With the weather as fantastic as it was this Labor Day weekend, I couldn’t possibly pass a day without a ride – and when I found that Dave Magill, MORE’s trail liaison for Schaeffer Farms, was offering a ride and opportunity to do some work on the same day I just couldn’t pass it up. In my mind, MORE offers a very attractive incentive to get out and sweat on the trails without a bike, but even without the schwag offerings and bike raffles I’m just one of those saps that love the satisfaction of giving my time to create something that I and all my brothers- and sisters-in-dirt can benefit from when it comes time to saddle up. OK, now that we’re all inspired…let’s get on with the ride.
Try as I might, Mr. Clipless, was just not going to give up on those household chores that he holds so near and dear so I just had to go it alone. I can’t remember just when it was that I last rode up there, but it definitely seems that the only times I seem to get up to that area of Maryland is when I’m doing trailwork, as opposed to just being out for a ride. I suppose if that’s what it takes, so be it. The plan was to meet Dave and whatever volunteers he could drum up at Schaeffer to ride first, then head over to the Seneca Creek State Park maintenance area to finish up the remaining signs that will someday adorn the many intersections on the Schaeffer trails. Kind of backwards from the way we normally do our workdays, but who am I to question – I was just happy to have some locals to show me around Schaeffer. The plan was 10am, but as it always seems to turn out, the implementation of that plan was more like 10:30. By that time, Dave and I were joined by Marty and that was just going to have to be it.
It’s understandable that there weren’t more folks out, I reasoned, as it was a weekend when many people travel or spend time with family. But, then again, the Schaeffer parking lot was spilling over with cars and trucks adorned with empty bike racks. Oh, well, who am I to judge?
So Marty, Dave, and I are now off blazing our way through the woods on what I guessed was the white trail. Not being a frequenter of Schaeffer or someone with any kind of sense of direction, I admitted that were Dave and Marty to leave me there I would have had a hell of a time finding my way out. Which led my thoughts to the purpose of the afternoon’s work, which I will appreciate greatly on rides to come, but I digress. Marty actually set a pretty fast pace and, with the trails so buff, made it really fun to just try to hang on. The whoops or half-pipe or whatever you want to call that new section of dips was really fantastic, but a little erratic with absolutely no rhythm possible whatsoever. Dave told us about Joe Foley’s plan to work on the flow of those curves a little and that’s something I’d definitely look forward to in future Schaeffer trips.
For my part, the ride felt great. Two days after a fantastic run around Gambrill’s Yellow Trail, my legs were still feeling the sting – especially on the steeper sections – but after the first few climbs the old gams warmed up and I was content to find that I could hang with Marty for the most part. So naturally my blood was pumping and I was just loving the pace, the weather, and the speed of the trail. “Nice,” I’m thinking, “to be feeling a little in the groove again.” That must’ve been when I cursed myself. I guess “the groove” was not at all where I wanted to be. We come flying out of the woods onto the grassy fields, of which I am decidedly not a fan, and down the narrow dirt path barely discernable in the high grass. The speed was good and fast and there were sometimes two or three bare dirt paths to choose from that all rolled along behind Marty to who-knows-where. That would probably have been really just fine had I chosen one path and stayed with it. But, no, I had to try to cross over from one path to another through some 16” high grass and damn if there wasn’t a nice deep rut hidden in that grass. Next thing I know I’m counting flashes of the sun alternating with grass while my helmet visor was violently slapping my face, chastising me for my momentary lack of sound judgment. Bizarre as it may seem, I was now very happy to have a good crash out of my system.
That was a great lead-in and I’d really love to go into the rest of the ride as, Marty got into an interesting tangle in some creek-side barbed wire, we added an even faster Marty along the way and I just couldn’t get out of the woods without one more nasty stacker, but that’s a story for another day. Maybe over a beer. Meanwhile, there’s a stack of wood over in the Seneca Creek State Park maintenance building waiting to be turned into signs.
After getting back to the lot, changing, and hitting the local 7-Eleven for lunch, we all head over to the shed for some low-tech carpentry. Thankfully, we also picked up Jordan in the parking lot. Jordan had planned to joined us for the ride, but sometimes those mornings just get away from you, so he had a ride on his own and caught up with us before we left. For my part, I was psyched to get the opportunity to play with a pair of DeWalt 18-volt cordless drills. You just can’t beat that power!
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Marty, Dave, and Jordan fabricating the “boxes” that would house the maps for the new Schaeffer Farms trail signs.
According to Dave, they had already put in a few short days of work on the signs and they had 10 of them assembled and all the wood cut (a little disappointing for me, as I would have loved to get my hands on the commercial-grade Delta table saw). As a result, Dave and Marty had a bit of a system going and Jordan and I didn’t have to do much thinking, but just jumped into the mix and followed instructions. So, I was surprised at how quickly we seemed to knock them out, but we were all working pretty hard, nevertheless. After a few short hours, we had a stack of 19 signs and partial construction on three more that would be used at a later date.
I have to complement Dave, and hope you all will take the opportunity to thank him, for the fine job he did designing and building these signs. You know, Dave doesn’t need signs at Schaeffer. He knows his way around those trails. He should, he’s been the liaison for about nine years. But he’s volunteered his time and efforts to do this for you and me. So we won’t get lost and we’ll have a better time enjoying his trails. Thanks, Dave.
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Appearing soon at a trail intersection near you. 19 trail signs ready to be planted.
There’s a workday planned for October 16 at Schaeffer Farms and I believe Dave’s plan is to install the signs at that time. That will be a lot of work, so he’ll need as many volunteers as he can get. So if you’re in the area and would like to make a contribution that will be noticeable (and appreciated) by a huge number of cyclists for years to come, pencil that date in and plan to join us. You’ll never have to wonder which way goes to that new section or which is the shortest way back again – or, for that matter, who the nice people are that helped me find my way – it was you!
Happy Trails,
Frank (aka Rockhead)
