A return to the woods

The last time I was on my mountain bike was back in early July and after a week of vacation down south riding flat roads it was high time I get back into the woods.  As some of you know, the popularity of Upper Paugussett State Forest as a mountain biking destination has been increasing over the past couple of years. So much that there are now trail gnomes, who have been doing some great work at times.  However there have been instances of do-gooders over doing it and dumbing down the trail.

Earlier this month I got out on the Gussy after a month long hiatus of not riding my mountain bike and found that the Trail Gnomes have gone wild.  The changes that I found were great.  One of the trees that came down in one of the past hurricanes got cleared and now there are two options to ride and the recently cleared section has a nice little trail feature, too.  However, the happy chainsaw trail gnome took out an up-and-over that I have had a love hate relationship over the years with that I was not happy about. Classic example of dumbing down the trail.  I haven't been able to clean that section on the way up the trail but I keep trying.  IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS and DON'T CHANGE THE TRAIL!

Another example of the Trail Gnomes handiwork is the new trail to the Three Bears Roller.  Awesome rock work but I am torn to ride that versus the original trail route because I like my up-and-over that I created when I built the Gussy back in 2008.  All that effort and yet you couldn't clear the rest of the Three Bears? Lately, however, I had been hearing some rumors of a big change along the Gussy that I decided to go check out Sunday morning.

The Other Georgetown

After Thursday's weather which was rainy in the morning and mostly overcast in the rest of the day, Friday was spectacular!  Will and I planned the last 50 mile ride of the vacation to ride out to Georgetown, DE and then up through Redden State Forest (fingers were crossed that the road went through or wasn't dirt), then back through Milton, and returning to the vacation house.

Sunset Tandem Ride with Elliot

Elliot and I headed out Thursday evening in the other direction towards Cape Henlopen and found a new route to the back end of Ft Miles.  I wish we had left sooner so we would have had more time to explore further but we only got as far as the look out on Gordon's Pond.

Dogfish Head Soup

On Wednesday, Will and I rode to Milton where the Dogfish Head Brewery is located and it was a humid, foggy morning.  This ride turned into a Google Maps Failure because it turns out North Bayshore Road is cutoff by a gated community between Broadkill Road and Primehook Beach, so we had to turn around and ride back the way we came.   

Never-the-less, what we saw along the way was still remarkable ...

Tandeming the Junction and Breakwater Trail

Elliot and went exploring on Tuesday on the Tandem.  We rode from the vacation house over to the Junction and Breakwater Rail Trail, which is atop, in some places an old railroad bed that served Rehoboth Beach until 1928.  The straight sections you knew you were on the actual railroad bed and then there were some go arounds where the property had been developed and a Greenway was used to connect the dots.