A challenging day

August 17, 2023

But not a bad one, really

YEARS AGO a local-to-the-DC-area cycling magazine published as its cover article a piece about touring, titled "From Adversity to Adventure, In Two Beers and a Shower". I'm pretty sure you'll understand, and need no further explanation or amplification.

Now that I'm off the road for the day and showered, with tent set up, gear unloaded, and most of the housekeeping seen to, the only thing missing is those two beers. Since I'm staying in a PA State Park, where alcohol is specifically forbidden, they'll have to stay missing at least for today.

But no matter: it's a lovely pleasant afternoon, my campsite's nicely shaded, and as yet there aren't overly many neighbors although I won't have the same degree of solitude I so enjoyed yesterday. I'm in the very same campsite I selected in May of last year, when I used the Park as an overnight stop on my abortive training tour.

Backtracking to the start of the day, today's ride is spiced up with a couple pretty tough climbs. Tough enough, in fact, that I feel no shame or compunction about dismounting and proceeding on foot in a number of places.

Too much for me, especially early in the day. I'll walk for a while, thanks.

When even that strategy requires rest (pant, gasp, and wheeze) halts at intervals ranging from a quarter mile to a hundred feet (I kid you not: there are stretches where a hundred feet at a time are all I feel like managing), progress will be slow. How slow, you ask? How about covering the first ten miles in two hours, to set the tone for the day. In those ten miles I climb about 1,200 feet but of course not all at once and not continuously.

Thankfully the roads I'm on are mostly shaded and nearly devoid of traffic, leaving me alone with my thoughts. The shade keeps the temperature down, which is good as the forecast calls for a high in the upper 80s.

Photos always diminish the steepness of a grade, but I'm holding the camera basically level here so you can get some sense of it.

In between the hills, the road either rises and falls gently, or plunges precipitously down so steeply that I go from five miles an hour to thirty five in a matter of a few seconds, without turning the crank even once. On one, I reach 42 miles an hour before crying "Enough!" and applying the brakes.

Scenery at one of my momentary resting points.

A snag stands out against the faultless blue of the sky.

Continuing yesterday's theme of road work, one stretch of road, about a mile long, has had its chip/seal surface renewed recently. I can smell the oil beneath the pressed and rolled gravel surface, and there's s a sign announcing "Loose Gravel" right at the point where I turn onto it.

That puts me on my guard and extra cautious. Evidently though, there's been enough traffic to tamp the stuff down, and maybe some heavy rains to wash away the excess. In any event, I don't find my way into heavy thick deposits anywhere along it, and emerge unscathed at the far end.

The Lutheran Church on Foxville Church Road stands at the crest of a short but steep little rise, making it a perfectly-placed opportunity for a photo-and-rest break.

There have been a few restorations over the years.

A happy thought in the flower garden at the front corner of the church.

A few miles down the road, the Methodists get equal time. I find simple wood frame country churches such as this to be very attractive.

Entering the Pen-Mar area near the MD/PA state line, I find a large tract of land with a number of identical buildings on it. It looks very governmental, like a military post of some sort, but the surrounding chain link fence is adorned with signs declaring it to be private property. After a moment's internet research I find the answer: it's Historic Fort Ritchie, established first as a private-enterprise ice company in the 1880s and later converted to use as a military base in the first part of the 20th century. It was subsequently closed and sold off years later as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) that consolidates and reduces the number of posts that the various branches of the service must operate and maintain. It's been sold off to a private entrepreneur and is now being redeveloped with an eye to incorporating new business and attractions into the historic grounds.

I don't think this was part of the original ice house operation, but it's in definite need of either serious restoration, or demolition.

Some of the small homes that housed troops. Much more attractive than other Army barracks buildings I've seen.

I hadn't expected to cross the AT on this trip, mostly because I wasn't thinking about it. I'll re-cross it later in the day, and stay to the east of it for the rest of the trip.

Having set off at about 8:15, I reach Rouzerville PA about 11 and decide it's lunchtime. By this time I've covered the princely sum of 14.5 miles or so- almost halfway through my planned route, and with most (but not all) of the heavy climbing done for the day.

While there, another customer strikes up a conversation about what I'm doing. After a bit he asks, somewhat hesitantly, whether I carry "protection" when out touring. My first impulse is to tell him that I'm far past the age where amorous hook-ups with random strangers might conceivably occur, so there's no need for it. Instead, though, I simply say I don't see the need. I omit to mention that I really don't think it would help and might in fact seriously complicate matters.

Even after my lunch break I can tell there's not a lot of vigor left in my legs so what hills there are continue to see the soles of my bike shoes at whiles, in a case of walk-or-hurt-myself. It seems sometimes, as I trudge along staring down at the GPS (displaying the elevation profile) and cyclometer, that they must've somehow become frozen because their rate of change is so slow. But gradually, gradually, I can see progress being made.

Progress is sometimes so slow that the Garmin stops tracking it, until I remount and speed up. I'm not *really* climbing vertical walls, it just looks that way.

And then it happens. I reach the top of the final climb, with about five miles left to ride. Those five miles are absolutely, stupendously glorious. The road slants down, sometimes rather steeply, over the entire distance. It has recently been repaved, helping rekindle my love affair with new asphalt.

Following the road through a series of graceful, gentle chicanes I swoop and roll effortlessly downhill, hitting speeds well into the 30s (nearly 40 at one point) and never below 17. I encounter no cars the whole way except for an oncoming group being held by a road crew flagman at one of a few short work areas. He's seen me coming and held the oncoming traffic for me, in order that I might safely negotiate a stretch of one-lane road with work in progress on their side. FUN!

Now it's dinnertime. I dine to the noise of traffic on U.S. 30, a bit down the hill from the campsite, and then generally wind down and relax until it's time to turn in for the night.

It wasn't only the Garmin that had trouble with my slow pace, apparently. Ride With GPS evidently got tired of my molasses-in-January pace and stopped watching me for a while. I didn't really ride off the edge of an enormous cliff.

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31 miles.

Total for the mini tour: 69 miles

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