Patapsco Thru-Trail

Look at Mike's for his take he talked more about the route I will talk about my impressions.Tour de Patapsco
Darren's View:
There are times when you have epic rides cause you are in the middle of nowhere, and going over major mountains. There are other times when you have epic rides just because of everything else. Mike had wanted to do this ride for a bit and I got him early on to have it on a date I could do it. I like riding with Mike, can be challenge with his technical skills I have to really stretch myself to stay with him on the down hills. If there are some good climbs we are even steven. The new mix for me was cargo Mike, I had never actually ridden with him. We are on the same team, and I knew that Cargo Mike can throw down some serious fast times at races. The first issue on the ride was the weather, It was 83 on Wed. and when we started the ride on Sunday it was 45! The day felt like a great day in January were you get a day in the low 50's.
Mike did a good job of getting us to the trails we needed to do, we only took one or two turns wrong, but not too far off in terms of time. We saw the "fast" gang out there, with Evan, Roger, Jed, and co. Roger looked like he was getting hurt there. Our ride was slower, but not that slow especially on the way back we were really rolling in terms of not stopping. The leaves were nice, and the ride had a good flow to it. The hardest part mentally was the railroad tracks, you are thanking your lucky stars you have suspension there. As per usual something with my body failed me, this week was my knee. I am not sure if it was/is the seat height, or the cleat position, but my knee started getting a pain about the mid way point then felt like a knife was in it for the second half of the ride. Hopefully that heals for DCCX.
Random thoughts on the ride:
-Cargo Mike has some sick trials skills
-I must have had 15-20 times I wanted to just let the guys go ahead of me
-tighten new cleats hard cause they will come out on the first ride
-when thinking about crossing a stream, don't go up on a dam and down the side to the water, just go across where the blanket was
-Making your friends laugh at your expense is what being a friend is.
-The Mill Trail must have 20 trees fallen down on it, I wish I could of taken a chainsaw to at 2/3 of them.
-To keep your mountain bike skills you need to mountain bike
-I'm not sure about a November rendition of this ride that creek could be some serious issues there.