Photos by Sabine Hentrich, Sarah Clement and Steve Palincsar
Leader: Steve Palincsar
Members: Ron Altemus, Linda Bankerd, Sherwood Byers, Sarah Clement, Carol Dreher, Rick Hagen, Sabine Hentrich, Ray Luckenbach, Joan Oppel, Lisa Petersen, Janell Saunders and Tom Short.
Guests: Denise Cohen
Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42067181
Weather: Sunny, 7 mph winds, a chilly feeling 48 at the start rising to 58 by noon: a thoroughly beautiful day for the middle of December.
AMS: 12.0
Mechanicals/Mishaps: Linda came with a brand new pair of shoes with brand new cleats. She'd tried them on at home and they were fine, but she didn't try to cleat in to her pedals until she was in the parking lot at Rileys Lock, which is when she discovered that her cleats, some kind of Look clones, looked fine but simply wouldn't click into her pedals. The moral is obvious.
Report: We started out with a big group, but by the time we climbed River Rd to Montivideo and climbed the hill on Montivideo past the bridge we were pretty well spread out. We all came together at K2 and enjoyed a lesisurely, delicious lunch. Everyone enjoyed the scenery and the route, although some enjoyed the elevation gain (almost 1900 feet, fairly hilly by Southern Maryland standards) more than others. I'm confident I wasn't the only one trying to remember why it was we only ride in the Montgomery County Ag Reserve once or twice a year.
That is, until the drive home. The trip down River Rd wasn't at all bad, but once within sight of the I-495 entrance it was clear traffic on the outer loop was at a dead standstill, and there were cars trying to enter backed up all the way to the traffic light on River Rd.
I saw traffic on the inner loop was moving so I went that way. Although traffic was heavy, at least it was moving... until the lane split before the Wilson Bridge. From that point on it was a slow crawl until I got past the wreckage in the middle of the bridge. 2 hrs to home, enough time to get from Lancaster PA to the MD Welcome Center on I95. Which is why we only ride here once or twice a year.
