Fredricksburg Quarry Trails

I was going down to the parent's house over labor day weekend and I had always wanted to try out these trails. There was not much information about the Quarry trails besides what was on the FredEvents website. These trails were illegal until only recently after the dam was blown up. The trails were interesting, I think some really good stuff could be had here if they plan, mark, consolidate the land. There is a bunch of construction coming towards this area from the Central Park shopping Monster. The trails felt like what they are, rogue trails. People have hiked/biked here for awhile without some kind of park management. There were a bunch of trails with some stuff having no flow at all. Most of the trails I rode were not 29er friendly. There were a bunch of logs down over the trail(might be on purpose) this was on the riverside trail. I had a good time just wandering around and following the trails. I went down one trail that lead me to a long tunnel that went under 95. I took that and then ended up in a townhouse community after going through a teenager drinking area(beer boxes and cans littered the trail there). On the way back I got turned around it seems and headed too far north and ended up in the new construction area where there is to be an American Slavery Museum. It was the first mountain bike ride in 2 months so it did the trick, I hope to go here before all the leaves fall on the trail. Another thing to note POISON IVY!!! I forgot that this area is notorious for it. So I got in a 2 hour mountain bike ride while Sara went shopping at Central Park.

Lewisburg- 2 for the Money

I was up in Lewisburg for a wedding with Sara, and I knew she lived out in the country so that there would be some good riding in the area. I went to the Bucknell University cycling website and that gave me a place to start from. I then made up a 40+ mile route that had two big climbs in it. On our last tandem ride I thought we had gotten Sara's fit issues taken care of, so I was thinking that this would be a smooth but hard ride with the climbs. Well we started out, and things were rolling smoothly, the roads in this area are flat east-west but hilly north-south. We went over the first climb and into the town of New Berlin. The town had a couple of streets shut down to have a big antiques flea market, was very cute. After the town we worked our way west, and that is when disaster stuck, Sara's knee was hurting a bit. We could of took the shortcut there back but Sara thought she would be alright. We kept on and going down a nice pretty road looking at the ridge line that we would climb eventually. So we start the climb, and Sara's knee was hurting again. We got up the climb the best we could and then the descent was pretty fast. I was glad that we went south to north over the ridge because the other way it would have been one stiff climb. Halfway down I stopped the Tandem for the rims to cool down. Once we got down the mountain, we went on creek road which was really pretty and saw a neat old covered bridge. We worked our way back, and made it to the house. hopefully we can get Sara's kneed figured out cause she enjoyed the ride if you took out the knee issue. As a treat when we left town I tried the "Freeze" as it is called, was good even though it was melting fast. Next time I am up there I will do the full 3 mountain ride which does three climbs in 50 miles.

Marshall To Aaron Mountain

This turned out to a Good and Bad experience. I was to go to Douthat Park to go camping and mountain biking but that didn't pan out. I had been sickish earlier in the week, but I thought I was good to go for this ride. In hindsight I should of Ridden with Craig, Jonathan who were riding a little mellower. I was riding a good deal of the day with Rudi and Chris. Rudi and co. had just done the Mt. Shasta Ride in CA that was 135 miles with 16,000 of climbing so he was in good form. We were riding a good clip and ended up with three of us off the front. I really like the route, we did some roads I had not done before. There was one dirt road section that was no problem. The trouble started with the last 11 rollers at the end of the ride. I would have rather had them as one climb then to have to go up a couple hundred feet then down then up..... Well my strength was zapping away there, and my throat was getting a little rough. Around the 60mile mark I had Rudi, and another fellow leave me behind so I could ride the last 5 miles at my own pace. Well at the end I think they got caught at a light or something, because I was able to sneak up on them and take the prize for first into the parking lot :-D The downside was that 5 hours latter I had a fever and did not go to work on Monday because of it. Will have to get the cue for this ride and do it again sometime.

First Good Tandem Ride

This was a quick little spin that Sara and I did from Bowie to the Chesapeake. The ride was 40miles, but it was hot out there. This was a PPTC Tandem ride, but we were not the same speed as the other tandems so we ended up riding by ourselves most of the ride. I think with this ride we figured out Sara's fit issues with the Tandem and it was her first ride with clip less shoes. Hopefully there will be more tandem rides in the future.