...The PA Weekend, Part 2
Sunday
Again I wake up earlier than everyone this morning and go downstairs to read my book in the 3rd, unused, bedroom. While reading this morning, the book finally turns the corner and makes its way to the home stretch. The book to this point has been deep, engaging, and more or less a slow/articulate read. With this, the pages start to move faster as the elements of the narrative have started to come together. I'm now even more hooked, and the eventual fate of the protagonist engages me in these brutal pages. I'll talk more about the book in the next few days.
After breakfast we head out and make our way to the bike shop north of the lake to see what they can do for the crank situation. We get there at 11:30 and maybe leave at 12:30, even though the shop closes at 12. In the end they were able to fix it but we waited for a good 30 minutes while they set some people up on rentals. After that, it took another 30 to get the crank replaced which was frankly a minor miracle. I ended up with a gray, aluminum crank which was not broken, did not wobble, and cost me $15 for the crank and $13 to install it plus the spacer. In all, the dollar goes further in PA than in NJ.
But the money I didn't need to spend was covered by
@2Julianas as she bought more and more things the longer we were held up there. Mark sat in a 3-wheeled bike a good portion of the time, and
@Dominique sat outside mostly and watched the bikes on the car. In all, I was thankful not only for the shop but for my bandmates to patiently wait for so long.
Eventually we got out and hit the same lot as the day before, but with plans to hit the south side of the park. We would ride the connector, the south side, then make it to the skills park. Then I would return to get the car and they would stay there then hit the beach. Here we are before the ride:
Today was a shorter loop as we kind of burned ourselves up yesterday with the heat, plus the late start today as well as the second day of oppressive heat was again going to be an issue. We ate lunch in the lot before we rode, and by the time I clipped in, I was pretty much dripping already. We dipped into the trail and were almost immediately met with a puddle. While the trails were better than the day before by a good amount, they were still less than perfect.
Here we are at about the halfway point on the day. This is the far "black diamond" loop on that south side, which I assume is the original side in the park. The trail out here was probably the best one we rode all weekend at Raystown, as it was pretty much totally dry and fast & fun as anything. In this picture, we had just finished discussing Terry Bradshaw:
We finished out the loop then made our way to the skills park. D looks happy here, which goes along with her saying this was her favorite of the 2 days at Raystown
I did the intermediate drops there but I was feeling drained already so after just 3 runs of it, I turned around and made my way 4 miles back to the car. This got me to my 2 hours for the day and allowed everyone else to enjoy the skills park a bit more. I changed into my bathing suit, then drove to the lake to join everyone in the water for a bit. Again, great addition to the routine by adding this. Water felt amazing.
We needed to find a store after the ride which can be a tall task, as anyone who has been out here knows. Our needs were butter, some onions, and a lemon if possible. Against all odds, the "bait and grocery" store outside the park had all 3 items. I have never before seen a store carry fresh onions as well as worms. But hey, we did what we needed to do.
Drove home, then pretty much everyone else made dinner while I read a bit more. Then we had some ravioli, squash, kale, and salad.
After dinner we talked a lot about a bunch of different things. This was one of those conversations where we got to know each other even better than we had before.
Then right before bed Mark told some kids 300 miles away to leave.
Monday
Last morning in the cottage, so we got up a little earlier than usual and packed up everything and cleaned as best we could. Alex had to be on an 8:00 call with her boss so we did our best not to be too loud so she could do the needful on that front. A bit after 8:30 we hit the road and made our way even more north while Alex had maybe 2 more calls and D was on 1 or 2, I don't remember. By 10:30 we hit our destination for the day, which was something different than we had done the previous 2 days.
I'm not sure everyone was 100% in on this one from the beginning because the first 2 days hadn't been the best riding anyone had ever done, between the heat and the moisture. And I had to be honest in saying it was a pretty long climb then another climb after we did the first downhill. But to be honest, I was done with Raystown and I have been meaning to hit up Rothrock for at least a few years now so I tried to do my best to get out here today. I also had some faith in
@pearl even though he never likes anything I post. I was counting on him to give us a good ride today.
So I sent him this image to let him know we were thinking of him:
Well, I will admit that he nailed it. The ride went like this:
1. Easy climb up the fire road until we hit the trail
2. Moderate/technical climb for the last bit
3. Maybe a 3 mile traverse of Tussey Ridge, which was probably an advanced intermediate trail with some legit advanced rock gardens
4. A big ass bomb downhill
5. Re-climb of much of the fire road
6. Crossing over to the other side and some more advanced intermediate rocky bits
7. After the short rocky section the trail just hammered down the hill at max fun speed
After this, we tried out 1 trail which turned out to be an out & back, then we finished up with the absolutely longest armored section I have ever dreamed of. This bit of trail may have very well taken 5000 hours to build. It's more rock armoring than the entire state of NJ I think.
And we were done, and everyone loved this loop today.
Here is Alex on top of Tussey taking a pic:
At the end of Tussey, before the first downhill:
This was the experimental out & back trail called, Three Bridges. There are 3 here, but only 2 in the pic:
And that's a wrap on the riding. After the ride, we ate some food before we hit the road. Alex offered to drive and I was fine with that. D and I sat in the back and again enjoyed the cruise home. Shortly after we left Rothrock, I found a roaster in Lewistown and we decided get some coffee there. I knew we were gambling on this location but the website looked decent and I wanted an espresso. Eventually we got through this slightly-larger-than-average-PA-Trumpian-burg and found the roaster, and it was well beyond what any of us could have expected. Alex commented that these are the experiences that going on these bike trips allow you. None of us would have ever imagined to go to Lewistown for an excellent cup of coffee. Yet here we were, not only drinking coffee & espresso*, but having a damn fine lemon scone as well.
* I often ask for an espresso to drink there and a coffee to go. Mark followed suit here, which I get a kick out it. I will eventually read Murderbot, as a side note.
The drive home was pretty much uneventful which is all you can ask for when you are on the road for 200 miles or whatever it was. D had to take a few calls and I finished up my book during those times as we were all trying to be as quiet as we could be. The book was pretty heavy/intense. Again, I'll cover this in tomorrow's post, hoprefully.
This marks another trip in the books with Alex & Mark and I can say that we enjoyed this one as much or more as the last one, and have already penciled in 2 more trips this year, as well as the Cranks weekend which we will all spend together. These guys are great traveling companions and I think we all enjoyed ourselves immensely on this trip. We're really aligned on a lot of things but most importantly not one of us takes anything too seriously and we're really in it to enjoy the trails as much as we can, eat some good food, relax a little bit, and spend time with good friends. And drink espresso. Can't forget that.
This weekend was all of that and more. I'll admit that the weather made the riding less awesome than it could have been. But this year has been an exercise in playing Russian Roulette with the weather anyway. So it's sort of appropriate that we had to deal with a little rain. We got a huge boost in the Fun Factor with the Rothrock finale, so I have to thank
@pearl for that.
Next up for D and I is the trip partly up to Canada, then the 4 of us will be back together at Cranks the weekend after that. Thanks again for reading the adventures!
