[DVBC] Ride Report

[Larry Green]

Adam Levine wrote:
> On Saturday, against my better judgment,  I planned to meet Ira at 10 
> am Sunday for a ride of indefinite length. We agreed that I could turn 
> back if it seemed too cold, and this morning I invoked that clause of 
> the agreement at about 9:35 am, when I called to tell him I wasn't 
> going. "It's not that cold!" he insisted, (and I guess 28 degrees 
> isn't that cold if you're an Eskimo-cyclist), and he managed to talk 
> me into accompanying him after all, with the same turn-back clause in 
> effect.
>
> By the time I rode the 3/4 mile from Media to Moylan, my hands were 
> already chilled, but my toes were warm, thanks to a pair of Dave 
> Hartrum-recommended chemical toe warmers on top of my socks. My hands 
> warmed up on the first uphill climb, and as we rode along I thought, 
> "This isn't so bad." I figured I could go as far as Ira wanted, which 
> he said was about 35 miles, and we headed out through Ridley Creek 
> State Park (mostly devoid of people and dogs today), through Cheyney, 
> eventually ending up at the Chadds Ford in Wawa.
>
> The winter landscape was barren, with ice on any standing bodies of 
> water, ice in Ira's beard, ice in our water bottles (which were so 
> stiff they were nearly impossible to squeeze).  The sun shone weakly, 
> providing no warmth at all. As we headed back home from Chadds Ford, 
> my toe warmers stopped warming, and we both began to get ice in our 
> hands and toes as well. Those of you who rode with me on Wednesday 
> nights this past year know how much I love downhills; but I quickly 
> learned that downhills, in this kind of cold, are too bone-chilling to 
> be fun.  We would warm up on the climbs and get chilled on the 
> decents, and eventually the climbs stopped warming my extremities and 
> all I wanted to do was get home.  In retrospect, I might have worn an 
> extra layer, and we might have stopped at the Wawa to warm up 
> mid-ride, but any way you look at it it was a cold day out there for 
> fingers and toes. We ended up doing about 40 miles, about 40 more than 
> I expected to do when I got up this morning.
>
> I hate to have to admit this, but I have a greater motive for the 
> following self-flagellation: I fell again as I tried to negotiate the 
> gate at the top of the park, near 352.  This time I did take my right 
> foot out of the cleat, but managed to fall to my left.
>
> No real damage done, to body or bike -- but the reason I mention this 
> is because I have always hated that bypass, and when I fell in the 
> rose thorns a few weeks ago I wondered what it would take to get the 
> Park to put some paved bypasses around the gate, much as they have at 
> the lower end near Barren Road. I mentioned this to Ira, and he said 
> that this had been discussed by the club a few years ago--something 
> about getting the Park to pay for materials and the Club would provide 
> the main labor -- but nothing had been done in the end.  I would be 
> glad to head a committee (even a committee of one) to reinvestigate 
> this, and will be the first one out there with my shovel if the Park 
> lets us do the work. Such a bypass would be a service to every one of 
> the many cyclists who have to negotiate that spot (and many of us 
> probably go by there 100 or more times a year).  And certainly, my 
> self-interest in this matter is evident. I have fallen to the right, 
> fallen to the left; next time I'm afraid I'm going to fall head over 
> heals.
>
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heels