Holiday Break Ride Report

Maryland Awesomeness

The Friday after Christmas the temp was just far enough below freezing to make the trails at Fair Hill rideable. K-town, Dan Dix, BShow, our buddy Cory from Oregon, and I met at the Appleton Road parking lot at 9:00AM, pieced together enough singles to cover the out of state parking tariff (Thanks Dix), and headed out on the trails that we "know". That is to say we followed the first Fair Hill MASS race course, than attempted to navigate as much of the second Fair Hill MASS race course as we could remember until we got lost. Which was fine.

Each time we go to Fair Hill we go in full knowledge of the fact that at some point in the ride we will turn down a sweet section of single track that we "know" only to find out moments later that we are "lost". Most times we know exactly where we are just not how that particular trail relates to anywhere we've been or where we'd like to go. Which I suppose is the essence of being lost. And of course, whenever we get lost there's always as many opinions as riders as to how to get wherever it is we're "going". This particular Friday we opted to take an amalgam of the opinions at each unfamiliar trail head, banking on our collective trail "knowledge" to guide us back to the cars. It paid off...eventually.

Anyway, the first ~2.5 hours was filled with rolling, awesome, singletrack. Around 11:30AM the trails were beginning to thaw and we started to head out, which was difficult considering we had only a vague sense that the parking lot was somewhere behind us and slightly to the right. 45 minutes later K-town was in the midst of a full on bonk which is understandable since she fought to keep up with the boys (who were hauling for the better part of the day) against her better judgement for 20 something miles (Expert Women here she comes). 3.5 hours in we had found a familiar trail that would be a short 1-2 mile jaunt back to the parking lot , the trails were thawing (i.e., thawed), and we were beginning to flirt with our status as good trail stewards. When we all got back to the lot we were greeted with no less than 5 SUVs with 4 or 5 riders each just heading out. Apparently they hadn't gotten the memo (or been able to read the sign that prohibits riding in wet or soft conditions) about riding on wet trails only when they are frozen.

We finished off the ride with lunch from California Tortilla and Dunkin Donuts coffee. K-town stopped shaking from hunger and exhaustion half way through lunch and we headed home. Not a bad Christmas/Holiday ride. I only wish that winter would actually stick here in PA so that we could do it more.

Ronaldo