Bridges ride around Frederick & By-King Rest Stop

[Cataboo]

I went out yesterday with a friend to bike the 3 covered Bridges north of Frederick & Legore bridge.

Here's the route if anyone's interested - I did type up a cue sheet, but basically I modified the easy 33 mile covered bridge ride that Zen posted before on here to include Legore Bridge. The hills are a big longer/steeper around Legore and it turns it into about a 40 mile ride.

LINK

We sort of got off to a rocky start with 1 flat tire, forgotten water bottles, forgotten helmet (ride back to car & get), etc. But for the water bottles, since there aren't stores all that often on the route we were taking, I decided to finally pop into the biker's safe house just before Utica Bridge & see if they had some water/gatorade. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the outside of it, 'cause that was when I realized I didn't have my helmet, and we biked back to the car to get it... But the inside was very nifty, plastic table & chairs to sit - a bike work stand, a few full size pumps, trays of gatorade/sports drinks. Powerbars, Tools, maps, first aid kit, spare innertubes, etc. So we took some water, and left some money.

I think Zen has a pic of the outside that she may have handy

(Oh, I forgot that I had picasa set up to put a water mark on the photos I upload, excuse the name in the corner)
Pics of the inside:






Obligatory pics of the bridges in fall color:



That's the Monacacy from Legore bridge - We were talking about how we really have to do a Team Estrogen shuttled trip on the Monocacy one day when it gets warm. Kmerzad has an extra kayak, I have a couple, and I know 7rider has an extra if her DH isn't coming - so we could probably handle a few people that are kayakless coming along (Md Hill slug, Zen, ?)

Legore Bridge (it's technically closed for renovation - not a big deal, just walk your bike across, but be careful coming down the hill to the bridge, 'cause there are jersey barriers right before the bridge)



Loy's station bridge


Roddy Road covered bridge:

[Kalidurga]

Thanks for the head's up on the By-King rest stop, I didn't check it out the times I've ridden thataways. I'll make sure I carry a couple of dollars next time, just in case.

Glad to see you got a little more than just brown trees. And that's two rides in a row that you've forgotten your helmet, my dear. What's up with that??

[Cataboo]

Yeah, I'd never actually stopped to look inside the rest stop before, it looks like it'd be really handy if you needed to do some repairs or had an injury.

I made progress! The first time was in the house, and I went back to get it - the 2nd time it was in the car. I was pretty interested in watching a bike friday be put together and was just totally distracted from my normal routine, and forgot my helmet.

I tend to make sure I have a few dollars & a credit card in my bike seat bag for emergencies or unplanned food breaks or farm stands with fresh veggies.

there was some more brighter yellow in the trees - not much bright red, but it's getting a bit better color wise.

[Zen]

You two have to start carrying CA$H. And have some dollar bills or change too.
A hard lesson from this summer was coke machines don't take five dollar bills
I may do that route by automobile so I can take my good camera.

I think we'll have plenty of time to plan that Monocacy trip

[Cataboo]

We ran into a photographer guy at Roddy road who was doing the route by car - he had a really nice nikon that was bemoaning the jersey barriers, the stop sign, and the difficult lighting... and his shoulder injury from mountain biking which has kept him off his bike for a year and turned his 6 pack into a belly.

In retrospect, I shoulda tried to get his number or picture for you, Zen

I consistently have like 2-3 liters of water on my back. I'm usually good for beverages - but I barely carry cash in real life.

The lighting was mostly beyond my little camera's abilities - I was wishing for my good one. but the light was softer by the time I got to Roddy Road, so the pictures of that bridge turned out pretty well.

[Kalidurga]

You two have to start carrying CA$H. And have some dollar bills or change too.
A hard lesson from this summer was coke machines don't take five dollar bills

I have a better idea-- You start carrying enough fluids to make it all the way through a ride.

Cat, when you add that watermark, is it done by the Picasa program on your computer or the Picasa website?

[Cataboo]

Picasa adds it when it uploads to picasaweb.

[Kalidurga]

Hmmm... I may need to consider playing around with Picasa again. I've been thinking of putting a watermark on my photos, but it'd be a ton of work to do that and then re-upload stuff.

[Zen]

I have a better idea-- You start carrying enough fluids to make it all the way through a ride.

That would require a BOB. And you can't carry your own ice cream.

[Zen]

A watermark like that one is easy to remove with Photoshop. The kind that goes across the whole image is more effective if you really want to protect an image.

[Cataboo]

Yeah, the latter kind are just obnoxious though. And usually when I see someone's done that... I think..."seriously... that picture is not all that good that I'd wanna steal it"

[Zen]

Yeah, the latter kind are just obnoxious though. And usually when I see someone's done that... I think..."seriously... that picture is not all that good that I'd wanna steal it"

Heh. True that.

[Cataboo]

Of course, I've got my name on these & noone would wanna steal them either. but I think there was a reason I set picasa to do that when I first did it.

[kmehrzad]

These are beautiful pictures, Catriona. You really captured the colors well.

Today we went kayaking on the Saluda River in Columbia, SC. There were some nice spots of Class 2 rapids. Reminded why I love whitewater so much. However, I didn't have a ww kayak so was bouncing all over the place trying to keep my balance - there weren't any knee braces to help stabilize my body. Also had to make lots of stops to drain water. I'll send some pictures once I'm able to download at home.

[Cataboo]

It was warm & rainy here. It would rain like crazy then be calm for a while. During some of the calm bits, I drove back over to a couple of the bridges to see if I could get some pictures with mist/fog from the rain off the water with the bridges.

Now I have like 900 some pics to go through 'cause the lighting was hard and I just bracketed all my exposures.

The kayaking down in SC sounds wonderful.