Hashawha - 9 miles

Today I got my Cannonndale back up and running. Sadly, it's been sitting around without derailleurs, shifters or a chain these last few months. So I pieced her back together and she's decent again. I'd been running it as a 1X9 but never really liked running it with a bashring up front. The only reason why I did this was because I lacked the proper chainring bolts to mount just the 32T ring to the spider of my crankarm. Mounting the bashring to my spider took up those millimeters of excess chainring bolt length, and so I just ran it that way. Until today that is. I popped over to Race Pace (My new local bike shop) and picked up four singlespeed size chainring bolts. While I was at it, I ordered a fancy-shmancy chain keeper from Paul Components. No longer will I have to use a front derailleur or worse, a grapefruit spoon, to keep my chain from flying off my chainring on those chattery-choppy descents. Can't wait to mount it up. They put the order in today so it should be in by Wednesday; just in time for this weekend's ride at Patapsco.

While I was at Race Pace, I asked Steve if there were any local spots to mountain bike at. Since I've been back, I've been revisiting my favorites: Schaeffer Farms & Patapsco. I had heard that Loch Raven Reservoir was closed to mountain bikers as of late, which blows, because it's a great place to ride. Apparently, the Department of Public Works, suddenly thinks that mountainbiking is hurting the water quality in the reservoir. They claim that mountainbikers are causing excessive soil erosion which is leading to unhealthy levels of sedimentation in the water. Gimme' a break. Check out the Loch Raven Mountain Biking website for details on this sham. But anyway, Steve pointed me in the direction of Hashawha, with the caution that there isn't a lot of singletrack but that it's good for a quick burn if you need a fix.

*poof* I'm off to Hashawha.

Hashawha Environmental Center is awesome. It's a 380 acre wilderness education center and it's in great shape. The trail network is small, roughly 10 miles of trail I'd estimate and some of the trails are shared with horse folk, but they're still pretty awesome. I put in 9 miles today. I ventured off of the Hashawha property and found some really great singletrack which looks very fresh. It looks like it was cut about a year or less, ago and parts of it were very hairy. I found myself riding along the side of a cliff on an extremely off-camber section of trail where a slip of the wheel would have me cartwheeling to my death (or severely maimed status). But, it was a great ride. I love that this place is only 20 minutes from my house. Lastly, I have to say that the Cannondale rode like a champ and I am absolutely loving my new Lefty and it's remote lockout! Enough talk; more photos...