Day 9 - Evening Report

“It’s never too early in the day to start using granny gear”. This is how our day began as we tackled our first accent soon after starting our day. When we shoved off this morning, we were grateful for the warm temperature and the fact that it wasn’t raining anymore. The roads were saturated from a solid rain during the night, but we could deal with that compared to yesterday’s water extravaganza.

Going into the day we knew we had three significant long, steep climbs. You’ll be glad to know that we were able to find each of these waiting for us accompanied by multiple sets of slightly less extreme undulations in the terrain that seemed to keep on a commin’ one after the other after another and another.

Another great quote from today comes from Caleb. After we reached the top of a tough climb, we break, regroup, hydrate, try to level out our breathing and such. Not Caleb. We get to the top of one of our longest climbs of the day, and we get to partake in a dialogue that went something like “ ‘That was fun.” “Fun? What do you mean fun, like let’s go do that one again just because it was so much fun?” “Well you have to admit it was pretty.” Upon hearing Caleb’s response, the only reaction Bob could muster was spewing his mouthful of water all over as he tried to hold back the laughter.

After our last big climb, we got to spend 10 miles on the Western Maryland Rail Trail. You see these rail trails all over the states. There is a great one from Grand Rapids, MI all the way up to Cadillac, MI. Basically they take a stretch of abandon rail road and pave over top of it to form a nice path. Since trains can’t handle steep grades up or down, they are nice and straight with slow, wide turns and shallow grades. All of this to say that the Rail Trail was a cake walk (john would call this “patty cakes”). It was like a red carpet had been laid out for us and for these 10 short miles, we just cruised. No crazy hills to maneuver. No insanely slow average speeds of 4-8 MPH. Just crusin’ along at a steady easy goin’ 17-18 MPH without a care in the world. And then it ended and we were tossed right back into the undulating backbone of Maryland. Oh well, that’s what granny gear is for.

We arrived at our hotel unscathed yet another day. We grabbed some dinner at the American Trough, I mean Golden Corral and called it a day. It is amazing to each of us that we only have one more day of riding left. I think it’s safe to say we’re all ready to get back home, but this trip has flown by and we’ve all had a blast thus far. We’ll have to see if we can muster up a few more stories tomorrow and Thursday. Till then.

Today’s Stats:
Ride Time: 4:24:14
Today’s Distance: 51.70 Miles
Total Trip Distance So Far: 641.10 Miles
Average Speed: 13.50 MPH
Max Speed: 38.90 MPH
Flat Tires Today: 1
Flat Tires So Far: 4
Total # of Dog Chases Worth Mentioning: 0 so far
Road Kill Tally: Keep guessing. Our average has dropped significantly the last 2 days.

Here’s some pix:
A cool B&B from the 1920's atop our highest climb this morning.















We found a park with adult sized safety swings & figured we oughta try 'em out.






























I think Cliff is trying to figure out why he let Mark talk him into this trip.















Figurin' things out.















Coming off the Western Maryland Rail Trail.






























We've arrived at our hotel.