity of the past week, Saturday and Sunday were lovely?

I imagine many of us did what we do on most weekends (or days for that matter) and got on a bike. Where did you go? :confused:

I’d planned for this weekend to be a “recovery” ride after Tour de Fredrick, though fortunately I wasn’t sore any more by late week. Regardless on Saturday morning I did “leisurely” C&O ride from Rosslyn to Great Falls and back, which I still found myself racing on because 10 mph is weird to me. I closed out the 30 mile loop with a stop at the Farmers Market in Courthouse. Its been my habit to end Saturday rides there, but with the distances I’d bee training over the past month+ I hadn’t gone in a while. It was fun to see how many things have some into season!

Yesterday I hadn’t planned on riding 20 miles. I just sort of happened. I was on a quest to find root beer beer, which our local Safeway had, but ran out of before we could get it–so I rode to 3 different Safeways. (No dice in the end ) Then I needed to go shoe shopping and figured biking to G-town would be fastest… when they didn’t have what I needed I biked to Pentagon City… and so on.

So if you happened across a women on the trails with a single pannier grocery bag in church clothes, that was me!

What adventures did you have?

Topic

[mstone]

@ursus 122737 wrote:

You can ride up the Dry Mill Road hill instead.

I remember the first time I rode out to purcellville hitting that hill on the W&OD, and thinking WTF right before just about falling over. Good times.

[Oldtowner]

@Rod Smith 122744 wrote:

Saturday 168 miles most without rear shift cable. Over 10,000 feet of descending. Included a baker’s half dozen gravel roads; Sugarloaf Mountain Road, Peters, Poffenberger, Bennies Hill, Quarter Folly, Featherbed and Clover Hill. Three mountains, Sugarloaf, Catoctin (via Mountville Rd. plus Mar Lu Ridge Rd.), and South Mountain via Arnoldstown to Gathland. This ride put me in the top 60 in the National Bike Challenge and within 150 points of first place for the State of Maryland.

Sunday, no ride. Ended my streak of Sunday centuries at 14, dropped about ten places in the NBC and back to 200 points behind Brad Francisco.

I am humbled by this report. I lost my rear shift cable on Sunday! What a nuisance on such a glorious day! My response to the problem was far less commendable.

I was doing MoCo, River Rd, Falls Rd, etc. – that’s some great riding over there. I tried to jerry rig it, but just couldn’t keep it the chain off the small cog. My knees would strenuously object to riding 30 miles home in that gear. Had to call for SAG support (wife) because it was too early for any other options.

[Rod Smith]

If I had a wife that would have been my call too.

[Rod Smith]

@Oldtowner 122748 wrote:

I am humbled by this report. I lost my rear shift cable on Sunday! What a nuisance on such a glorious day! My response to the problem was far less commendable.

I was doing MoCo, River Rd, Falls Rd, etc. – that’s some great riding over there. I tried to jerry rig it, but just couldn’t keep it the chain off the small cog. My knees would strenuously object to riding 30 miles home in that gear. Had to call for SAG support (wife) because it was too early for any other options.

That’s right near where mine broke, River Road. The planned route didn’t include Poolesville but I knew a bike shop there. I turned the high limit screw all the way in which got me the third smallest cog. I rode 15 miles, then the mechanic cannot get the nub out of the shifter pod, so I stuck a small piece of gravel in the parallelogram to force it into the fifth smallest cog but I think the stone shifted because it was on the third one again the first time I checked, 80 miles later. So I was on a 16 cog with nice 26/36/46 triple. Still I almost died on some of the short steep pitches. The longer climbs were more gradual.

[Rod Smith]

@mstone 122746 wrote:

I remember the first time I rode out to purcellville hitting that hill on the W&OD, and thinking WTF right before just about falling over. Good times.

That’s where the WO&D crosses Catoctin Mountain, at Clark’s Gap. I kinda like that switchback. No I love it! I hope they leave it, to provide access to Dry Mill. That’s a nice turn around. The descent from Clark’s Gap on Dry Mill is fun.

[PotomacCyclist]

I swam outside for the first time this year. But sadly, I did not bike, except a brief recovery ride on CaBi after a long run. I just haven’t gotten into gear at all this year (except for mapping bike racks for RackSpotter).

[Kitty]

I’m go glad I brought this up! Such fantastic inspiration from folks doing but crazy feats and errends like me! (Also some great tips on the Root Beer Beer–which sounds as polarizing as the concept suggests. I want to make floats…)

@ginacico 122712 wrote:

Vaya needed a bath this morning to rinse off the towpath dust.

Same! Only going as far as Great Falls required a good rinse down of the bike, water bottle, everything! Thank goodness I discovered a random hose in our apartment’s garage…

@consularrider 122713 wrote:

Three day weekend in Kyiv (Ukraine Independence Day) and beautiful weather here too. Photos from Sunday and Monday rides are posted in the photos thread. Also rode a west loop on Saturday, a 300 km weekend.

Sir, you are living my dream. Someday I will make it through the FSO process and when I do, I see “worldwide availability” as a wonderful opportunity to bike in new places.

@Rod Smith 122744 wrote:

Saturday 168 miles most without rear shift cable. Over 10,000 feet of descending. Included a baker’s half dozen gravel roads; Sugarloaf Mountain Road, Peters, Poffenberger, Bennies Hill, Quarter Folly, Featherbed and Clover Hill. Three mountains, Sugarloaf, Catoctin (via Mountville Rd. plus Mar Lu Ridge Rd.), and South Mountain via Arnoldstown to Gathland. This ride put me in the top 60 in the National Bike Challenge and within 150 points of first place for the State of Maryland.

Sunday, no ride. Ended my streak of Sunday centuries at 14, dropped about ten places in the NBC and back to 200 points behind Brad Francisco.

Annnd officially, you win the weekend. 😎

[Author]

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