1st Annual (hopefully) York County Perimeter Ride Experience 9/18/10

Shawn Beeler, Drew Tyger, and myself set out at approximately 6:30 AM on a chilly morning on Saturday 9/18/10. We started at The Cycleworks in Wrightsville and had our minds set to attempt the first ever (that I know of) York County perimeter ride. I had my Garmin set to navigate a route that I had planned through mapmyride and a cue sheet that I was hoping we wouldn't have to use. As we climbed over Lauxmont we took it easy over our first hill in great spirits and excited to begin our journey. It was definitely a bit chilly but that first climb got the heart rate going and quickly warmed us up!

The first 25-30 miles was supposed to be a small variation of Round-the-River attempting to stay as close to the river as possible. Within 15 miles, the Garmin started taking us on roads we hadn't traveled before and we started to realize why Round-the-River avoids these GRAVEL roads! About 15 miles into the ride on Douglas Rd, Shawn turned to me as the Garmin made a strange noise. I looked down and it was telling me to take a U-turn and head back to The Cycleworks. Maybe that was foreshadowing of what was to come, but we decided to break out the cue sheet and continue on.

We found our way back onto 425 heading south and Shawn began the job of reading the turns off the cue sheet. At this point we knew we were headed through Otter Creek and climbing back out, but after the climb out of Otter Creek and the turn onto 74 we were about to hit more territory that was never explored by any of the three of us. As we passed Slab road, which connects 74 with Holtwood road, that we were familiar with through our Round-the-River experience, Shawn turned and asked why we didn't make that turn. I wasn't very sure, so we stopped a few miles down the road and I realized Shawn had already made a mistake on the cue sheet so I reluctantly took over the job of navigator. Sorry Shawn...

After a few mishaps, we were back on track and quickly riding down the Southeast border of the county and running down the cue sheet. As we made our turn to the West and started the Southern border we were again in good spirits and realized that we had a chance to pull the ride off. It was expectedly hilly along the river and we figured the hills would let up as we picked our way across the Mason-Dixon line. The hills for the most part didn't let up as Fawn Grove brought back memories of a road race that Shawn and I competed in 2 years ago. Gotta love the unpaved hills of Fawn Grove!

Within no time, we had crossed 83 and turned onto the Susquehanna Trail. The cue sheet told us to take a right onto the trail and a left onto Hill Rd. Unfortunately, looking back, Hill Rd was marked as Keller Rd and we missed the turn. I figured the turn was missed after we had been on the Trail for about a mile but I figured we would hit a spot to refuel as we got closer to Shrewsbury. We stopped at a CVS about 2 miles up the trail, we refueled, and I got my typical Slim Jim. At this point we were definitely a little beaten up by the hills but we were still in fairly good spirits despite being so far off course. I was semi-familiar with the area and I still had the mapping feature on my Garmin so I figured I'd be able to work our way back onto the route after our break. At this point in the ride, the typically chatty Drew was starting to get a little more quiet and I could tell he wasn't feeling all that great. Drew had been along 2 weeks before on a 120 miler around Lebanon County so I knew he could push himself and I figured he'd work through his first "mental valley" as Shawn and I call it.

As we left CVS we decided, instead of backtracking down the Trail, we would take a left on Constitution Ave and figured we could work our way back on course. As we worked our way through New Freedom and headed south on Front St we ran into a road on the cue sheet called Keeney Mill Rd. On the cue sheet it was written that we should take a right but I had figured we were a little further north than we were and a left would get us back on track. Looking back, Front St took us across the Maryland line and taking the left on Keeney Mill unfortunately took us much deeper into Maryland than we had even expected. As we passed more and more roads that weren't on the cue sheet I began to worry that we made a mistake but again I attempted to use my Garmin map and try again to work our way out.

A few miles later, I looked down at my Garmin and saw a body of water that we were approaching. It was Pretty Boy Reservoir! I knew from a painful ride last year, while recovering from an Ironman I had done a month before, that this was an extremely hilly area and we were headed directly towards the Reservoir! Just as I turned to Shawn and Drew to tell them where we were, we were descending a massive hill and consequently looking at the climb on the other side. As we started to climb, I told Drew and Shawn that I would type a random address into my Garmin and we would take a V-line to Hanover knowing that the Western border of the County went directly through Hanover. They agreed that this was a good idea and we continued riding the hills of Pretty Boy. After each hill, I'd look over at Drew to see how he was doing and could tell he was starting to fade. Admittedly, I was also starting to fade and I was starting to think that this attempt at riding the County may not come to fruition.

As we made our way out of Maryland and my Garmin started taking us to Hanover we were about 80 miles into our ride which is typically my first mental valley on these LONG rides. I was dragging my way up a climb on Glenville Rd slowly falling back from Shawn and Drew questioning whether or not I wanted to continue and unsure of whether or not we could even finish the perimeter before sunset even without anymore mistakes! As I worked my way through the "valley" continuing up the climb, I looked up the road. What I saw was one of the funniest images I had ever seen on my bike and it came at a perfect time considering the mental state I was in. I saw Shawn Beeler about a quarter mile up the road with his head down HAMMERING the hill and behind him there were two white furballs! The entire way up the rest of the climb I was laughing and couldn't wait to hear what he had to say! The dogs had chased him for atleast a half a mile! We met at the top of the hill, had a good laugh and pedaled on.

We made our way to Baltimore Pike and headed towards Hanover. Shawn had been talking to Drew and Drew was starting to consider bailing on the ride knowing how much more we had to go, and how bad he was feeling. As we worked our way into Hanover we stopped off at a Rite Aid searching for Rolaids (Shawn claims they help out on long rides) and refueled. Shawn ran into the store as I stood outside with Drew. I could tell he was feeling very bad and was having trouble. We talked for a little while and decided that we would take him up 194 towards East Berlin and he would have his brother pick him up. I hated to see him go but I also knew how strong he rode a few weeks ago. He was quickly fading and it wasn't worth it to push him any further. So, Shawn and I dropped Drew off on 194 and found a way back onto the route. I had known from mapping it that we were about to climb High Rock and realized when were were dropping off Drew that we had just passed Youngs Rd that I remembered from the cue sheets.

Shawn and I set off over high rock not knowing what was ahead of us. At this point it was about 1:30 and we were about 90ish miles into the 180 mile ride. We figured if we kept the pace and we stayed on course we could possibly finish the perimeter and be back to The Cycleworks around 6:30. We decided to head on and we would reevaluate our progress at about 4:00.

Highrock was a tough climb with almost 100 miles in our legs but as we worked our way toward East Berlin we had some new found energy. We turned onto Baltimore Pike heading north and I told Shawn we would be on the road for a while. Fortunately, Baltimore Pike was very flat compared to the earlier part of the course and Shawn and I were able to take turns pulling. We quickly made it to County Line Rd and kept a very good pace. Having my dental practice in the area I was more familiar with these roads and started to get more comfortable with the cue sheet. The next hour or two flew by and before we knew it, we were heading into Dillsburg for another rest stop. At this point it was about 3:00 and we knew that we didnt have an extremely difficult ride to our next major stop, New Cumberland. We started to gain confidence and rode out following the Yellow Breeches towards New Cumberland.

The stretch across the Northern Border of the County flew by and before we knew it we were in New Cumberland making our final rest stop at Turkey Hill. Again, we were familiar with the roads because of our experience with Round-the-River north and we were extremely confident at this point that we were going to finish! In the morning when I met Shawn at The Cycleworks, we had talked about how we were going to climb out of New Cumberland. We decided to take a climb that I wasn't famliar with and a patient had told me about. As we headed South on the Susquehanna Trial and started up the climb out of New Cumberland we took a left onto Marsh Run Rd. We followed that for a few miles and then took a right onto Granite Quarry Rd. With 150 miles in my legs this climb was a punch in the gut! It had to approach 16+% grade and seemed to go on forever! This climb put me into mental valley number two and took every ounce of power out of my legs. I was done.... but knew the roads back and that the end was in sight!

As we worked our way South along the river Shawn would go ahead and wait for me as I kept my powerless legs moving. I've found from doing the Nightmare ride three times that the trick to these rides when you are feeling terrible is just to keep the legs moving and you will come around. I wasn't going to come around but didn't have much more to go. Every time I'd make my way back to Shawn and start drafting him, he would slowly pull away and I'd find myself drifting back. Nevertheless, we made our way through Goldsboro, Brunner Island, Mt Wolf, up Furnace Rd, along River Rd, up the Accomac and back down to the river and before I knew it we could see the route 30 bridge and the 462 bridge approaching us!! Shawn and I rode together side by side as we passed John Wright Restaurant and gave each other a fist bump as we turned off of Front St!!!

We had done it!!!.... we didn't exactly take the route that we had planned and we had to leave one of our friends along the route but it was one heck of a day and one heck of an experience! According to Shawn's Garmin the final mileage was almost exactly 180 miles (he had it turned off for 2 miles) and a little over 14,000 feet of climbing. We finished in about 12 hours. What a day.. what a ride... we conquered YORK COUNTY!

Check out the route we took:

http://www.mapmyride.com/route//pa/wrightsville/729128492607094030

We hope to do this ride again next year and will welcome other to join us. We also hope to stay on course and make it a "truer" perimeter of York County. Thank you Drew and Shawn for an awesome day!