Epic Bicycle Trip

This is the year I plan to ride the Great Allegheny Passage and the Cumberland trails. I am looking forward to getting started on my training, as soon as the temperature gets above 32F LOL.

Rode to Franklin today, including "the hill." The ride in took about 30 minutes; the ride home took about 60 minutes. I actually had a purpose today - I strapped the paniers on my bike and picked up a few grocery items for my wife. I'm trying to decide if this ride is a good one; on the one hand, I want to be able to ride to town whenever I want. On the other hand, the traffic is pretty steady and I'm not sure if breathing all of that carbon monoxide is good for me. Total distance 13.35 miles.

Today I only had a few hours to ride so I decided to just ride to Franklin. This ride takes me through the village of Galloway via 417. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shoulders of the road are in great shape, I felt pretty safe doing the ride in spite of the traffic. I stopped at the top of the Rocky Grove hill, so technically I didn't make it all the way to Franklin. This is a challenging ride due to the hills, and I've decided I'm going to use this more often when I am only doing a short ride.

Today we took another leisurely ride, this time to Fisherman's cove. We left from the Belmar parking area, and the ride to the Cove road was about 4.5 miles. It didn't take us long, so on the return trip we continued past the parking area, across the Belmar Bridge , and on to the Sandycreek Tunnel, then back. Total trip was about 14 miles.

Wife and I took a ride together today; we rode the Oil Creek trail, which I rode on 8/20/16 . Of course we took it slower - average speed 9 MPH - and when we got to Drake Well Park , we decided to continue via the Queen City Trail into downtown Titusville . We visited the park in Titusville and enjoyed some refreshments while sitting in the gazebo. On our way out of Titusville my wife's pack came loose from her bike; we didn't discover the loss until we reached the Drake Well parking lot, so I got a "sprint" in; I rode back the entire Queen City Trail length into Titusville hunting for the pack. Fortunately I was able to find it, and nothing was missing. Total distance: 28.6 miles Max. speed: 26 MPH Average speed: 9 MPH Total Time: just over 3 hours, but we stopped several times on this trip.

I finally got a "major" (for me) ride in today, riding from Franklin to Emlenton on the Allegheny River trail. The ride turned out to be just a bit more of an adventure than I had originally anticipated. All was well until I got to the first tunnel . The tunnel is nearly a mile long and has a large curve in the middle, so you literally can't see "the light at the end of the tunnel." I forgot my glasses have transition lenses, and when I hit the tunnel at 15 mph, I went from bright sunlight to total blackness faster than I could adjust. The result was that, for the first time in a long time, I went over the handlebars. Ouch. I also learned that I really, really need to "upgrade" my headlight. The next adventure is a short stretch of this trail that requires looping up onto a poorly maintained dirt road to avoid a contested piece of real estate. The road was pretty washed out and provided a challenging ride. I was glad I had a mountain bike cro...

I did the entire Oil Creek bike trail today, from Oil Creek State Park to Drake Well . Not a long ride (just 18 miles) but a good one.