Outbound

November 22, 2022

The first fifty miles

YOU CAN BLAME KELLY INIGUEZ for this. :) Personally, I'm glad she suggested it, and that she pointed out that a late November tour does NOT require sleeping in a tent to "count". Thanks to her wisdom and sagacity I'm writing from a warm, comfortable hotel room rather than a picnic table at a freezing cold, and dark, campsite. Thank you, Kelly!

By way of explanation for anyone who has been living under a rock for the past few months: I got a new bike last Friday and it needed testing. The rationale and selection process are detailed in another journal, in case you're interested. But even if you aren't, you're probably aware that any new bike needs to be taken out for a longish ride, under "field conditions", before you can be really certain that you've made the right choice.

And so it is with my new Rodriguez.

As a framework for the evaluation, I laid out a two day, one night loop from and returning to my driveway, covering about 45 miles each day. It's a mix of suburban and rural roads, with plenty of smallish ups and downs but nothing brutally challenging. If Greg Garceau's brief monthly excursions define the term "mini tour" then this, a shorter and less ambitious jaunt, must classify as a "micro tour".

The overnight location is a hotel in Frederick, MD, about 30 miles from home as a car tire rolls but more like 45 as I chose to ride it. The route to get there inescapably included a few miles of "suburban combat riding" as I call it; since I live in the suburbs, any ride beginning from my driveway must necessarily include a transit through the adjoining suburbs before I break free and enter the more rural areas of my county and state. Such riding is strictly utilitarian and not relaxing.

Suburban combat riding 101: why I dislike riding on sidewalks. In addition to this sort of thing, the surface is invariably uneven and punctuated with the little thumps at each joint in the concrete. Also, in many places the sidewalk crosses driveways and business/parking lot entry and exit ways; cars frequently have to pull out and block the sidewalk to see traffic coming from their left, and they equally as often seem not to expect a cyclist to be there.

The bike lanes and shoulders on the local secondary streets are better than sidewalks but not exactly conducive to serene riding.

My "preparation" consisted of jamming an assortment of clothing into my panniers, almost without consideration for heft or volume. After all, if I'm going to go to the trouble and effort of simulating "real" touring conditions shouldn't the load at least roughly approximate what it would be for a tour of several weeks, rather than being limited to one change of clothing and a few toiletries?

With the packing done (it took all of about ten minutes) it was time to suit up and head off. Although the temperature the previous night had gotten to sub-freezing levels, by late morning it was a pleasant 50 degrees or so, the sky was a faultless blue, and there wasn't an appreciable wind. Ideal riding conditions considering the time of year. It didn't take too long for me to reach the area that marks the transition from dense suburbia to more rural, bucolic territory.

The Montgomery County Agricultural Farm Park preserves a bit of the county's agrarian past.

I've visited the grounds several times but have yet to make it into the Visitor's Center (building at the left of the photo) for a more detailed tour.

A bit of history relating to this particular parcel of land.

Soon enough I entered an area largely preserved in a state of nature following a series of streams and small rivers. It makes for very pleasant riding, and there's not much traffic.

Zion Road follows the western edge of the Rachel Carson Conservation Park.

Such traffic as there was provided me every courtesy. Crossing a low bridge over one stream I spied a Great Blue Heron standing in a pool and staring intently at the water. Stopping a few yards past the bridge, I got out my camera and made my way back for a photo. Alas, the GBH was too wary for me and flew off at the sound of my approach.

A missed opportunity. A moment before, as I rode across the bridge, there was a Great Blue Heron standing in this pool, gazing intently at the water. You'll just have to take my word for it, though.

A moment later, while I was deeply involved in investigating a secluded patch of woods, I heard and saw another cyclist pass. I'm nearly certain it was a friend of mine, and in fact one I saw yesterday afternoon. But she either didn't see me or didn't recognize my bike leaning against a tree on the opposite side of the road from her. Ships that pass in the night.

A couple miles further led me out of the wooded park and into agrarian horse country.

Emerging from the woodland, into agricultural and horse country in Howard County.

By that point, some few miles into the ride, I had become aware of a certain "wobble" at the back of the bike. Dedicated followers of my summer adventure will understand immediately and intuitively why it is that I am hyper-sensitive about such things.

This bike is still new to me so I don't have long familiarity with its ride characteristics to guide me, but I developed the distinct impression that something was amiss. Lifting the back end and spinning the wheel, I thought I detected some deflections but I wasn't in a position to tell whether it was a bad tire or out-of-true rim. Whichever it was set my delicately-tuned backside to definitely jangling an alarm. That's too bad because it rather dominated my thoughts for the next twelve to fifteen miles and diminished the pleasure of the day.

Definitely not a sign you often see in dense suburbia.

Still, as I continued the ride I began to notice and appreciate the creamy, silky, velvety smooth ride (is that enough comparative adjectives for you?) and "rolliness" of the bike. I attribute a great deal of the credit for that to the upgraded hubs I included in the specs of my order. The rest of the credit must go to the frame design and build. I'll say this for the result: it's simply marvelous. What a pleasant riding bike it is!

Another gracious, long-established home in horse country. This one's been turned into an event center of some sort.

Another aspect I've already come to appreciate is the crisp shifting. Each click of the right-hand barcon shift lever results in an immediate, crisp response at the back of the bike. There's no hesitation, no slop, no chatter. Just clean, immediate response. By contrast, my Bike Friday generally requires two clicks of the shifter to provoke a change of gears; I've gotten so thoroughly in the habit of spending two to get one that several times I found myself over-shifting, early today. As the ride progressed I began to "un-learn" that behavior but it's still a conscious effort to limit myself to a single click, and still a welcome surprise to get the result.

I've also quickly become a fan of the brakes. The bike has a mixed mechanical/hydraulic setup: the brakes are actuated by a mechanical cable but the actual braking force is applied by hydraulically-driven pistons and pads. This combination gives a smooth, powerful response that inspires great confidence: something I was lacking this summer on the Friday.

Before setting off I made a slight adjustment to the saddle position. I've never ridden this brand of saddle so had no idea what to expect. Perhaps I had low expectations as a result, but I'm coming to appreciate what Rodriguez provided. Maybe I won't be in such a rush to swap the default out for something else, after all.

The jury's still out, but I don't hate this saddle. It may take some experimentation with the alternatives before I come to a final decision.

About 26 miles in I reached my intermediate destination, Mt. Airy Cycle and Fitness. I've been friends with the owner since about 1988, and have long since been accorded "friend of the shop" status. One of the benefits of such a lofty station is that when I show up with a problem I get his personal attention. Larry's been in the bike business in one way or another for probably 55 or more years; he's forgotten more (*) than most others ever knew. (*: he doesn't forget much, either.)

A photo from a different visit, on a bike of a different kind, from what's now nearly a past life.

I told him I felt that something was "hinky" in the back end. He promptly took the bike for a short test ride- dropping everything else he'd been working on to do so- and returned saying that although he hadn't felt what I described the rear wheel definitely had a "wobble".

Putting the bike in his work stand and using his thumb as a guide ("rule of thumb" is certainly an apt phrase here) he rapidly identified that numerous spokes were either slightly loose or entirely slack and doing nothing to keep the wheel in true. It is slightly distressing that Rodriguez' hand-built wheels, guaranteed for three years, needed this amount of tuning and attention after so few miles.

I've had hand-built wheels before; some have needed nothing while others needed extensive tuning after only a few miles. Having never been privvy to the actual wheel building process I'm not in a position to judge whether it's the fault of the workman or "just one of those things". But it was definitely disappointing.

Whatever the case, after Larry worked his magic (and applied "Spoke Freeze", a thread-locking compound similar to LocTite) I was on my way. Happily there were no repetitions of loose spokes, or at least my back end didn't detect any further hinkiness.

Visits to Larry's shop, while always enjoyable, are seldom brief and on top of that I had started riding rather late. Time was beginning to press: by now it was going on 3:00 and sunset was between 4:30 and 4:45. I still had another 16 or so miles to cover to reach my prepaid, non-refundable, no-changes-of-any-kind hotel room in Frederick so it was time to "get a wiggle on" as the saying goes.

Mount Airy is at the crest of my day's itinerary and route, leaving me with much more downhill than uphill to get to the hotel. Still, even with that advantage, it was clear that I've allowed my fitness level to slide atrociously since early August. I was thankful, on several hills, for the 30x32 granny gear. Even with that, there was one hill where I stopped a couple of times for a moment of recovery and to prevent muscle spasms. (On top of that I had been stinting slightly on water, which I know from personal experience contributes substantially to cramps. Don't ask why, I just was.)

Thank goodness it was mostly downhill from here to the hotel.

Traffic between Mount Airy and Frederick varied. Some stretches of my route involved busy roads with little or no shoulder; the speed limit was generally only 35 so I wasn't being blasted by really high-speed traffic, and the drivers were uniformly courteous. It's just that there were a lot of them: parents collecting kids from school, people knocking off work a little early ahead of Thanksgiving, and of course just the usual end-of-the-day rush hour. In other places there was either a modest shoulder or an actual bike lane. As Scott Anderson put it in several of his journal entries from this summer, they were "adequate and safe, but not relaxing".

I was also mildly concerned about the light conditions: as the afternoon wore on and the sun sank ever lower, there were many spots where it was directly in my eyes meaning it was also directly in the eyes of overtaking drivers. I dislike riding into or near the sun when it's low, for obvious reasons: drivers behind me are far more likely to be semi-blinded, increasing the risk that they'll fail to see me. Fortunately, everyone today saw me. But it was a mental "thing", and intruded on the pleaasure of the ride.

With a half hour or so left to ride, I stopped long enough to flick on the two blinky red tail lights on my rear panniers. They wouldn't help for sun-blinded drivers, of course, but much of the area I was passing through was heavily wooded and densely shaded so they should have been visible from quite a distance in those conditions.

With only about a mile and a half to go dusk was falling rapidly, so I also turned on my headlight. I've had this light since my days as a cycle commuter, so probably fifteen years or more. It's out of date, technologically speaking, but still plenty bright.

Just a half mile from the hotel I reached the Visitor's Center at the Monocacy National Battlefield Park. It's one of many Civil War sites scattered around a 150 mile radius of Washington DC, and I've visited several times in the past. Today I stopped only long enough to pose the bike in front of the sign for a couple quick photos.

Trooper (or Pudge? Endurance? Voyager? Huck?) poses in front of the sign at the battlefield as the sun sets behind me.

A cannon (painted gold: they don't actually burnish the bronze) and the Visitor's Center.

I always struggle to envision what the scene was like, with tens of thousands of soldiers on site and shooting at one another.

In addition to the actual Battle of Monocacy, this area saw quite a number of other events during the war. Among the better-known incidents is the famous (or infamous) "Lost Orders", where an aide on R.E. Lee's staff lost a copy of the Confederate master plan, a few days before the battle at Antietam Creek (Sharpsburg). With that vital information, the Union knew exactly who they were dealing with, where, and in what strength.

One view of history. Next to it is another, placed by Union sympathizers. They have quite different perspectives.

The other marker, with a quite different perspective and message.

I got to the hotel just as the sun fell below the Catoctin Mountains to the west: perfect timing! Check in went smoothly, and (because I had reserved a room with a view of / access to the pool) I knew it would be on the ground floor. It's plenty spacious so the bike has ample room to relax, as do I.

Made it to the hotel with no time to spare before dark. The sun's already below the tree line and the Catoctins, a ridge on the west side of Frederick.

Rather than try to find a meal elsewhere I opted to use the 20 percent discount coupon Iwas given for the hotel "restaurant", which is really a horse-betting parlor with an integrated bar and limited grill / sandwich menu. It was perfectly adequate for my needs, and after three draft beers, more food than I really needed, and a bottle of water I find myself content and relaxed.

Finally, this note: I've just checked and can confirm that the bottle opener still works. Ahhhhh.

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Today's ride: 46 miles (74 km)
Total: 46 miles (74 km)

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