Man! Where to start?

How about a summary:

Thursday: 186.5 miles @ 14.4 mph
Friday: 8.4 miles @ 14.2
Saturday: 51.9 miles @ 19.3 mph
Sunday: 173 miles @ 17 mph (one unintentional change in route and one intentional change in route)
--------------------------------
Approximately 420 miles in 4 days


Thursday
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Start time 5:15am.

I left Essex via Route 40 East following it all of the way to Edgewood. In Edgewood, I stopped at a McDonald's for a breakfast sandwhich and to load up with Gatorade. The Gatorade was spilt between two water bottles. Two 20 oz bottles were carried on the backpack bringing it's weight up to about 25 pounds.

The ride to Havre de Grace was uneventful until it came time to climb up Route 155. As always, and especially when weighed down with a heavy load, it's a slow grind, the starting portion of the climb is 6% (9.7% at it's steepest) for 0.6 miles, but the entire climb averages 3.7% over 1.8 miles.

Once I made it to Darlington RD, I followed it north to Rock Run Rd where I was greeted by some nice descending road surfaces all of the way into the Susquehanna State Park and Stafford Rd. Stafford Rd runs parallel to the Susquehanna River for a good while and I took Rock Run Rd to avoid the gravel section of Stafford if I were to have taken any other road east of Rock Run.




Stafford leads to Shuresville leads to US 1 where I cross the Susquehanna River at the Conowingo Dam. After the cross, it's a right turn to Route 222 on to a very nicely paved road surface that leads to Port Deposit.

In Port Deposit, I stop at a little mom and pop type store on Main Street for a rest break and to pick up more fuel. Minutes later I'm on my way and climbing out of Port Deposit up Bainbridge Rd which is another road with a 3.7% average grade (9.6% steep section). Once at the top, there's a right turn TRO 222 all of the way to Perryville where I rejoined Route 40 east.



I followed the bike lane on Route 40 through North East, MD and then to Elkton, MD where I stopped at a Royal Farm Store for something to eat and drink and stock up on supplies.

After having seeing a map of Newcastle County, DE I decided to take a different route across the C & D canal instead of crossing over the Chesapeake City bridge, which is my normal route over the C & D.

The ride was pretty while paralleling the canal waters, but then I started hitting changes in road direction that seemed counter-intuitive in search of Route 896, which according to the map I borrowed, showed 896 as a suggested bike route, but with a high volume of traffic. Well, maybe someday in the future, but when I reached 896, it was under construction. I had a decision to make--do I ride all of the way back to Chesapeake City and cross there or do I "d-up" and ride with the traffic passing through this construction area.

I "d'ed up" and it almost cost me the ultimate cost.

The light turns green. I turn on to Route 896. I notice that there's nowhere to go. Concrete barriers on both sides of the lane. There's no hiding and no stopping. I'm traveling as fast as I can, but there's probably about a mile of this. Cars are passing me. No problem--they're being careful. Then, a big friggen truck (I can't tell you exactly what kind it was, because at this stage I was too scared and focused to take notice) passes me a little faster than I appreciated and within 6 inches of my hands. I'm within 6 inches of the concrete barrier on the other side. Adrenalin shoots way up and I'm just staying very focused at not panicking--not getting smushed like a pancake.

The truck passes and I start breathing again. I stick my left palm out to the following traffic to signal them to stop passing me as I move out into the lane. I catch my breath for a second, then I wave the followers through as I catch quick glimpses of whether another truck was coming. I take the lane a couple more times, to try and shake off the effects of the near miss. I survive the crossing of the C & D. The construction ends.

[It wasn't until today, when I processed my ride files, that I saw the effect of this near disaster in the record. My heart rate reached 197 BPM. Usually, I can only hit 197 BPM when running a hard 5K running race! I've never seen that number on a bicycle.]

I was a little bit disoriented after this, so I continued to follow Rt 896 until I came across something familiar--like DE Rt 13 Dupont Hwy. I knew that if I followed 13 long enough it would take me to Odessa, DE where I would pick up Rt 299 followed by Rt 9. Rt 9 leads to RT 1 Coastal Hwy and ultimately to OCMD.

I stopped in Odessa to take a break at their volunteer fire department building.

The breaks started coming more often--I stopped in Leipsic DE, outside the gates of the air museum east of Dover, Air Force Base, once at a Volero gas station for more Gatorade and water and lastly at a McDonalds in OC for a Big Mac.

I checked into my hotel at about 9pm or so, showered and went to bed.


Friday
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Rested much of the day. I didn't want to be out in the sun (Duh! Then why did you go to the beach?) But, hunger forced me to go hunting for food and drink, so I rode to the southern end of the boardwalk, locked the bike, walked to Burger King and got two breakfast sandwhiches and an orange juice. I returned to where I could keep an eye on my bike, ate, and people-watched.

After eating, I strolled up and down the boardwalk for a while, had enough, and biked back to my hotel room.

Later in the day, I picked up supplies for Saturday's ride with Mark Mueller (Team BBC teammate visiting OCMD) and Gloria "G" Shoemaker (local woman CAT 4 racer) after calling them and confirming plans.

When evening came, I ordered room service (Hah!)... I mean I called for a pizza to be delivered from Pizza Hut. After having half of it along with some cinnamon bread sticks and drinking a gallon of water, I hit the sack--no fireworks for this kid. Besides, a really nice t-storm came rolling through the area at the time the fireworks should have been that probably made my decision to stay in worth it.


Saturday
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Spoke to "G" about the ride planned for 9am. We decided that we'd probably be ok regarding the rain. At 8am, I headed out to a 7-11 to get some food in my stomach and then continued to Mark Mueller's place to meet him. He and I met "G" at a candy shop on Fenwick Island. We waited for a while for her friend Lolo, but she didn't show up, so we decided to go. Dewey Beach, here we come.

There was a little bit of a tailwind on the way out, but I wanted to stay conservative since I would be leaving tomorrow morning for B'more. We were holding 22 MPH for much of the ride, until "G" pushed it up to 25 MPH on her "pull". So, we (Mark & I) reset to that pace.

Reaching Dewey Beach, we stopped for coffee and munchies at a really nice coffee shop, then we headed back.

Expecting a headwind on the way back, we fould it not too bad and pushed the pace back up to around 24 MPH. My slower riding to Mark's place and back to my room netted a 19.3 mph average for the ride--a little harder than I wanted to do over 51.9 miles of riding.

I stayed in the rest of the day, resting; finished off the pizza for dinner; went to bed.


Sunday
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Short and sweet--waited for a t-storm to clear the area. I didn't check out until about 6am. I rode to Mark's place and dropped off my backpack so that I wouldn't have to carry a bunch of non-essentials. THANK YOU MARK!!!!!! I opt'ed to carry a smaller bag on my back containing a spare tire, tools, spare head light (L&M ARC HID and it's big heavy battery), spare batteries for the other lights, and my rain coat.

I lollygagged a bit at a Volero gas station on the way into DE to decide how I was going to handle hydration and I picked up food to bring along on the ride, something I couldn't do with the backpack, because there simply was no more room.

The ride went great. Got caught in the rain a few times, but just put on the cycling cap and rain coat and all was well.

Made good time--tailwind I guess. I was averaging nearly 18 MPH back up the coast. It wasn't until I stopped in Elkton for a meal that I slowed down, some of which was from no more tailwind and also from the difference in road surfaces. As shown above, I still averaged 17 MPH for the trip back.

Unintentional reroute--missed a turn north of Leipsic. Wound up in Smyrna.

Intentional reroute through North East, Rising Sun, across the Conowingo, Belair, Rt 152 Mountain Rd, Route 40, home.

It was fun. I won't do it again any time soon.


--
Isaias