Back when I was working on my Best Rides Philadelphia book I spend a long day around Chadds Ford exploring the roads in the area for a couple of routes in the book. Even since then I had wanted to come back to this area because it has some good roads. We had tried to plan a weekend down here a couple of years ago but could never pull it together. So this past week I sent out an email to the posse to see if they would be interested in a day trip to Delaware. I ended up getting Laura, Ricky, Jack, Jim, and Bob to join me. I'm glad Jim and Bob were able to join us as they have been MIA for the past few rides.
It was a perfect day for a ride with sunny weather and temps in mid 60s. We met at Bordentown and carpooled just over an hour to the starting point which was a parking lot on the Brandywine river next to a covered bridge. We did this route which is a hilly one. There was no one tough hill or long climb but it was continuous and unrelenting set of small hills with only a few miles of flat roads. I brought my Feather instead of my hill climbing Synapse because I rode the Feather the last time I was down this way was able to make it up the hills. I guess I must have been a little stronger then because the first hill we rode up hurt a lot more than I remember.
We had 400 feet of climbing in the first few miles. The hills got easier and I felt better as I warmed up. The route I had mapped out went through Shadowbrook pond and snuff mill. This road looked like a driveway but I knew from google maps that it went to where I wanted to go. I guess we shouldn't have been on this road as by the time we got to the other end there was fence blocking our way out. We just climbed over it quickly and made our get away.
There were some great downhills to go with the climbing. The 2 mile downhill on Hildendale was scenic and fun. Even though it was a little tougher to climb with the Feather I'm glad I had it for the downhills.
The deli that I had planned to stop at around mile 20 is now a Mexican restaurant so we had a bar break and got water and a bathroom break at the gas station across the street.
From there we crossed Rt 1 and continued to follow to roads up and down the terrain as we made our way towards West Chester the only real town in the area. There were some good views of the surrounding country side so Laura and I stopped for some pictures. There were a few bridge outs and a road closed along our route today as a crew was taking down a tree. We were easily able to get around all these which was good because I don't know the roads well enough to know how to get around the detours.
In West Chester we found a gas station with a convenience store which was good enough for break. From there it was on to something stupid that I promised to show the posse. To get there we had to go on roads with a little more traffic that we had seen so far but we made it though without any real problems. I was feeling the strain of all the hills so I stopped to take a gel pack which I probably should have done sooner.
At 4 miles from the end of the ride we got to the stupid monument that I wanted everybody to see. As I got off the bike both legs cramped up and I had to sit down for a couple of minutes to get rid of the cramps.
The stupid monument was a sign and bench at (or pretty close to ) the highest point in Delaware. At 447.5 feet it is the second lowest high point in the US. (Florida is the lowest at 345 ft). My GPS had 453 ft which is with in the margin of error of my GPS. I took the required picture like I did for all my NJ highpoint rides. As well as a picture of the actual sign.
It was then a quick ride on a bike lane on Rt 92 and a long downhill back to our starting point. I stopped for a picture of Smith's Bridge on the way back.
I cramped again in the parking lot putting the bikes away but was fine on the drive back to Bordentown and felt fine once I got home. It probably didn't help that I gave blood on Monday. It was definitely a hilly ride. According to my GPS I had almost 3100 ft of climbing. Jim had almost 3900 ft. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
I haven't been able to get away for a bike trip this year so it was fun to take a day trip to do something different and somewhat stupid with the posse because I do stupid good.
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