Tuesday July 7, 2009

I HAD A LOT OF FUN TODAY. I did not make much progress as far as the mileage chart goes but it was a great day anyway. There is a three mile section of the C&O Canal path that never has been opened for biking. None of the maps I saw told about this. I discovered some pretty wild single track bike riding before I finally found a sign that said the trail was closed. Back tracking and the detour added about 10 extra miles. I really like the surprises and the spur of the moment compensations and decisions that must be made.
The bicycle had a mechanical failure today. All of the weight on the front rack caused the brackets that hold the rack to the front bicycle forks to break. I was riding along and the front rack and the front packs all rotated to the ground. I figured out how to reengineer the front rack with the materials I had and put it back together but it took quite a while to decide what to do. I think that it is much stronger now but we shall see. It was rewarding to be able to fix it.
I should have stress tested all of the gear and equipment before starting but I did not have the time. Actually that is what I am doing now. It will be a long ride and I am finding out how to use and maintain everything early on.
When I got started again the front disk brake was binding up so I stopped early at a beautiful camp site. This site had picnic tables, grass and no mosquitoes. It also had swimming access to the Potomac River. I learned how to adjust the disk brakes, went swimming and caught up on my daily journal. Some of it will eventually make it into the blog. I also need to organize the pictures and figure out how to load them into the blog.
Maybe tomorrow I will actually get my 60 miles of riding.
If you want to see a map of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Trail you can use this URL www.nps.gov/choh/planyourvisit/upload/parkmap.pdf
Front Rack failure at DAM5 Milepost 106
Camped at FOURLOCKS – Milepost 108