As Ken & Ben Sanford, Peter Kohler, and I departed I-695, the loop around Baltimore, and joined I-83 North, we noted something "interesting:" The countryside was not flat. It was made up of alternating ups and downs, on a scale of about a mile between ridges (maybe 2), and several thousand feet of relief. No, we weren't relieved. It's not just driving from DC to North Nowhere for a bike ride, but this was supposed to be acceptable for fixed gears.
There were maybe 15 or 20 of us, hosted by Dan and his lovely wife, with a great 30 mile ride (except for those of us who made additional "digressions" from the cue sheet, but more later). Having ridden with Dan before, I didn't bring my fixed gear. I didn't bring my 3-speed ASC fixed gear. I brought my Cinelli road bike, with plenty of low gear.
Saith a Sanford: It's not so much the uphills, which were mostly relatively short, but some of those falling-off-the-cliff downhills showed no mercy to anyone w/ fixie and no other brake.
Ah, Judgment. Both Tom Adams and Steven Maasland came down from NJ. This is good. Steve brought two rides, the mystery bike that turned out not to be a US custom or a Marinoni, but a very clean Miyata Team bike. But, no, it was not to be ridden, not when there is a Longstaff Trike to be ridden. After all, on a trike the infamous Cinelli M-71 "widow-makers" can't cause problems, right? Not to worry that trikes are lackadaisical climbers... It turned out that Mr. Longstaff and Mr. Maasland did not always agree about pace up the hills, so Mr. Maasland exercised proper Command Judgment and led it back via a recommended short-cut along a virtually flat rails-to-trails route. Only problem was the clouds hid the sun, and he went North instead of South, so he had a long digression. :-)
But, we all had a great time. I didn't get everyone's name, but the bikes (ah, the bikes) ridden or shown included Dan's fleet, with a Nervex-lugged red Paramount tracker and his Jack Taylor ASC curved-tube path racer, Sachs touring bike, etc. Ben Sanford's irridescent pearl Eisentraut fixed gear, a de Bernardi, at least 2 Cinelli road bikes from early 70s, the absolutely gorgeous Paul Raley-restored 51 Raleigh Record Ace, with Sturmey FM and Harden bacon slicer HF front, a very clean Paramount tourist, also with chrome Nervex, Drinkwater's Vent Noir in smoked chrome with gold accents, and so on. A chrome Falcon tracker with full wrap-over stays. An 82 Moseman tandem, as clean as the day Rodney built it.
And, for all this old man's griping about the terrain, everyone loved the quiet rural roads, and the scenery is just gorgeous.
Thanks, Dan!
harvey sachs
mcLean va