Linking the Richland B&O and OTET - Is it possible?

 

I want to go from the Richland B&O Trail to the Ohio to Erie Trail.  There is about a 30-mile gap between them, which would entail riding on a road.  It's a hilly area.  I let google navigate for me, from Butler to Mount Vernon. It presented me with three options - the flattest of which was to ride down State Route 95 to Ankeytown, from Ankneytown to Fredericktown, and from there down State Route 13. 

I got to Butler, and was dismayed to see that vandals have been busy.  I just saw a Facebook post about another Mansfield City park being vandalized, Liberty Park in the Madison school area.  Very sad to see.  I was glad, however, that the ladies' room was still open.  

It was nice weather for a ride.  Not too cool, not too hot.  I made my way onto State Route 95 and headed south.  I stopped to take a photo of this creek, because it was so pretty with the sky reflecting in the s-shaped creek.  Unfortunately the photo doesn't give the full effect. 

 Traffic was light on SR 95 and that was good, because there were no shoulders marked.  A couple of semi-trucks came the other way, but they slowed, and there was no issue.  I got to Fredericktown without incident, where the google navigation was a little confusing.  Luckily I spotted a bike/hike trail on the other side of the road and guessed I was supposed to take it.  It was very pleasant.  A section was cut out of rocks, which had eroded away over the years.  

When the short trail ended, I was on a wide, empty road.  Empty except for the heavy trucks that occasionally came my way.  That street ended on State Route 13, just at the end of the divided highway section.  I had to cross over the divided highway to turn left.  At least there was a narrow shoulder, but there was also a rumble strip cut into the edge markings.   I had to concentrate not to wander into the rumble strips.  Traffic was fairly light, being the middle of the day. 

When I got to Mt. Vernon, there were a lot of road closing signs.  But they said "Local Traffic only - No Trucks", so I assumed a bike would be able to get through.  When I got to the construction area, though, car traffic was coming through the one lane in only one direction. I moved over onto the sidewalk and rode through the parking lots of several businesses.  This was pretty easy because the road was downhill.  I got to the square in Mt. Vernon and decided it would be good to stop for lunch.  I picked this place, thinking it would have healthy food. 

 

The lunch menu was limited, they had a "happy hippie" wrap with kale and other vegetables and either scrambled tofu, sesame seed, or both.  I chose just the scrambled tofu.  It was sooooo gooooood!!!

I may come back when not on the bike, just for another one of those wraps.  There is also a maker space next door that I'd like to check out.  

I rode on to the old restored train station that serves as the Chamber of Commerce visitor center along the rail-trail.  This is the meeting of two of the trails that make up the Ohio to Erie Trail.  I rode past Ariel Foundation park, which is the site of a former PPG glass factory, and continued down another 8 or 9 miles to Mt. Liberty.  I was starting to worry about getting home in time for "date night" with my husband, so I turned around and headed back.  The trail is every so slightly downhill going north.  I made better time going back.   

When I got downown in Mt. Vernon, I wanted to avoid the road construction, so I went up Gay Street.  This proved to be problematic.  First, it was uphill.  There was no bike lane, and cars were parked on the right with little room for the traffic, and no room for me.  I ended up walking up part of the street onthe sidewalk. 

Gay Street ended at the cemetary.  I turned left and road to Mansfield Avenue and headed out of town.  Mansfield Avenue became Old Mansfield Road at some point.  I rode for several miles.  It was a roller coaster of uphill and down.  Several times my heart was in my throat as a car or truck roared past me as it crested the blind hill.  It was getting towards "rush hour" if you can call it that, and traffic was pretty heavy. Seemingly everyone was in a hurry.  I called Ed to come and get me.  It was getting late and I was getting nervous.  

I do not recommend this route.  So I am still searching for a way from Butler to OTET!  

Maiden Voyage - Trek Silque

I have a new-to-me used bike.  It is a 2017 Trek Silque.  It is the newest bike I now own.  I bought it after a recent ride when the bursitis in my shoulders was starting to bother me again. A couple of years ago I spent several months in physical therapy to relieve the bursitis.  I don't want to do that again.

 How did I get to this point? 

 My first "good" bike was a Trek 520 that I bought, I think sometime in the mid 1990's.  I can narrow the year down by the paint color, according to Vintage-Trek.com

92, black forest green with gold decals
93, black forest green with gold decals
94, black forest green with gold decals
95, black forest green with gold decals

What's wrong with this bike? Almost nothing. It has every feature I need to fit me perfectly for a touring bike.  The top tube is a little bit too long for me because the top bar was sized for someone with longer arms.  The 520 is a unisex bike. The longer frame is supposed to absorb more road shock for long days in the saddle.  The frame says it is a 48 cm.   I had a new stem for the handlebars put on to bring the handlebars closer, to attempt to correct the situation, but it's still not right. 

After my hips started bothering me, when I still lived in Michigan, I visited another Trek dealer and got a mint-green Electra.  This bike has the pedals more forward, the pedaling position is more upright.  It is like bicycling in an easy chair.  My hips got worse, (not from the bike, from sitting too much at work.) and I needed a hip replacement (or three.)  I didn't ride it a lot, but I did ride it, in between hip and knee replacement surgeries. My first 40-mile charity ride in Grand Rapids was on this bike.  The news media took my picture. No one could believe I would bring that bike on a long ride.  It's a heavy bike, but comfortable.  I ride it on "slow-roll" rides. It is also good on gravel roads. 

I found an ancient Schwinn Collegiate at a garage sale for $5.  It felt a lot like the Sears bike I had as a kid.  It's very comfortable.  But it's a 3-speed, it's rusty, and I don't trust it a lot.  I keep it at our farm for an "emergency" bike if I need a bike ride.  I did buy a new basket for it.  The basket cost more than the bike, including the new tires. 

A few years ago I decided to find another bike.  I found a Women's Specific Design (WSD) Trek Madone for sale near me with a 47 cm carbon fiber frame. I believe it is from 2010, according to the paint color. The Madone is a racing bike.  I am a slow rider.  The riding position is pedals to the rear, shoulders forward. It is a stiff bike, there is a lot of power transfer to the bike.  I've been riding it all summer, alternating with the 520.  It fits me better.  But my shoulders are still sore.  As a racing bike, it doesn't have a rack for panniers.  I tried using one from Arkel that mounts on the seat post, but on the first ride, the rack rubbed on the back tire.  I tried to adjust it and ended up ripping off the Velcro that attaches it to the seat post.  So if I need to carry anything that doesn't fit in the handlebar bag, I have to put it in a back pack.  The bike is really light! And it is fast. 

So, when the opportunity to get this 2017 Silque bike came along, I was thinking of my shoulders, and whether I should start physical therapy again, which put me in the mood to buy it.  I decided I could sell one or more of the other bikes.  It's carbon fiber, and WSD.  It is much newer than any of my other bikes. It's the women's version of the Domane. Trek has since eliminated this model, or rolled its features into the current Domane. 

 Earlier this year, I decided to take the Trek 520 on my bike ride across Ohio, and looked into replacing the front chain ring.  Parts availability may become an issue soon, for the 520.  

So my reasoning for why I need a new bike is: 

•  Parts availability
• Avoid injury or expensive physical therapy
• n+1 rule: you always need one more bike than you currently have

I've had the Silque for a week, but had not ridden it until today.  

First I had to order pedals for it, as it did not come with pedals.  I put my old pedals from the 520, from before I updated to Shimano Pedaling Dynamics (SPD) pedals, on it.  It rained the next day,  and I didn't want to get it muddy on the first trip out.  Then we traveled  to the farm.  It was sunny there while we were driving, but rained the next day.  The day we drove back it was sunny again.  When we got back home, it was raining again.  The good news was that the new pedals had arrived, so off went the old pedals and on went the new.  Ed made me do this work, he says "You have been trained."

I could have ridden yesterday, but had some lingering anxiety over doing my first ride.  So today I finally took it out.  I decided to go on the local bike trail, instead of driving to a destination ride, since I assumed I would be needing to make some adjustments.  

Almost immediately, I noticed the seat was too low.  I was bending my knees much more than usual.  After a mile, I stopped and raised the seat probably a half inch.  I had been told never to adjust more than a quarter-inch at a time, but this was an initial adjustment, so I broke the rule.  When stopping and taking my shoe off the pedals, I realized I need to adjust the pedals when I got home,  to release more easily. It took quite a bit of effort to disconnect my right foot. I had read the literature for the new pedals, and there is a way to adjust how easily you can release the clip.   I am still not clipping in on my left shoe, because the knee is still a little stiff due to the knee replacement.   Good thing, because if I had discovered mid-ride how hard it was to get both my left and right shoes out of the clips, I surely would have fallen off the bike. 

 After 10 miles, I was internally grading the bike as I rode along.  My shoulders were NOT hurting.  My hands were NOT numb.  My legs were NOT tired.  My butt hurt.  

I am going to have to get a new saddle.  The WSD original saddle is narrower than any of my other saddles, and as hard as a 2x4 piece of lumber.  

I turned around at 10.5 miles and I was very conscious of the saddle the whole way back. But all in all, it was a great ride.  The electronic shifting on this bike seems very reliable, much easier than on the Madone, where sometimes I have to fight with the shifters to get into the desired gear.  The disadvantage of the electronic shifting is that I will need to pay attention to the battery status before riding.  Mechanical shifters always work. 

The temperature was in the upper 70's, not bad for late October. Pumpkins were still in the field.   The leaves were still brightly colored and haven't all been blown away by wintry rains.  I might have seen a bald eagle at the marsh area adjoining the trail, circling above in the sky.  Or perhaps it was just a vulture.  I made it back to my car before it starting raining.  On my way home I saw a rainbow.  When the traffic stopped I got a shot of it. 

By the time I got home the clouds had rearranged themselves. The dark clouds were almost purple, and the white ones were brilliantly white. 

I looked up a few minutes later and saw another rainbow. 

  The good news is that my knees are not hurting the way they were after my last ride.  In another few weeks, if we have some more good weather, I may have a new favorite bike.  I am thinking I may sign up for a fitting session with a certified bike fitter.  

On another note,  I was cleaning out some paperwork, and came across some maps I had ordered from the Ohio Department of Transportation back in the early 90's.  This was prior to the existence of  many paved bike or multi-use trails in Ohio.  The trail I rode today, the Richland B&O trail, is 25 years old this year, and it was one of the earlier trails in Ohio.  It is very interesting to compare these maps now to the routes suggested by Google. For example, here is a photo of the area around Paris, Ohio that I plan on riding soon.  Or perhaps in the springtime, since it's Paris, after all?  The green lines are the suggested roads for bike travel, because of light automobile traffic.  Red lines suggest busier roads, to be used with caution.  I don't know if ODOT still maintains a catalog of roads suitable for bike riding.  That would be an interesting question to investigate. 

Bike Trip Day 14

  I have ridden the Richland B&O Trail many times.   I thought today would be a good day to ride it, so that I could pile on some miles and Ed would not have to drop me off or pick me up. 

I had a hard time getting started.  I never have a bad day cycling, but after two days off, my muscles are tight and my knees are sore. It took me a while to talk myself into getting out the door.  I parked in Butler, Ohio.  

It takes me the first four or five miles to get my knees warmed up. 

It turned out that the new chain needed warmed up, too.  I'm not sure what "chain suck" sounds like or feels like, but that is the only explanation I had for what I was experiencing.  It seemed like I was randomly missing teeth on the sprockets, and the chain would catch and then let go every few revolutions, but not in a regular way.  After suffering for the first few miles, I got off and oiled the chain thoroughly with my Teflon oil from my toolkit.   It took a few more miles to totally go away, but eventually it did.

 I waved at my former classmate Roger at Alta Greenhouse, he probably had no clue who I was in my Spandex and helmet.  I didn't stop to take pictures until I reached the wetland along the Trail south of Millsboro.  I saw the swans before I saw the blue heron.

I snapped a few photos, then kept going.  There were three deer on the trail near Kingwood Center.  I shooed them away.  Made it to North Lake Park.

I noticed the promotional poster that was posted to advertise the B&O trail'25th anniversary.

I found that the park was a big construction zone, they are repairing or replacing the bridge on North Lake Ave.  I was counting on my helmet camera to get some shots of the construction, but found out when I got home that it had never come on when I pressed the buttons on the remote.

I turned around.  The trail is 18.5 miles long, so I figured on about 37 miles today.  The deer were back on the trail again.  Once again, I shouted some encouragement at them for them to move on.  I made it back to the wetland area, and the blue heron was gone, but the swans were sharing the submerged log he had been standing on. 

 I took a few more pictures.  I think these were trumpeter swans, as far as I could tell their beaks were all black.  They are the largest bird in North America.  As recently as twenty years ago, they were in danger of extinction,  but they have since made a comeback. I felt honored to have seen them.  I kept riding until I got to the rest stop in Bellville.  I took a picture of a guy and his kids (using his camera.)  They were riding vintage Scwinn bikes, and they looked as if they could have stepped out of the TV show "Leave it to Beaver."

There were a bunch of preteens in the parking lot in Butler.  They were impressed with my Spiderman superhero jersey, and asked me questions about the camera on my helmet  I told them I was a blogger, not a vlogger, and I can't figure out how to use the camera properly.  I told them about the Great Cycle Challenge and that they could sign up for next year.

  I made it back just about suppertime.  I did not feel like cooking, so I suggested to Ed that I take him out.  We went to Dan Lee Exchange downtown.  We sat on the patio and had a very nice dinner.  The weather was perfect.

I have only 25 miles to go to reach my goal of 500!