Leaders: Rick Hagen & Lisa Petersen
Members: Pat Silva, Bill Silva, Lisa Petersen, Andrea Clayville, Rick Hagen, Eric Nielsen (not shown - photographer Darrell Meyer)
Guests: none
Route: We started in the parking lot of the Route 260 Recreation area, a little-used and a little-hard-to-find Calvert County park. Went west on Route 260, north on Route 4, then onto quiet Fishers Station Rd. A short ride on Route 258 aka Bayfront Rd. to Little Rd., then south on Brooks Woods Rd. back to 258/Bayfront. We went south on Route 2, and carefully turned left onto Old Solomons Island Rd. to get to Fairhaven Rd. From Fairhaven we took Franklin Gibson to Leitch, down & around Tacaro Farm, then on Town Point Rd. to the cliffs at Fairhaven. Up Fairhaven and down Friendship Rd. to the lunch stop at Chesapeake Market & Deli. We took the scenic route around Holland Point to North Beach, then on the newly-repaired bike lane along the boardwalk. Up some neighborhood streets in Chesapeake Beach to Route 260, then right onto Boyds Turn Rd. We went west on Friendship Rd. to Sansbury, then north on Wilson Rd over the newly repaired bridge, to Jewell, and west some more back to the parking lot. https://ridewithgps.com/routes/46592249 30 miles, 1425 ft elevation gain.
Weather: Couldn’t have been better. Sunny, temps in the 60s, low humidity, and light winds out of the southwest.
AMS: 13.4 mph
Mechanicals: none
Report: This was Rick & Lisa’s first time leading a ride. The park we chose for a start is convenient to get to, but the entrance, the first right after the first mansion on the right, is not marked and easily missed. It has a portolet but no water. After introductions & some discussion about the ride, we left promptly at 10:05. The whole ride was new to Andrea, and some of it was unfamiliar to Darrell. Eric, who lives near the route, rode his new fixie to the start.
The loop north on Fishers Station, Little and Brooks Woods went smoothly. We very carefully turned left from Route 2 to Old Solomons Island Rd. about a mile south of Traceys Landing Post Office. On Fairhaven Rd. we stopped just before the turn onto Franklin Gibson to see a memorial stone for a World War II veteran pilot who crashed there in 1949. The brush has been cleared around the field, making the monument visible to passersby for the first time in 10 years or more. We went down scenic Leitch Rd. and stopped to gawk at the beautiful Tacaro Farm, a large property now used for events and weddings. To Rick & Lisa’s amazement, there was no standing water on Town Point Rd. after months of there being an inch or so that put a damper on the nice downhill & momentum going up the hill after crossing the creek. We stopped in Fairhaven for a group photo with the Fairhaven Cliffs in the background. We went up Fairhaven Rd. to Friendship Rd. and had a nice descent down Mailbox Hill to Chesapeake Market & Deli.
Although we called it a lunch stop, most of us had snacks. Bill, Pat and Darrell left early, concerned about their afternoon commitments, riding up Mailbox Hill back to the route and parking lot. The rest of us continued along the shore to North Beach. Here we decided to ride the newly-repaired bike lane that runs along the boardwalk. Very nice, and we encountered only 1 pedestrian. From here it’s all uphill, through Chesapeake Beach neighborhoods and up Route 260 on the nice wide shoulder. We turned right on Boyds Turn Rd., then westward through the little village of Friendship to Sansbury Rd. Wilson Road is very nice but had a problem - a raised lip on both leading and trailing edges of the bridge over Hall Creek at the bottom of the hill that was jarring to hit going 20 mph (and caused a cyclist in the End Hunger ride last month to crash and need an airlift out) but has now been fixed with new asphalt the whole width of the bridge. At the north end of Wilson, we said goodbye to Eric, as he was going directly home from there. Rick, Lisa and Andrea arrived back at the parking lot at 1 pm, and found Bill, Pat and Darrell, bikes on cars ready to go, still talking. Nice ride today!
Wildlife sightings: Eastern Box turtle, blue heron, black rat snake, ducks, geese, squirrels
