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Sunday, May 10: First…Happy Mom’s Day to my mother. Love ya so much mom!! And thanks to to my cousin Sue and to Judy - who have helped me so much thus far to make this thing happen. 


Today all the grunt work, all the gnarly, crappy riding/bushwhacking/canoeing that preceded today is behind me. Today I can actually RIDE.


Got down to Theodore Roosevelt Island across from Georgetown at about 10 AM. I mean Sue and Judy really pushed so we could get down there and get this last canoe portage done and get me on the C & O. It’s darn near 50 miles from Sue’s house to DC, and we’ve been doing this “commute” for for days now. Yet even at 10 AM the parking lot was just packed. Chalk it up to Mother’s day and great weather. We had to kind of pull in a handicapped area with the van running to unload the canoe otherwise we’d have waited till who knows when for a spot to open up. Did a speed unload, and got all my gear into the canoe and pushed off less than a half hour after arriving. 


Paddles around the west side of the island and made a beeline for the Chain Street Boat House on the other side as I got into the main channel of the Potomac. No big ass boats to deal with this early, but there were a gazillion paddle boarders and kayakers out there enjoying the morning weather. The paddle took me a quick 15 min and walla…C & O here we are! Pulled up to the doc and it was just buzzing with folks renting paddle boards and kayaks from the local livery. Got the canoe and gear up a couple flights of stairs and waited for my trusty crew to come by so I could make my canoe to bike transition. Once they did we got everything relashed and were on the bikes. Sue took the van back to Fredrick which gave Judy the opp for a full day of riding, which after 9 days of support was much appreciated. Getting on that trail, with it’s hard pack surface of dirt and stone, was like heaven. I swear it felt soooooo darn good to be able to just cruise on the bike. No rattling around, nor finding the edge line in grassy berm, no fallow farm fields, and no sloping, slippery gravel ballast on a 30-degree angle. 


Didn’t have my garmin on the bike what with so much to do the last days I forgot to change the chip out of my handheld gps and install it into my bike gps. But anyway, we kind of knew were doing about 13 mph based on the time it was taking us between mile posts. And it was just bloody glorious. I even locked out my front and rear shocks because to me, this trail was smooth as glass. To Judy….she thought it was “bumpy”. Yea, bumpy! I told her she just didn’t know the definition of bumpy. 


Now the first 10-15 miles of the trail were just swarming with people, so we lost some time and speed just weaving in and out of the masses of humanity on the trail - many of whom had left their brains at home when it comes to common sense while on a public trail. I can’t tell you how many people just  were walking 3 and 4 abreast down such a massive trail, how many dogs on leashes were Xed over the whole trail, how many kids were darting back and forth. It was just crazy. Judy actually came to a complete stop several times as we’d hit these waves of humanity. For those of you who think the Cuyahoga Towpath trail gets crowded - you ain’t seen nothing till you see the C & O on a beautiful holiday Sunday afternoon. I get agoraphobic just thinking about it!


But man, you get just 2-3 miles past all the tourist sights along that first stretch of this canal corridor, and the crowds disappear. Then you’re truly out there enjoying the solitude of the trail. Now there are still people running, hiking and biking, but I mean it’s nothing compared to those first 15 miles from Georgetown to Bethesda, MD. Due to the lack of any real consistent precip over the past couple of weeks, the trail surface was pretty dry and solid. I’ve been on this some years where it’s just a slurry of mud and puddles. So I felt good about that. Other than the near 90-degree heat everything was just wonderful. 


We buzzed along passing some of the more notable landmarks along the trail, and had come to the determination that of the distance choices we had today to ride - 35 or 45 miles, that we’d opt for the longer of the two and meet Sue at Point of Rocks for our ride end point. By 35 in Judy had started to feel the effects of only having ridden some 6x this season. So she backed off while I just kind of kept me 13 mph pacing, pushing the big ring in a middle cog at a mashy cadence of 85 or so rpm. Just felt great to have some resistance on the pedals for a change rather than the super spinning I’d been doing for the prior week in the little cookie and the easiest gear in the back - the big pie plate. 


Well once I got to the 45 mile marker there was no sign of Point of Rocks parking area. So while I’m riding I get a phone call from Sue telling me she’s waiting at the train station at Point of Rocks, and I told her I was nearly there. So I rode up to the 46 marker - nothing. Turned around and then headed back to 45, thinking maybe I missed something. In doing so I stopped and asked a guy the whereabouts of Point of Rocks. “ Four to five miles up,” was his answer. Ouch! I didn’t relish going back to tell Judy, who by then was DONE with riding, that she has the potential for another 5 miles. Now we didn’t pick these numbers out of thin air. Nope, the trail guide we’d read the night before online gave us the info. And it distinctly said that Point of Rocks was 45 miles in. Now some of you might think: “what’s another five miles on a bike?” Right? But when you’re tanked, done, finished, crushed….that extra five miles can be like a total death march. So I felt bad for Judy having to buck it up and continue on dead legs even further - on her first outing!


Onward we went, now figuring that we had to tack on another 5 miles. Rode ahead again and got up to the 48 mile marker at the Point of Rocks parking area - and no Sue. So I rode another mile up to see if the train station was at another lot. Nothing. So I ride back to 48 and there’s poor Judy wondering what the what is going on. 


Finally I X’ed the RR tracks and kind of rode into town about a half mile, and I did indeed find Sue parked at a train station. You just couldn’t see it from the trail. So we pulled the van back around to where the trailside parking was at and picked Judy up. Hey…doing this gig day after day trying to coordinate bike and support vehicle, you’re guaranteed that SOMETHING is going to pop up and throw a wrench into your plans. Heck, we have something occur on a daily basis. This was tame compared to some of the stuff we’ve experienced - like me forgetting my bloody phone back in Cambridge, DE! 


I was just parched from the heat, dripping sweat like a faucet. We stopped at this little dairy isle and got a couple of cold cokes and then headed back to Fredrick some 20 minutes away. 


Felt great to get this part of the trip going, as we’ll now actually see some real progress on the route for the next 3 or so days. Have to thank my cousin Sue for all she’s done for us in this section. She’s been so gracious with her home and her time - especially on mom’s day! Thanks so much Sue - we’ll miss you! 


Tomorrow Judy and I move on and become the team of 2 again.