May 16, 2012
Hancock, MD to Thurmont, MD:
From here? On a bike?
The first 11 miles out of Hancock were on a shady rail trail. Maryland rural roads were beautiful all the way through Clearspring and on into Hagerstown on route 40 which is designated as a bike route. Although there was a lot of vehicular traffic, for the most part we had a wide shoulder to ourselves. The bike route improvements to route 40 must be of recent vintage because it is not listed as a bike route on our Maryland bike route map. There was a bike route designated right into downtown Hagerstown. We asked directions from a bike cop and were directed to a small park where we could eat lunch. It had been the site of the Washington hotel where John Brown stayed on his way to his famous raid in Harpers Ferry.
The bicycle cop suggested we contact Cunningham Falls State Park (adjacent to Camp David) to make sure the road across South Mountain was not closed because of the G-8 summit this weekend. An employee at the Park cautioned us to not bicycle on the road because there were lane closures and some of the security people were already in place along the route. She said she had a hard time driving the road that morning. Unfortunately, we didn't have any other options for getting across South Mountain, so we decided to go for it. We saw several signs announcing the road closure beginning Friday (today is Wednesday) but did not see a single lane closure or for that matter any police or emergency vehicles. The climb up the west side was steep and curvy, not pleasant. For some reason the east bound lane didn't have any shoulder while in many places there was a shoulder in the west bound lane. We just slipped over and churned up the hill safely on the left shoulder in first gear. At the top we were running low on water and were not sure how many more climbs we would face on the way to Thurmont. We stopped at a church parsonage at the top of the climb and asked the woman for some water. She was the pastor's wife and they were in the process of making "no parking" signs for the church property because the parking lot was the only location on the hill with sufficient room to turn around and they feared disruption during the G-8 Summit. They seemed like they were supportive of the community, and in fact had not put the signs up until the public school bus used the parking lot to turn around that day, and they certainly were happy to fill our water bottles. She told us one time a church member constructed an amusement park type of circular ride behind the church, apparently part of a church fun fair. Suddenly, a big black helicopter hovered over the church taking a close look. They learned later one of their church members (who was a law enforcement person) was questioned about what the device was. The helicopter people were making sure it was not a missile launcher. As we left, the Pastor and teenage son asked the woman where we were going. We couldn't hear her voice, but heard him exclaim, "From here, on a bike?" We had only one more short climb, then an 8 mile downhill through Cunningham State Park into Thurmont. The (eastbound) downhill through the park was wonderful.
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***Editor's note: Still no sign of Rhona in today's pictures. I swear she is here and an active participant in the tour.
Today's ride: 80 miles (129 km)
Total: 148 miles (238 km)
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