Back in the day - back in high school - I was in Track. You know, where you run in circles 'til the cows come home. That used to bore the crap outta me. That's why I liked running Cross Country... you never saw the same cinder twice. Got to run thru the woods - sometimes fast, sometimes not so fast, but the scenery was better than any cinder I ever saw on a quarter mile track.
Flash forward 30 years and 40 pounds (hey, stop laughing - I was a friggin' stick in high school and coulda used maybe 20 of those 40 pounds). Nowadays it's not cool to ride mountain bikes when the trails are sloppy... and of course the trails are often sloppy during the faux winters here in g-d southeast PA thanks to daily highs in the 30s and 40s. So what's a guy without a road bike to do?
Well yer looking at it. Yeah, the picture above. Its my wife's 1988 Trek 820 "Antelope" hunkered down on a mag trainer. Yeah, it reminds me of track practice... whir whir whir friggin' whir and going NOWHERE. But it's gotta be done.
Now you're saying to yourself, "I don't recall pipe clamps on the front of those old Treks?!" And you'd be dead nuts on. To take the edge off some of the boredom, I read while spinning my wheel. The bottom end of the pipe clamp is resting on the trainer's front wheel stand. A ball bungee holds the pipe to the bar. And the Pony clamp on the pipe is holding a clipboard, which is holding a book. Only problem is the plastic clipboard bounces a bit, so I need to find one of those fossilesque wooden clipboards. But it works pretty well. Now an hour on the trainer goes by in what seems like a mere 58 minutes.
Now if I could figger out a way to keep sweat from dripping on the pages...
Went for a ride today at Warwick County Park in northern Chester County. Never rode here before, but we were here once before for a short hike. I knew there weren't many miles of trail here, but I was curious to see what the place looked like from a mtb saddle perspective. Also, the place is north of where I live and thus a little colder, and the hillside mostly faces north... gotta hope for frozen trails ya know. Mud ain't cool.
So with an air temp hovering around freezing, I hopped on the yellow trail (actually the Horseshoe Trail). Two miles later, I came to a bit of an obstacle... namely French Creek. No bridge, couple feet of water... nope. So I turned around and started snapping pix. Yes, whaddaya know, I brought a decent camera this time.
There's some purty spots along the trail. You can see the trail is mostly pretty easy. No, it's all pretty easy, especially the Horseshoe Trail portion... not much in the way of elevation change. Would be a good family ride spot, fer sher.
This was about the worst of the few soft spots I saw. Yeah, there's still some ice in them thar hills, but not much. Most of the trail was still crunchy, but low spots next to the creek were soft here and there. By the way, this spot was much easier at speed than crawling. I'm learning...
One of a couple bridges on the Horseshoe. No challenge here, but that's OK too... the rest of the family will appreciate a bridge that's actually more than 18" wide.
Another purty section of trail winding thru some tall trees. Unlike sections of trails I've hiked in other parts of the kuntry, there's no shortage of trail markers here. You could just about reach from one marker to the next.
This kind of crap bugs me. And since this is a blog, I'll tell ya why. Now, do you think some landowner is trying to tell trail users that they aren't welcome on his land? Mr. Landowner, do you think an occasional sign would suffice? Two orange stakes and three yellow "No Trespassing" signs tells me more about the landowner than the land. Probably either an ex-city-slicker or some crotchety miserable old fart. Or some combination thereof.
Off the yellow trail and up onto the white trail. There's over 200' of elevation gain from bottom to top in this park, so despite the lack of miles, you can surely get some interval workouts in by climbing the hills. The toughest grind was the new red trail segment from yellow to white. It's not shown on the online map. The climb is tough enough, but there's mulch on the trail which does a great job imitating a sponge soaked in Aunt Jemima... it just feels like it's suckin' you in and not lettin' go. One stint uphill on that trail was enough for me.
So Warwick was a decent place to check out. Next time I'll bring the family and a picnic. Honestly, with French Creek State Park so close, it would be hard to rationalize riding here and not riding FC. But now I can say "bin dair, dun dat".
