Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Category: Biking

  • Shore Leave 2025

    Shore Leave 2025

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    Just a few quick notes about biking, paddling, and running at Bethany this summer, and some potential plans for next year. We brought the 12′ touring kayak and the ISUP to the beach this year, as well as the usual road bikes. The first part of the week was extremely hot, followed by a day or two of normal summer beach weather, and then an overcast and breezy day on Friday.

    On Monday morning, I kicked the week off with a 7-mile run along what has become my “usual” Bethany running route: south on Kent Ave, west on Muddy Neck Rd, north on West Ave or Woodland Ave to Central Ave (via Daisey Ave), east on Fred Hudson Rd to Coastal Highway, and then back south to Bethany. It’s not perfect, as it lacks shade in spots, has a few busy road crossings, and also has a couple of “choke points” with narrow shoulders and heavy traffic. There’s also nowhere to refill a water bottle along the way. However, it’s a nice loop that gets me 7+ miles with no doubling back needed (rare in coastal areas), and tends not to be too crowded with walkers and casual bikers, which is also a plus in a resort town in the summer.

    On Tuesday morning, I rode my bike south to the Ocean City, MD inlet. I’ve ridden from Bethany to O.C. and back several times, but this was the first time I had ever ridden all the way to the inlet. The final mile or two of Coastal Highway prior to the inlet lacks bike lanes, but riding on the boardwalk is allowed until noon, though it can get crowded. There are various alleyways that run parallel to the highway on the ocean side, and some back roads with bike lanes on the bay side, but nothing contiguous on either side. This part of the ride was slow going, as I hopped around trying to find the best route. I also stopped to find several geocaches. North of the boardwalk, things went faster, as there’s a wide shoulder for bikes and buses only, with only the traffic lights occasionally slowing me down. In the heat and humidity, the best strategy for dealing with lights is to slow down far in advance of a red light, and try to avoid coming to a complete stop before the light turns green. If stopping is unavoidable, try to stop in the shade. Due to the heat and the slow progress through O.C., this ride felt longer than its actual distance of 32 miles. I was definitely dragging a bit for the final 5 miles or so.

    Wednesday morning, I got on the bike for a second consecutive day for an unplanned ride to Selbyville/Fenwick, and briefly crossed into Maryland for a geocaching first-to-find. On my way south, I took an inland route, which I enjoy, because it gets me out of beach traffic and into Delaware farm country (although there are a few busy stretches here and there). I then retraced my steps back north on Coastal Highway to Bethany. Compared to Tuesday, this ride was a breeze. The temperature was several degrees cooler, the ride was 8 miles shorter, and I didn’t have to stop as often.

    Thursday was my first time in the kayak. I put in at the Kent Ave launch at the early hour of 6:45am and paddled south on the canal, into Assawoman Bay, and southwest to Sassafras Landing, where I briefly took out and made a slightly ill-advised trek into the bug-laden woods to find an old geocache that was hidden in 2007. I had come prepared, with permethrin-treated clothing and plenty of DEET on my skin, and as a result, the ticks and skeeters left me alone. The horseflies, on the other hand, were merciless. Fortunately, it didn’t take me too long to find the cache. It had been on my to-do list for several years, so I was happy to find it. I had the sun in my eyes for the paddle back to the launch, and it was starting to warm up, but there was enough of a breeze to keep things tolerable. It is always fun navigating around the marsh grasses that grow in these tidal bays. It’s easy to make a wrong turn and end up at a dead end. This was mainly an issue on the way back to the launch, where I had to be careful not to turn back toward the canal too early. In this area, there are a number of man-made objects (duck blinds, crab pot floats, the pavilion at Strawberry Landing, etc) which I was able to use as navigational aids.

    Initially, we had been planning to paddle at Millsboro Pond on Friday morning, but gusty winds forced us to postpone that until Saturday. Instead, I took advantage of the overcast skies and low-70s temperatures to go running. I think it was probably the most favorable running weather I’ve ever had in Bethany, although I was still rather sweaty at the end. The only absolute certainty at the shore in the summertime is that it will be humid, whether it’s cool or warm, cloudy or sunny.

    Saturday morning, my son and I made it to Millsboro Pond for the paddle that had been planned for Friday. It was much less windy than Friday, but still mostly cloudy to overcast, which made for really nice paddling conditions. This was my third time paddling here, and my first in two years. The traffic getting to and from Millsboro from Bethany can be annoying, but this is a great place to paddle, and worth the drive, as I wrote back in 2023. As we found out today, it’s also a great place for stand-up paddleboarding. Today’s featured wildlife sighting was a bald eagle, which a smaller bird appeared to be chasing. There was also the usual bevy of turtles, herons, geese, damselflies, and various other birds and insects. I typically find it boring to paddle on large flatwater lakes and ponds, but Millsboro Pond is an exception to that rule. I’ll definitely be back.

    That about wraps up 2025’s beach trip. Here are a few ideas for things to do in 2026.

    • I’d like to paddle the entire length of the Assawoman Canal at some point. Depending on what you consider to be the beginning and end, this can range from 6 to 8 miles round-trip.
    • I’m kicking around the idea of paddling somewhere around Burton Island. There’s a cache at the south end of the island, but I’m not sure if it’s easily accessible from the water. All the same, there are a couple of nice water trails there around Delaware Seashore State Park. If I ever buy a sea kayak, there’s fairly easy access to the ocean from that area via the Indian River Inlet.
    • A return to Millsboro Pond may be in the cards.
    • As far as biking goes, I’ve found most of the bikeable caches further inland, so I’ll probably end up heading north to Rehoboth again, as I didn’t get there this year. I’d love to have some new caches to find around Roxana, Frankford, and/or Selbyville, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed that someone decides to hide a few.
  • New Tires

    New Tires

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    My trusty Surly Disc Trucker had been out of commission for about a month due to a flat rear tire. Normally, a flat wouldn’t result in that much downtime, but I was out of patches, and didn’t have any spare tubes to fit. The two tubes I had that were the correct size had Schrader valves, and I’m thinking I must have bought them by mistake, since I don’t have any bikes with 700C wheels that use Schrader valves. (I forgot that those tubes fit Cathy’s bike!) On top of that, I needed new tires, as my trusty Continental Ride Tours were worn down and starting to dry rot. After initially ordering the wrong size tires by mistake, I finally got the bike road-worthy again for this morning’s commute. The new tires are Schwalbe Marathons. I’ve been really happy with the now 14-year-old Marathon Winter studded tires on my 26″ winter bike, so I have high hopes that these will be just as good. They’re a tiny bit beefier than the Contis, and I had to slightly adjust my front fender to keep it from rubbing (the issue was the studs that attach the fender to the strut). The tires seem to ride pretty well, and it’s possible they’ll be a little smoother on gravel than the Contis, due to the extra width. I’ll be mainly riding them on pavement, though. Now, I need to go online somewhere and order a whole bunch of patches, as I have a huge pile of leaky tubes waiting to be patched.

  • Winter Biking Update

    Winter Biking Update

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    It has been a very slow winter for biking. Sub-optimal trail conditions kept me off the MTB for most of January and February. I tried to ride last week after about 48 hours of above-freezing temperatures, but the trails were still extremely muddy from the freeze-thaw cycle — about the worst I had ever seen them, actually. That ride ended up being more of a hike-a-bike, as I tried to sidestep the muddy sections to avoid creating ruts. After slogging through PVSP Avalon on the Howard County side, I bailed out and rode the rest of the way to work on pavement. This morning, however, was a different story. We are in the midst of an early-March cold snap, and the past two nights have bottomed out in the low to mid 20s. The trails were nicely frozen, and I had a very nice 10.5-mile ride. There were lots of areas of frozen mud, with deep ruts from people who had ridden/hiked the trails while they were muddy, and it was easy to see the problem areas based on where the sun was starting to hit them. The window stayed open for my entire commute to work, though. I’ll have to ride home on pavement, which is not much fun on a full-suspension mountain bike, but I’m willing to pay that price for a nice morning trail ride.

    I’ve been commuting to work about once a week, mainly on roads, and mainly with my old 1993 Specialized Rockhopper, which has seen (relatively speaking) a lot of use this winter. My Surly has been out of commission for a month or so with a flat rear tire, because I didn’t have the right size tubes for it, nor did I have any patches. I’ve got tubes now, but I decided it was time to replace the tires as well, so those are on order. I’m probably going to order a sheet of 40 or 50 patches online somewhere, which seems like it should be more cost-effective than ordering those small patch kits. I don’t think I’ve ever patched a tire on the road (I typically either carry a spare tube or call for a ride), but even if I decided to start, I could just use the bulk patches to refill one of my patch kits.

    I ordered a bunch of new bike-specific water bottles last month. The Camelbak Podiums I had been were pushing 15 years old, and getting really beat-up and grungy. I went with Bivo water bottles, and ordered 4 of them in a mix of large, small, insulated, non-insulated, silicone-coated, and bare metal finish. I’m hoping that the insulated bottles, as well as keeping water cool in the summer, will keep it from freezing when it’s in the teens and low 20s. I do really like how the valve works with them. I found out rather quickly that the bare metal bottles do not work well with metal water bottle cages, though. I’m likely going to end up replacing some of my metal cages with plastic. The bottles do fit nicely in my waist-belt water bottle holder (one of my better impulse purchases) as well as the side pocket of my Osprey Manta, which I often use for MTB commuting in the winter. Overall, I like the bottles, and I’m hoping they’ll work out well.

  • Ride Notes

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    After an aborted attempt last week, I “rode” my hard-tail MTB to work today. I put “rode” in quotes because I ended up hiking about half of it. Last week, it was a little too soon after the snow fell, and there was too much deep snow for me to want to deal with. Today was better, but I think I waited a little too long. About 50% of the trails were well-groomed and fun to ride, but the rest was icy from snow melting and re-freezing. Everything was packed down very well, and I was thinking to myself that studded tires would have worked really well in these conditions. Alas, I do not have a set of studded tires to fit a 29er mountain bike. Maybe I should get a pair, but I’d likely only use them a couple of days per year, so I’m not sure it would be worth the expense and the effort to mount/remove the tires every year.

    More notes about the ride:

    • Weather: around 20ºF, light wind, sunny
    • Clothes I wore: Minus 33 merino wool short-sleeve shirt, regular long-sleeve cycling jersey, Canari long-sleeve full-zip winter cycling jersey, Performance Triflex winter cycling pants, 2 pairs wool socks, Altra Lone Peak waterproof trail shoes with fleece insoles, Yaktrax cleats, REI balaclava, Gore Windstopper heavy cycling gloves, Bar Mitts

    This kept me nice and warm. As I’ve noted before, I stay a lot warmer riding in the woods than on roads, likely due to the slower speeds and the terrain/trees providing shelter from wind. I didn’t sweat much, either, and my clothes were mostly dry when I arrived at work. The Yaktrax provided great traction while walking over icy areas and crossing streams. However, I noticed later that they scraped a lot of paint off my pedals. Not ideal, but not the end of the world, and I have no regrets, as the cleats kept me upright (one of my primary goals nowadays). Due to the ice, the ride took 2 hours, which is a lot longer than I would prefer. All the same, I’m glad I was able to get out. I also like how clean the bike always seems to end up after a ride in the snow. Nothing at all like riding in dirt and mud!

  • Snow Commute

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    Today is my first work day of 2025. I took a little bit of extra time off during the holidays, and this week’s snowstorm delayed my return to work for 2 additional days. As a result, I hadn’t been to the office in 19 days. It’s nice to finally be out of the house again, but I enjoyed the time off. In the past, when I went to the office 5 days a week, I relied on bike commuting to stay physically active. During the long holiday break, I would start to go “stir crazy” because I wasn’t riding my bike, so I’d be ready and raring to go back to work after 10 days or so. Nowadays, I only commute 1 or 2 days a week, and I’ve transitioned to running as my primary form of exercise. I kept up my running throughout the break, so I never went “stir crazy”, and I was in no rush to go back to work. So, there you have it.

    Yesterday, around 24 hours after the snowfall wound down, I went out for a run. As I learned last year, two keys to successful running after snow are: (1) wait until late morning or early afternoon to allow the sun to work on the roads a little bit; and (2) find a low-traffic road instead of relying on sidewalks and paths (which often are plowed/treated inconsistently or not at all). I’m fortunate to have such a road near me, so I made a beeline for it and did laps until I hit 10K. As I’ve done several times this season, I wore Xero Mesa Trail Waterproof shoes with liner toe socks, Correct Toes, and wool hiking socks, and my feet stayed warm and dry. The shoes have broken in nicely, and I think they’re going to work out great for these conditions. There were a few icy spots along the route, but once I got used to running over them, I felt fairly comfortable. The “ground feel” that minimalist shoes provide, combined with a correct gait, seem to help reduce the risk of slipping and falling on the ice.

    For my commute today, I started out on the hard tail mountain bike. I was figuring that enough MTBers would have been out on the trails by now to groom them pretty nicely, but I was wrong — the PVSP trails around Belmont were mostly footprints, with nary a tire track to be found, and it was not good riding at all. About 0.25 mile in, I turned around, went back home, grabbed my trusty 1993 Specialized Rockhopper, and hit the mean streets. I had not ridden the Rockhopper since last winter, and it was still outfitted with studded tires and Bar Mitts. All I had to do was put some air in the tires (had the bike not been ready to go, I likely would have ended up taking the car). The roads outside of PVSP were all plowed, salted, and good to go. In PVSP, the roads had maybe a quarter to half inch of snow covering them, with some ice in the areas where the snow had melted and re-frozen. The studded tires had no problem there, and I mostly sailed through at close to my regular speeds. All in all, a nice ride that brought back memories of my salad days of winter bike commuting.

  • MTB Deep Freeze

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    After attending an early-morning geocaching event, I arrived home wide awake at 6:45am, so I hit the PVSP trails for a mountain bike ride. Temperatures were in the upper teens to low 20s, but there wasn’t much wind. I started out on Belmont Trail and rode Morning Choice, Old Track Loop, Nacho, Garrett’s Pass, and Ridge Trail + CJS Extension on the Howard County side, plus Soapstone to Starstruck via Avalon Mill Race trail in Baltimore County. I saw 6 other hardy riders, 3 of whom were solo like me, and 3 in a group. As I was heading home in the eastbound direction on the Mill Race Trail, my rear tire went flat. Not sure what I hit, as I haven’t pulled it off and inspected it yet. But, I’m happy it didn’t happen earlier in the ride.

    For the ride, I wore a winter cycling jersey over a standard long-sleeve jersey over a 32° Heat synthetic long sleeve base layer shirt, long cycling pants, wool socks, Altra waterproof shoes with warming fleece insoles, Gore Bike Wear gloves, Bar Mitts, and medium-weight balaclava. My face was a little bit cold at the start of the ride, but I was perfectly comfortable once I got into the woods. As expected, the frozen trails were fantastic, and I rode through a few patches of frozen mud. Towards the end of the ride, some of the sunnier portions of trail were starting to thaw and get muddy.

    My winter biking gloves have lasted a long time. They are at least 10 years old, and showing their age, but I think they’ve got at least one winter left in them. One thing working in their favor is that I don’t wear them as often as I used to, because I usually can get away with lighter gloves with the Bar Mitts. The exceptions are days like today, when the temperatures are in the teens or below. They are well-made gloves, but I’ve never been crazy about the liners, as they are very difficult to put on when they are damp. That basically means that I can’t take them off during a ride unless I am prepared to either change into different gloves, or spend a lot of time fussing to get them back on. In all the time I’ve had them, though, that hasn’t been enough to deter me from wearing them for cold rides.

  • Back on the bike

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    After a great fall mountain biking season, December has started off slowly. Today’s ride to work was my first time on a bike in 3 weeks. My last commute was Nov 27, and my last bike/geocaching ride was Nov 24. Weather, health, and travel have been the culprits — the fall drought finally broke around the end of November, and now we are in freeze-thaw season, which makes mountain biking tougher. Wednesday is my usual day to ride in to the office, but the past few Wednesdays have been rainy. 10 or 15 years ago, that wouldn’t have stopped me, but nowadays, I’m more apt to just telecommute on rainy days. Last week, I was out of town, and the week before that, I had another cold. On top of that, this time of year, I tend to start eschewing geocaching by bike in favor of hiking. So, there you have it — kind of a perfect storm. I expect the trend will continue for a while. Today was likely my final bike commute of the year (though there’s a small chance I’ll ride in on Friday). We’ve got a cold snap coming up, so I might try to get out on the mountain bike at least one morning next week while the temperatures are below freezing. On the weekends, I’ll likely continue to favor hiking over riding, at least through December, but we’ll see. I’ve learned over the years that with everything going on during the holidays, it’s best to be flexible with planning these kinds of things.

  • MTB Season Again

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    I haven’t been doing much biking lately, outside of commuting to the office once or twice a week. My weekend biking/geocaching excursions have become fewer and farther between, due to a combination of busy schedule, running taking priority over biking, and lack of interesting caches being hidden within biking distance of home. I expect I’ll get out on a few more weekends this year, particularly with the pool now closed, which removes swimming as another exercise option. I’ve been splitting my commuting between road and mountain biking, with a strong preference for the latter. Every time I commute on roads, I wonder how I did it 3-4 times a week “back in the day” without going insane. It’s just a pain dealing with all of the annoying people who are out on the roads. Mountain biking is much more peaceful and enjoyable, though more so in the mornings when there are fewer people on the trails. Other than a week or two at the end of September, we’ve had great weather for mountain biking so far this fall. This morning was in the 40s and sunny, which is just about perfect. I’m taking advantage of it as much as I can, before we start getting hard freezes, which lead to muddy trails in the afternoons.

    One thing I’ve been rather unhappy about this year is my lack of kayaking during the second half of the season. I was really good about getting out in the spring, but haven’t been out since probably June. The brutally hot summer was the culprit early on. September and October are my favorite months of the year to kayak, but this year, schedule and transportation issues have been my undoing. I like to go out on weekday mornings, but I need a car to do that, and this year, my son has been taking the car to college most days. I’ll probably have to break down and go on a Saturday or Sunday morning if I want to get out before the season ends. I suspect that a drysuit is in my future at some point, as I’d love to keep paddling year-round. Not sure if that’s in the cards for this year or not, though.

  • Summer MTB Commute

    Summer MTB Commute

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    Historically, I have not done much mountain biking in the summertime. The main reason is that the slower speeds and shorter bursts of exertion tend to get me extra hot and sweaty. Conversely, with road biking, there’s a consistent cooling breeze from air resistance, and the amount of exertion is more uniform, allowing for better regulation of body heat. The other issue I have with mountain biking in the summertime, particularly commuting to work, is poison ivy. My usual route takes me through a few exposed areas where the trail is narrow, with dense growth on either side that includes poison ivy.

    It has always bugged me that there are so few days each year that I consider viable for commuting to work by MTB. In the winter, trails are frozen in the morning, but a muddy mess in the afternoon thanks to the freeze-thaw cycle. In spring, winter melt-off and rains make everything too muddy. Summer has the aforementioned issues of overheating and poison ivy. That leaves autumn as the only season where conditions are “ideal”, and now, it’s hard to ride in PVSP in the fall without getting coated in seeds from the wavyleaf basketgrass that is slowly taking over the entire watershed.

    I would really like to do more mountain biking, but if I’m not getting my MTB time in while commuting, it’s tough to fit it in along with other activities like paddling (which I’m looking to extend into the colder months eventually), climbing, road biking/geocaching, etc. It seems like the answer is to stop waiting for ideal mountain biking conditions, and learn to adapt, kind of like what I’ve done with my road bike commuting over the years. To that end, today is not a day I ordinarily would have chosen to commute by MTB. It started off in the mid-70s and humid, and there is a heat advisory for the afternoon (a near-daily occurrence lately). I suited up with my usual summer biking garb, including a double-thickness Sweathawg helmet liner (one of those things that I wonder how I got along without for so many years). I rode Belmont Trail, Garrett’s Pass, Grist Mill Trail, and Soapstone/Starstruck. The shortcut trail that connects Rolling Rd to UMBC Blvd always gets too overgrown in the summertime, so I avoided it, opting instead to ride Rolling Rd to Wilkens Ave and then into UMBC via Hilltop Rd. The route had a few miles of pavement to help cool me off, and avoided areas with large amounts of PI (with the exception of a short stretch of Belmont/Morning Choice). The trails were dry (but not too dry) and fast.

    On the way home, I usually enter the park via the Soapstone Trail, but the top of it is a veritable forest of poison ivy this time of year. Today, I think I’m going to try taking Foxhall Farm Rd to Vineyard Spring Trail. Another option would be to skip the Baltimore County side altogether, ride down Gun Rd, and enter the park at the railroad crossing. The former seems like it would be a better ride (other than the start along Wilkens Ave). It will be a lot hotter than this morning, so this will be a good litmus test of whether this will be a viable option in the summer. Another barrier to commuting in the summer is afternoon thunderstorms, but that hasn’t been an issue with the current heat wave, as it’s been exceptionally dry recently.

  • This and that

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    Yesterday, I participated in my first organized run in almost 22 years: the inaugural Open Gate Gallop. I ran the 8-mile route from the Guinness Brewery, into PVSP, out to the swinging bridge via the Grist Mill Trail, and back via River Road. It was a great time. As a long-time solo runner, it was interesting to run with so many other people. Even though it wasn’t a timed race, it was hard to resist trying to run fast. As a result, I clocked in at 9:25/mile, which I’m pretty sure is the fastest I’ve ever run any distance 10K or over. I’m not particularly competitive, but I like the fact that most of these runs support good causes, so I might try to do more of them. Last 4th of July, I was tossing around the idea of running in the Arbutus Firecracker 10K, but decided to find a geocache at the top of a pillar instead. If I don’t do something similar this year, the 10K might be fun.

    Today, I took my first Sunday morning bike ride in 3 weeks, a 30-miler to Odenton and back. Due to travel and bad weather, it was only my second or third bike ride in the past month or so. I do expect to pick up the weekend rides as we get into the warmer months. The wet weather this year has made for horrible mountain biking conditions, and there’s more bad weather on tap for the second half of this week, but I think I’m going to try to sneak in a mountain bike ride on Tuesday morning.

    Lastly, I didn’t have much time today to work on my pool pump replacement project, but I did get home in time to glue up the T-junction for the new suction piping. After due consideration, I decided to run each of the two vertical 1.5″ suction pipes directly into a 2-way Pentair valve, then into a 2″ elbow, and then into a single 2″ T fitting. The challenge was gluing everything together so that the T fitting ended up level, in spite of the suction pipes not being perfectly vertical. I think I managed to pull it off.