Ride Report Loch Raven Reservoir 02/23/2002
Saturday looked good for a ride. The weather was in the upper forties and the skies were clear.
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Rich, Sami and John waiting for the camera geek to get ready. |
We met at the church off Seminary Ave. and got rolling by noon. I hadn't been to this area before and found Loch Raven to be a pleasant place to ride. Fire roads and trails were dry and in good condition. Lots of swoopy fast singletrack through the woods. Only a few logs and log piles and I was able to ride most of them. Soon, we were down by the lake.
| Doug insisted on stopping for this strange ritual. I think he was calling on the gods of his lower back to show him mercy. |  |
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The view across the reservoir. |
The singletrack along the lakeshore was a bit more rooty, and would probably be more slick in the wet, but was great today.
| Good view of the terrain. Lots of roots, not too many hills. |  |
We left the lake side and did a bit of climbing, a fun, fast downhill, and a bit more climbing, across a road and then a fantastic downhill through a steep and twisty chute back down to the road by the dam. Rich had to leave at this point and headed back on the road. We explored the stream crossing below the dam and decided it was too cold to get our feet wet so we took a detour by road around to the other side of the lake. This started with a fairly long climb and a ride along the ridge top with occasional downs and back ups.
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Doug was sooooo close to clearing this. John had no trouble. The rest of us didn't try. |
Back down to the road again and across another bridge and one last steep climb to the trails back to the parking area.
Had a great time. I'm definitely going to have to come back with my singlespeed. This is great terrain for it. It also looks like a good place to ride the tandem with my son. Closer to Frederick where I live, it gets a little too technical and bumpy for him to have much fun.
Stats:
Distance: 15.63 Miles
Climbing Distance: 8.18 miles
Elevation Gain: 1327 Ft.
