Valley Forge Ride

National Memorial Arch, Valley Forge

Headed out towards Church Road with no particular flight plan in mind.  There was a work crew doing some repairs to the grounds by the old Ardrossan gate.  I have had that gate in mind as a place for a photo but with the crew in the way and the grass being all torn up it didn't seem like a good idea at the time.

General Mad Anthony Wayne

Not having that possibility in mind I continued down Church towards Waterloo and once there followed Waterloo to Valley Forge.  Once in the park I just followed the roads and wound about the hills, this is a good ride for a helmet camera video.  Some of the side roads were closed, I assumed for repairs or debris removal, but most of the park was accessible.  Made two stops for photos, first in the parking lot behind the National Memorial Arch and then at the Mad Anthony Monument.  The bit of cobble stone in front of the Arch was no fun to negotiate, have to take it slow through there or you might jar your teeth loose.  The road that winds up to the Mad Anthony Monument winds down to 252.  Traffic on Waterloo/252 on the way up was rather heavy from the Baptist Church in the Great Valley (another target for photos) area to the Chesterbrook turn off so I decided to follow turn right on 252 under 202 rather than to take Waterloo back.
After clearing the one way bridge on 252 traffic started getting heavy there too so I took the Sugartown turn off to Church for the way home.

I would like to do the Valley Forge ride again with a helmet camera and earlier in the day when there are less tourists in the area.  The park wasn't congested but it would have been nicer with fewer cars.  Great weather, clear and nice temps with just a little wind.  The heavy forecast for yesterday's rain did not really materialize.  It stated raining around 13:00 and probably stopped a little after 16:30 and it was never heavy rain.

After the morning commute the odo was probably clocking at around 758 miles.  By the end of the Valley Forge ride it is at 786.8 miles.

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Yesterday's Early Evening Ride

After a day of forecasted rain that never materialized, an early evening ride was definitely the way to go.  Tried for a little variant on the Goshen run that included a loop around Providence Rd towards Sugartown Rd.  Once at Sugartown I made the big block back to Goshen and then for a second run on Providence in the same direction as before.  At the T intersection of Providence and Sugartown I took that road towards the Paoli Turnpike and then the Darby and Devon roads loop to the Sugartown Rd beyond 252 to Church and home.

That ride is also a great load of fun.  The Goshen Rd. terrain is continued on Providence with nice twists and low hills.  As the sun was low in the sky there were good long shadows and cool temps but in some stretches of Providence the sun was right in my eyes.  On the first turn from Providence to Sugartown I wanted to take Dutton's Mill Rd and do that loop to Goshen, giving me a longer run on Goshen before the second turn on Providence, but I miscalculated where Dutton's Mill comes out on Sugartown.  It is beyond the Providence T towards the Paoli Pike not in the direction of Goshen.  There was a Verizon crew on Sugartown, close to the Pike, but the timing worked out right and I got the go ahead without having to stop.

After the morning commute there were about 727 miles on the odo, did the Ithan loop on the way home which must add a little mileage.  By the end of this ride the odo is close to 749 miles.  Trying to get to 1500 by the end of July if possible.

Today the forecast was for heavier rain.  It is now 11:30 and it hasn't happened yet.  However, I needed to use the car for work today so no commute on the Bullet.

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Oh, the Humanity!

Ouch!

First ding.  Don't like that, first implies that there will be others to follow but that is the nature of things.  Have no idea how this happened.  Found it last night when I came back to work to pickup a couple of things I had left behind at the office and as I walked towards the bike I noticed the scrape. The first suspect was the Fox Tactical Fork Bag; it could have scraped the parking sticker so the bag is gone now.  On close inspection of the bag, however, there was no sticker residue and nothing hard enough on the bag itself to have caused this scrape.  It is a pretty serious scrape that has taken a whole layer of paint off.

My next thought was that somebody had tried to scrape the parking sticker off and caused the damage but I can't imagine why.  The parking stickers are cheap enough as to be practically free so there really is no reason to try to steal one.

The Bullet is never parked close enough to cars for this to be a door ding and it isn't a ding but a scrape.  So, that leaves that option out and it doesn't appear that the Bullet had been hit hard enough by a door to cause this much loss of paint without leaving a ding.

It has me baffled, I guess I'll never know.  The next step is to get some touch up paint, clean off the goop left behind by the sticker's adhesive, and cover it up as best I can.

As Tony Soprano was fond of saying, "what're you gonna do?"

On the way to work this morning, I stopped at the Shell station on the corner of 30 and Spring Mill to fill-up.  This is never a good idea because this Shell has to be the most expensive gas station in the whole tri-state area.  The odo was at 720.2 and it should have been good to go up to at least 747 miles but last night on the way back from work the gas light was flashing intermittently.  Supposedly, that light comes on once you are into the reserves and stays on solid.  Didn't think there was any need to risk going dry even when it meant having to pay extra for the gas.  The tank took 2.52 gallons to fill and it should be good up to 920 miles for the next fill-up.  Mileage figured out to 67.82 mpg.

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You Know Muffins, John Snow! (Not Motorcycle Related)

That's the new bakery in Winterfell.

Not motorcycle related, but if you enjoy New Orleans jazz and Game of Thrones, you will enjoy this:

Just a small tribute by the New Orleans Swamp Donkeys (who are just amazing) in honor of last Sunday's season finale of Game of Thrones.

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Lunchtime Ride to Bartram's Covered Bridge

Lunch today was taken over by a short ride to check on one of my old cameras.  Left work via Ithan to Conestoga.  Ithan Rd has been completely resurfaced south of 30.  This is a very good thing because the stretch in from of the Agnes Irwin School had gotten pretty bad since the winter snows.  There was some electrical line repair going on in front of the school but they had divided the remaining lane for traffic and there was no need to stop. 

From Conestoga I took Spoul out to Bryn Mawr Ave and out to the West Chester Pike heading away from Philadelphia and out towards Chester County.  Traffic on the Pike was fairly light for midday and the lights seemed to be in my favor as there was a run of several clear greens past 252.  The Pike brought me to Providence Rd where I headed north to the intersection with Goshen.  A right turn there led me back towards 252 and home for a little lunch.  

Bartram's Covered Bridge

One of the reasons for this ride was to test my old Fuji S9100 as a possible carry camera on these jaunts.  The Nikon D7000 and D80 are to big and bulky to carry comfortably on the bike and the D80 lacks live-view which would require helmet removal to take pictures.  As intended, for a while, I stopped in front of Bartram's Covered Bridge, the last covered bridge left in Delaware County, and snapped a couple of shots.  They didn't turned out half bad but I still think I would rather have a good pocket camera so as not to have to carry a bag.   

On crossing the road back to the Bullet, there was a one pointer feeding on the edge of the road just about 75 yards from the end of the bridge.  The capture is not the best as this is a crop of the resulting shot taken with the lens cranked out all the way to 300mm.  The little buck bolted away back into the woods to avoid the oncoming truck not giving much of a chance to get much more than this one shot.

One pointer feeding by the covered bridge

The way back from the covered bridge followed Goshen home, although the detour around Goshen east of 252 is still in place.  After lunch just took the regular commute route back to work and now to wait for maybe a ride this afternoon if it doesn't get much hotter.

The photos below are test shots of the S9100 taken this morning in the parking structure.  The mileage on the odo after this lunchtime jaunt may be around 700 miles if not a little over.

In the parking garage

Ten miles since yesterday morning

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Bullet Engine Schematic

We did not ride out to Adamstown but I ended up there Sunday afternoon doing a little antiquing with my wife.  It would have been a nice ride on the Bullet but not very practical if we had bought something like a framed poster.  Not that I bought a framed poster but I came close.  As I was wandering about one of the shops, Adamstown Antique Mall to be more precise, I noticed high on a wall an engine schematic for a Royal Enfield Bullet.  They wanted $75 for it and I thought that was a little much for a disintegrating poster but it sure was cool.  It appears to be English and from the fifties.  Here is a fuzzy cell phone picture of it.  

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Today is Ride to Work Day!

Nice commute to work this morning.

Leaving the house

At the garage at work

666 miles!  Oh, oh!  XD

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