good meeting tonight. met some new folks and saw some old friends. Barrys bike repair looks great, Bob is almost, kinda, maybe, interested in the group:-) There is the social on Thursday @ Shuckers in Fells Point

The reason for this post. I am trying to exonerate myself from the audio clip pasted below. Apparently the MARC Penn line train broke down on the tracks. A Charles Murphy phoned into WBAL describing the situation. He was upset and whining a bit. Anyway a radio station ran with it and all sorts of folks have called my home, called my family, asked my family if that was me. In fact 98Rock really had fun with it. They put a crying baby voice behind the callers voice.


http://www.wbal.com/absolutenm/templ...3318&zoneid=21

damn. sorry you're getting made fun of. you're sentiments on the call to wbal seem pretty reasonable. the jocks from 98rock wouldn't be pissed about sitting for 2hrs. with no response? i doubt it.

it was longer than 2 hours. I know the back story, my best friend works at Amtrak and has had to deal with the aftermath. He was not on duty that shift thankfully.

You did fine, Charlie.

It wasn't me:twitchy:
What a small tiny little world we live in. I was at the train this AM and was telling the story to my station mates. One of the guys said "I'm that Charlie Murphy!!" We have been talking for years, knew each other as Charlie never knowing our last names. Wow, 15 people on the platform and 2 with the same name. Trek is right, it was a pretty ugly scene. Apparently the brand new trains have electrical issues with all of this heat.
His comments weren't too bad but he was pissed at the head of MARC train. The guy running the show these days is very good. He's looking into getting bikes on the train and increasing service. The guy before him, Flanagan(Erhlichs henchman) was an jerk. He was trying to close stations and would not take any suggestions about bikes on the train.
Later, the other Charlie
PS: what a humid commute. Morning haze made for some cool looking sun rays through the trees. Gonna suck going home but better than a 2 hour train ride

We had a quick but vicious thunderstorm yesterday evening. I was thinking about Charlie and GB and hoping they weren't caught out going to/from the meeting. But from the radar pic, it seems like it was very localized -- like right on top of my house! :eek:

Lots of downed small branches/leaf clumps on the commute this morning; two trees down; one traffic light not functioning.

I had to drive to the bike meeting, go figure. My train home was late, then we couldn't cross the tracks because a very slow loooong coal train was moving @ 5mph. I was late driving to the meeting. Gotta buy some tires for my folder so I won't have to do that again. The rain never hit my home yesterday but I saw the skies down your way and they looked evil.

I was thinking of how much progress the city has made and how cool it was to have Nate and Day show up (could not resist the pun of Nate and Day. ;) ) And with Charlie talking about Bill Kelly and I have been thinking of Bob Moore a lot lately we really need training/tools to get more people like these. We need people to connect our agenda with our reps and it can be as simple as:
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-a...12632_4425.jpg
Showing up with a bike at a political event. Now with Jim Smith leaving getting political is more important then ever for Balto County.

I was stuck on a commuter train in upstate New York for 2 hours till a fight broke out and I took the opportunity to escape (others were stuck for 4 hours.) I found a policy officer and I tried to explain the direness of the situation and he was like "What do you want me to do?" The thing the irked me the most was the three conductors sitting in the shade having a smoke with another bringing some cold drinks. No problem as long as you are not subjugated to the same conditions you force on other people I guess. I liked the quote that if you did the same thing to an animal you would get in real trouble. It's just sad that as a society we seem to have no empathy for our fellow man.

After the meeting I put on some extra mile(age) and road home with Bob. Thunder clouds were to the south so I headed north for home but nothing to report.

I hope we can keep the enthusiasm going. Who was Day?? Was he the guy from the Sierra club?

Day is BDOT marketing guy and was sitting next to Nate. Patrick is the guy from the Sierra Club.

Anyone up for some mountain climbing this weekend?

http://twitpic.com/show/full/1zuzsb.jpg


This is the elevation profile for Skyline Drive National Park starting from Front Royal and ending at the Waynesboro Quality Inn. I'm thinking [hard] about riding the entire length of the park Saturday (first 50 miles with DCRAND) and continue on until Waynesboro, stay at the Quality Inn overnight, then leave early Sunday morning for Front Royal.

I'm a little worried about the heat, though, in conjunction with all of the climbing.

Whoa. Where's that?

Just edited it. The explanation is on the bottom.

That looks like a blast. I'd love to do a Skyline/Blue Ridge credit card tour someday soon.

If you could get away, you're welcome to come, but this is the whole weekend, so... I know you have to work and with July 4th looming on the horizon...

I'm all set--motel room and all. I'll be meeting DCRAND at the K-MART shopping center in Front Royal at 7:30am.

Have some bike maintenance to do first--put new rubber on wheels, grease RD cable, lube RD and chain.

You could always take the valley route back to Front Royal, both sides are beautiful. Skyline will give the benefit of shade, the valley is wide open. Skyline is unrelenting for 90 miles and I imagine traffic is pretty heavy about now, though not as bad as leaf season.

Wow that's one heck of a start. So DC Rand will be riding up that mother then once up, turn back and heads down! I like your plan better. Nice concept for a ride though. Never ridden it but have driven it often. I know the hill you'll be climbing. Have fun, be safe can be a lot of wknd motorist driving the parkway. Make sure to take advantage of the lookouts. You will be able to see Old Rag to the East. Awesome hike and climbing up there. I forgot, you'll have full moon. You'll be able to go for a moon-lit bike ride on the pkwy:-)

Speaking of full moon biking, Bob C mentioned one this weekend. Anybody catch when and where this is?

The weather seems to have broken(at least today) mid 80's with RH @40%. I'll take it. Better than yesterdays sweat lodge ride.

The Great Divide Race lost one of their riders. He was killed by a vehicle on one of the road sections yesterday.

I screwed-the-pooch on the map--don't know how, but somehow [using auto-follow roads] I got onto VA US522. THANK GOD, THAT WAS A MISTAKE!

Here's the elevation map, now - http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Skyline-Drive-100 :

http://twitpic.com/show/full/1zuzsb.jpg

That looks better. I remember a steep climb right at the entrance of the park, not climbing for the first 50 miles. They might make you pay at the entrance. Gotta pay for the stimulus funds. You're going to be riding on one of the longest days of the year.

Yeah. It was something like $15 for a car, I think, the last time I went through there. This will be the first time I'll ride Skyline from the beginning to the end. Does anyone know if I'll have to pay, again, coming back?

New on Baltimore Spokes forum:
http://www.baltimorespokes.org/forum...&fromblock=yes

On another mater my Mom is in town for the week, any interest in getting together and possibly hearing some real embarrassing stories about me? I'm not sure yet if I can get her out on a bike so it might be restaurant type thing. My Mom is not a cyclists you see so she's a little intimidated by "us" though she told me that there was a jogger in the bike lane where she lives (Mesa, AZ) so she told him that "he belonged on the sidewalk and not the bike lane".... so there might be some hereditary thing going on here. Anyway any ideas on a bike ride suitable for an 83 year old, let me know.

I think the price is good for 1 week use. It use to be anyway.

Might have an old Mnt bike lying around.

anyone live in northern laurel/savage md? i'm going to be moving there soon and i would like to know some decent routes. mapmyride has a few but if anyone else here has some i'd love to do some exploring.

http://connect.garmin.com/explore

There are a lot on the Garmin Connect site. I just put in the zip code, and came up with a bunch.