Tag: patapsco

That hit the spot

lpaulriddle

I celebrated the end of February with my first long morning ride in forever (well, since February 4, which might as well be forever).  I took New Cut Rd into Ellicott City, then rode along River Rd to the park entrance on Ilchester.  The trail still looked too snow-covered for road tires, so I doubled back, rode up Thistle Rd, then through Catonsville via Oella Ave, Old Frederick Rd, and Edmondson Ave, for a total distance of just over 16 miles.

It was great to get a longer ride in.  February was brutal.  I’m holding out hope that within the next two weeks or so, I’ll be able to ride through Patapsco State Park again.  It always seems to take forever for the snow to melt in the park, because it doesn’t get much sun, and the ground temperatures are lower near the water.  I could probably get through the park with a mountain or cross bike and maybe some studded tires.  I’ll see what I can do about that later this year.  In the meantime, I’ll be seeing a lot of Catonsville.

I am still riding with “Power Grips” toe straps.  I wasn’t sure about them at first, but after several rides, I’ve decided I really like them.  The “extra long” size easily fits my hiking boots.  They’re orders of magnitude easier to get strapped into than toe clips; I’d say they’re no worse in that department than my Looks.  Being that they’re straps, I don’t get quite the “clipped in” feel that I get with the Looks, and there’s some to-be-expected “give” when I pull up on the pedals.  But, they keep my feet on the pedals, and I feel comfortable with them at high cadences (read: going downhill on a fixie).  I have the straps set to the smallest setting, and in this position, the ends of the straps tend to scrape the ground when I turn.  This is not a huge deal, but if necessary, I can fix it by trimming the straps down a bit.  This problem would likely be less noticeable on a bike with a freewheel.  All in all, I’m happy with the Power Grips.

Perspective

lpaulriddle

Took my first post-Snowmageddon ride in this morning, and it wasn’t too bad.  I wanted to do it yesterday (Thursday), but on Wednesday I decided to go jogging for the first time in, oh, around 6 months.  Then on Wednesday evening, I ground out another 10 miles on the trainer.  So yesterday, the executive decision was made to rest my legs, as I knew I’d be feeling the run, and I’m not 25 any more.  But anyhow..

It’s interesting how being on the bike changes one’s perspective of the road vs. driving.  For some reason, the snow-narrowed roads look a lot less daunting from the bike than they do from the car.  I felt a lot more confident biking on the roads than I thought I would based on driving them the past few days.  It’s an interesting phenomenon, and it raises an interesting point: it’s a good idea to drive your bike routes every now and then in various conditions, as it helps provide a sense of how drivers see and react to you on the bike, which in turn helps you learn how to ride defensively and safely around them.

I decided to bypass US 1 and attempt to hike into Patapsco State Park via the Howard County side access road.  It was doable, but it wasn’t fun.  There was about a foot of snow on the road and not much of it was packed down.  I ended up half-carrying, half-dragging the bike through it, which was very slow going and tiring.  Even so, it still may be preferable to battling traffic on US 1, even for a short distance.  Not sure what I’ll do on the way home.  If I’m going to hike this on any regular basis, it might make sense to lighten the bike up as much as possible, and maybe use a backpack instead of a rack trunk and panniers.

This morning’s ride

lpaulriddle

Being that this may be my last ride for a week or so, considering the weather forecast, I decided I’d depart from February tradition and try to do a longer morning ride.  I took the fixed-gear and rode out to the park entrance at Ilchester Rd, but the Grist Mill Trail was still too snow-covered to attempt on road tires.  So instead, I rode up Thistle Rd. and through Catonsville via Oella Ave.  This is a hilly route and is not my favorite to do with only one gear, but I don’t have many other options for a longer ride when the park is snow-covered, and it’s still too wet to take my geared bike, which lacks fenders.  A mountain/cross bike with studded tires would really fit the bill here.  Maybe next winter..

The chain on the fixie was getting a little floppy, so last night I tightened it up.  I also remounted my back fender so that the front of it extends all the way down to the chainstays.  The bike doesn’t have a chainstay bridge, so I wrapped a zip tie around the stays and attached the fender with a second zip tie.  It actually stays in place better than I expected.  The back of the fender also fits better this way..  previously it extended down a little too far, and the tire was too close to the mud flap even with the struts adjusted out as far as they could go.  As a result, mud and other crud was always getting stuck there.  Tightening the chain (by pulling the wheel back) would have made the problem worse.  Now there’s lots of tire clearance all the way around the fender, so rubbing shouldn’t be a problem.

Riding while the riding’s good

lpaulriddle

Trying to get my rides in while I can this week..  more snow forecast for overnight into tomorrow and then again this weekend.  Conditions this morning almost identical to yesterday, maybe a couple degrees warmer.  We may have rain/snow for the afternoon ride home, so I packed some rain gear.

I rode into the park today to see what it was like.  The conditions were reversed from the last time it snowed.  Today, River Rd was in good shape (relatively speaking of course) and the Grist Mill Trail was still snow covered.  Rather than try to ride it, I just doubled back on River Rd.  Still made for a pretty good ride, all things considered.  In these conditions, I tend to stick to shorter, more direct rides.  Today’s total was 11.3 miles, which qualifies as a long ride in February.

I rode into UMBC via Wilkens Ave and Hilltop Rd, steering clear of the campus loop and all of its road salt.  The funny thing is, if I had done that yesterday, I would have been complaining about the salt on Rolling and Selford Rds, not realizing that UMBC’s roads were 10 times worse.  Everything is relative, I guess.

Happy February

lpaulriddle

We got around 5 inches of snow on Saturday, so I kicked February off with a ride very typical of February.. snowy and salty.  The roads were actually in really good shape until I got to UMBC.  Mostly clear of snow and ice, and not too much salt.  In the park, the access road was unplowed as expected.  Before the ride, I switched to toe clips and regular shoes (same high-top suede shoes I used last time I rode with clips) so I could hike this stretch.  The roads inside the park had a bit of snow and ice on them, but were rideable.  All in all, not too bad, except for UMBC.

I made the mistake of riding into UMBC via Shelbourne Rd and Poplar Ave, which requires me to ride about half of the campus loop to get to my building.  UMBC’s roads were so oversalted that they were almost completely white.  It was the worst I had ever seen them.  I eventually moved over to the sidewalk, which was in considerably better shape (at least the stretch I rode on), but not before my rear fender got completely caked up with salt and crud.  I cleaned the bike up the best I could when I got to the office, but it’s going to need a hose-down when I get home.  Is it summer yet?

I think I’m going to be avoiding UMBC’s roads, and cutting through campus dodging pedestrians, until we get some rain or something to wash all the salty crap into the Patapsco River.  I’ll know it’s happened when all the fish die.  Only half kidding here..

Weird weather

lpaulriddle

OK, so I wimped out Friday and took the car to work on a day when the weather ended up pretty good.  History has shown that when I wimp out on a ride, 9 times out of 10 I end up regretting it, and that knowledge helped get me on the bike this morning, on a day when I came perilously close to wimping out again.  The weather this morning was weird.  No better word for it.  Almost 60°, with winds from the south gusting to 40mph.  Lots of rain, especially to our north and south.  Baltimore area got plenty too, but it wasn’t raining during my ride, just overcast and damp.  Lawyers Hill was blocked by a downed tree which had also taken out some power lines.  This would have been a problem had I been driving, but I was able to lift the bike over it.  I took a loop through the park, which was debris-strewn, but otherwise passable.  The drainage area on Glen Artney Rd (near the Grist Mill trailhead) was a raging torrent.  No way I could cross on the bike.  Fortunately, there’s a foot bridge nearby that provides a detour over it, so I didn’t have to double back.  Beyond the park, the ride was uneventful.  I wore full rain gear, but probably could have gotten by without the rain jacket (of course, the rain picked up shortly after I arrived at work).

This was my messiest ride yet on the fixed-gear.  I’m still not completely happy with how the rear fender is attached.  There’s nowhere to attach it at the bottom bracket, so I have it attached higher up on the seat tube, and it doesn’t extend down quite far enough in the front.  As a result, the bottom bracket area gets a lot of spray.  On the bright side, at least the bike is easier to clean than the road bike.  Single chainring, single cog, no derailleurs to worry about.

Never a dull day..

lpaulriddle

You never know what kind of weather you’re going to get in winter, and this morning was a perfect example.  We got a “surprise” light frosting of snow/sleet/rain overnight.  No mention of it whatsoever in yesterday’s forecast.  By the time I had to leave, the system had moved out, but the roads were still wet, so I switched to the fixed-gear bike (with fenders) for today’s ride.

I rode through the park today, and River Rd was almost completely coated with a light, slightly crunchy glaze.  No traction problems though.  There were bike tire tracks on the Grist Mill Trail, but none on River Rd until I came through.

The second half of my ride was through Oella and Catonsville.  I exited the park at Ilchester Rd and took River Rd to Frederick Rd.  This was the first time I had ridden River Rd for a while, and there were obvious signs of past flooding (lots of mud on the sides), but no problems getting through on the bike.  In Catonsville, instead of taking Edmondson to Melvin Ave as I’ve always done in the past, I turned right on Smithwood, then left on Summit, then right on Beaumont.  This brought me to Frederick Rd at a stop sign instead of a light, and I didn’t have to wait as long to make my left onto Frederick.  The pavement on Summit and Beaumont is in bad shape in spots, but all in all I think this is a better route.