*The gear and weather:* On 53 Bleriot. 30’s to low 40’s. I wore two lightweight wool shirts and one heavier one and 1 cotton mock turtleneck over all that, cycling shorts, wool long underwear pants, MUSA long pants, cotton socks, Nike tennis shoes, Nautica winter gloves, wool balaclava, helmet. Beautiful day with dim sunlight and clouds. Dry. Hazy looking in forest. A quiet and peaceful ride on the trails, and not many people out. *The Ride:* I wanted to try the Trail to Savage, MD again, as the last time I did it there were unpaved sections shortly after Lake Elkhorn and I was on my 25mm tire Giant bike back then. Wanted to see if it was paved better now after a few years, and if the Bleriot with 42mm tires would handle the unpaved sections better than the Giant bike did.
The sections near Lake Elkhorn are now paved and curvy bridges are built along the way to elevate over the marshy areas along the river. Picturesque forest and flowing Little Patuxent River along the Paint Branch and Savage Mill Trails. Beautiful ride in the dim daylight on a winter day. After a certain point the trail becomes fine packed gravel and winds pretty closely among the trees. Lots of boulders along the trailside. There were some brief muddy puddle areas, but the rest of the trail was dry and the bike floated over the fine, packed gravel very well - even for a gravel rookie like me. Felt totally stable. I just went at a brisk pace and the handling was no problem. Totally fun. I think its a good trail system for new gravel riders. I did see a trail or two branching off that looked like mountain bike type trails. At the end of the trail I entered and rode through the quiet streets of Savage, MD. It was a pretty ride there among the historic old homes, and over the bridge in Historic Savage Mill and onto the trail, which is also packed loose gravel that later turned into a leaf bed covered trail until it terminates. Quite picturesque riding on the leaf beds, through the brown and golden colored trees and leaves. Seemed like the entire forest floor was covered totally by leaves. Sometimes I could see smoothed old black rocks emerging from the leaf bed on the trail. I heard the occasional "blang!" of rocks and twigs rattling off the fenders. Twisting "hallers" along the sides of the trail ran off in many directions through the deep woods. Those smoothed old black rocks seemed to indicate a well worn path from years and years of use. Or perhaps they were under water for some time. While riding along I could see old 1800's looking ruins through the trees. I was joking with myself that any minute a Confederate soldier might jump out at me. I returned to lake Elkhorn through Savage and the trails, and then rode from the lake through the planned community of Columbia to meet my family for lunch at one of our favorite Indian restaurants. The night before I had planned to ride to Savage and hoped I wouldn't wimp out due to the cold weather and I told my wife to encourage me to ride in the morning. My wife said no Indian food for lunch if I didn't ride! Ha ha! The thing that was cool about all this riding today, is that I managed to do so using the least traveled back roads I could find when I wasn't on trails. It made for relaxing riding, with minimal concern for car traffic. The trail riding was fast and easy on the way to Savage. I think it was mostly sloped downhill. Return home ride I felt slow. I guess it was mostly wandering gently uphill coming back to Lake Elkhorn, and my thighs may have been tired from standing on the pedals a lot while riding over the gravel trails. Pics here. Enjoy! https://www.flickr.com/photos/70237737@N00/sets/72157649754218505/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
