Nobody knows for sure where the name came from, but the road does snake over the hills, and there are plenty of snakes on those wooded slopes. Snake Hill Road runs somewhere along the far ridge line. Beyond that is the Cheat River, and then Chestnut Ridge. Kelly and I have already climbed up from town here and are about to head down into the little valley that is just over the hill before heading up again.The first climb is what gets you (or at least me anyway) early in the season; it is nearly a mile and a half long and fairly steep. The weather was spectacular today with a high above 70 F, so I wasn't too surprised when I caught a glimpse of a bicycle helmet a couple turns ahead of us on that first climb. We saw her again briefly along the top before we broke for a pit stop at the Snake Hill Wildlife Management Area, which was actively being logged as we stood "enjoying the view". We didn't see anybody again until heading up the steep slope on Rt. 7 into Masontown,W.Va. where it was now 3 cyclists ahead.
When we pulled up at Conrad's Market, we made it an even dozen. A couple Morgantown cyclists were giving some of the Johns Hopkins Cycling team a sampling of West Virginia hills. Does anything look out of place here?
Nobody even looked at the Gold Rush. I suppose it seemed too much like something out of Deliverance when a fat old man on a chopper bicycle pulled up. I did have on my usual summer attire of Walmart Hawaiian shirt and Hostel Shoppe Mt. Borah shorts. Kelly is on the far right, fitting in better with his Cannonball bike and "normal" cycling clothes.
The racers headed off for some more hills, and the geezers headed down the Deckers Creek Trail toward home.
Oh heck, I forgot to tell them about the great Pecorino Romano cheese at Conrad's. At $5.49 per pound I'm sure they'd have grabbed a hunk; I did.
We knew that the rail trail surface would be a little soft from the freezing/thawing action, and there are always some mucky spots on the flat stretch along top. Kelly was just saying that he didn't want to jinx things, but that the trail seemed to be in remarkably good shape, when we rounded the bend and hit patches of snow and ice.
The "clear" track was interesting with lumpy frozen spots that felt like riding over (slick) rocks, but everything cleared up nicely in a couple miles and we had a good run back into town to finish off a very nice ride.
