Back to the Soil

Memorial Day has passed, May is done, and June is here in all it's green and leafy splendor.  The weather has finally got to the point where I'm not worried about it snowing overnight (I jest  - kind of).  We've had beautiful weather lately, with temps in the 70's and 80's, and the occasional thunderstorms to remind you that the world doesn't conform to your schedule.

When I went in for a doctor's appointment in January and found out that I had packed on fifteen pounds of Christmas fat I decided that I was going to try to step up my riding when the weather finally decided to cooperate.  So when the pavement started to show through in March I tried to get out as often as I could, and to make those rides a bit longer than I would have in the past.  The result was that I pedaled over 200 miles in March, and then went over 200 miles in April as well.

I have no illusions about riding 200 miles in a month - as far as great bicycle accomplishments it's pretty far down the list.  Heck, there are people who ride over 400 miles non-stop in one race, so me riding a measly 200 miles in 30 days isn't that big of a deal. 

So when May got going and I kept on riding on a regular basis it was no surprise when the miles started to add up.  Early in the month I headed a little bit west to the small town of Garrettsville and made my first trip on the Headwaters Trail.

Headwaters Trail entering Mantua.

This is a nice crushed stone trail that runs about 8-1/2 miles from Garrettsville to just past Mantua.  Most of the trail feels pretty remote, with plenty of woods and marshes alongside.  Some of the scenery is really beautiful, and gives an excellent example of the varying terrain of the headwaters area.  This little waterfall is near the trail, and with a little bit of rain provides a bit of natural music for your ride.

The town of Mantua, near the other end of the trail, has an interesting, if small, old downtown.  I really liked the old grain elevator with the slate shingle sides.

Downtown Mantua.

This historical marker lies beside the tracks between Garrettsville and Mantua.  It's just a small reminder of the local history that is forgotten all around us.

Besides making two end to end trips on Headwaters Trail, and a couple of long rides on the Little Beaver Creek Greenway, I also put in a bunch of miles on the Western Reserve Greenway, my local trail.  It may be the straightest and flattest of the rail trails in our area, but there is enough to see if you open your eyes.

Fox pups near Western Reserve Greenway.

These two fox pups were part of a litter of at least four that I saw in a group of den holes within 20 feet of the Greenway paving.  They've been there for over a month by now, and are getting big enough that I'm starting to wonder when they'll be leaving the den.  Then there's the guy below, who was on the trail up north in Ashtabula County.

Another trail user - this one is even slower than me.

There are some really beautiful spots on the trail up in Ashtabula County.  The old railroad bridge over Rock Creek has a great view of a unique little waterfall after a good rain.  And the little rest area north or Rock Creek is very peaceful - a good place to stop and catch a breath and a drink of water.

Ashtabula County bike trail rest area.

 But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when you're in the right frame of mind you can find it all around - even in places you've been a hundred times.

Sunset at the wildlife observation deck on Western Reserve Greenway.

So after three weeks of riding the rail trails (still waiting for the mountain bike trails to firm up enough to ride) I was surprised to see that mapmyride was showing that my monthly mileage was already over 200.  With such a strong start I was thinking I could get my highest monthly total yet - and with a bit of a push over the last weekend I managed to bring my May riding total up to 301.5 miles!  Once again, in the big picture that isn't much of an accomplishment - but to me it does mean something.  I'm not sure I actually lost any weight, but I feel better which is makes it worth it.

The mountain bike trails at West Branch State Park finally opened up over Memorial Day weekend.  Word was that they were still a little bit soft, but good enough to ride.  Last weekend I had a short window of time and headed out to give them a try.  I rode for an hour and a half, and was pleased to see that the trail was in good condition.  The local mountain bike club, CAMBA, had also done some great work with new trail reroutes at a couple of areas. 

But the thing that made me feel best was the fact that I was riding great.  I'm never a fast rider, but keep up a consistent pace that allows my sketchy breathing to keep up with the demands of the trail. But I rode the first half of the ride, at least a couple of miles, without a dab (putting a foot down).  The hills were still tough - but maybe not quite as tough as I remember them.  And when I was out of time I still felt like I had a good deal of energy left.  I'm attributing all of this to all those pavement miles earlier in the spring, building up my legs and my cardio, giving me a small improvement this year over last.  And at my age I'll take any improvement that I can get!

In news besides bicycling, Diana and I spent a bit of time together including a quick trip up to Lake Erie at Ashtabula.  I always enjoy the lakeside, and it can be a fun trip getting up there.

Lookout - a selfie!

Ken has made it through another year of school without going nuts (or driving me nuts).  The school band got its marching program together and made their yearly excursion in the Memorial Day parade.  He's getting better and better on his sax, to the point where it's fun to listen to him practice now.

Ken is the sax player near center, above the brunette clarinet player.
 

I've been out and about on the weekends with Dave, getting out on the back roads and seeing some sights out in the boonies.

Possible micro whitewater just outside of Youngstown??!?

This month I plan on letting the mileage totals take care of themselves while I focus on spending some quality time riding shorter miles on dirt.  So I wouldn't be surprised if June's total mileage was below 200.  But that's okay - mileage totals aren't why I ride.  FUN is why I ride!

Fight Entropy!

Give Me Patience

Each of the four seasons is theoretically 1/4 of the year and should therefore last three months.  This year we've got more than our share of winter, something that is probably pretty obvious to anyone living in the Northeast.  It started being winter sometime in November, even though the calendar says that winter doesn't start till after the middle of December.  So we've had half of November, all of December, January and February - and now it's March and I'm still looking out my window at snow.

Lord, give me patience.

Patience to wait out the days as the temps slowly start to warm and the snow shrinks and finally vanishes.  Patience to wait out the 'mud season' so that the trails will be firm enough to ride.  Patience to wait until the conditions are finally just right for a great mountain bike ride, or whitewater kayak run, or maybe even a backpacking trip.  Just take a deep breath and relax - that time is definitely coming soon.

But I've been trying to get out and do what I can to get some fresh air and exercise.  I've been doing quite a bit of trail work this winter, cutting new corridor to finish up the phase 3 trail at North Road Nature Preserve.  Last summer we built a section of trail through the mature woods that line the creek.  This is a beautiful area, and pretty easy to make trails through, as the canopy keeps the undergrowth down to a reasonable level. 



Flagging a new section of trail in the more mature woods.

 

But in the fall I started working in an area with a much younger woods, and another area of dense scrub.  This stuff is HARD to build trail through - I call it 'the most work for the least return'.  Thankfully the distance through this scrub is not that long on this loop, so a couple more work days should at least let me cut the corridor all the way through.  Then as the weather improves and the ground eventually dries up we'll be able to start getting the stumps out and filling in the low spots.  We hope to finish this trail loop by early summer, and spend the rest of the year improving the existing trails and possibly adding a new trail extension.  Even though these are beginner level trails, it is absolutely a GREAT thing to have a mountain bike trail less than five miles from my house.

I headed out a couple of weeks ago to try and get in a ride on the rural roads in northern Trumbull County.  The roads were clear of snow, but any place that I was legally allowed to park was still covered with 8" of soft snow.  So that pretty much ended that days riding before it even started.  But by last weekend there had been a few days where the temps got above freezing, so the snow cover had lessened, and I had hopes that I could park in one of the rail trail parking lots and get in a road ride from there.  It was still mostly snow covered, but clear enough that my little car could get in and out without too much trouble.

Oakfield parking area, Western Reserve Greenway.

It's pretty easy to make a route up there that follows roads with almost no traffic.  I think I usually see an average of one car every 10 minutes (and mistrustful me, I usually pull off the road to let them pass).  There are some interesting old dead ends in the area, too.   Here's one I followed till it reached the edge of the wildlife area:

Don't shoot swans.

The road surface wasn't exactly easy to ride on, but if I wanted easy I could always sit on the couch drinking beer.

Some of the dead ends get very little traffic this time of year, so the snow is easier to ride than on the road above.

Very quiet back here.

And sometimes you can find a bike accessible route on roads that haven't seen car traffic in years and years.

Bridge closed - except to stubborn bicyclists.

Occasionally these dead ends require a bit of hike a bike - especially in the areas with unbroken snow - but its all good.

Hike a bike territory.

But I always end up back on the pavement, heading back into farm country. 

Smooth riding!

I have Friday after lunch open for riding again this week.  And with temps forecast to climb today and tomorrow I'm hoping that this chest cold that developed yesterday gives me enough wind to still get out and ride.  If not - patience...

The Grind

It's been a while since I posted anything here - since November in fact. I believe that's the longest gap since I started the blog. But in my defense, there just hasn't been a lot of fun stuff to write about lately.

The holidays are through, and that's a good thing. I'm not a big holiday type person, and I'm glad when the blatant commercialism and worship of well-packaged crap is over for another year. We had a typical Christmas, even though it's harder to make it happen as Kenny gets older and leaves childhood behind. Still, he was more or less happy with what he got and I guess that's enough.

The main thing on my mind lately has been winter. This won't be news to anyone who lives nearby, but this winter has been unusually tough. We've had wintry weather since the end of November, with a colder than normal December and January. The mid-winter thaw that has been such a wonderful reset the last several years just didn't happen this year. We've had just about constant snow cover, and way more than normal days with temperatures below zero. Usually I pride myself in being able to deal with winter and still do the things that I enjoy, but when the thermometer gets down to single digits or below I really have very little desire to be outside.

Between the snow and the frost heave (also known as 'needle ice') on the trails there hasn't been very much mountain biking this winter. I've managed a couple of trips out to West Branch, but the trail conditions each time were less than ideal. With winter riding you expect it to be way harder, so it was still worth the trip - but its not something that I want to do that often. I've also headed over to the nearby North Road Nature Preserve to ride a couple of times in the last two months. These are the mountain bike trails in town that I've been working on building for the last three years. We're a small group of volunteers, so it's taken us that long to build three miles of trails. They're basically beginner type trails, with no real hills, and very few rocks or roots. But they're only a couple of miles from the house, and by riding a complete circuit in either direction I can get an hour of riding in the woods - and that is a good thing.



Beside Mosquito Creek on the North Road Nature Preserve trails.

I've tried to take advantage of the rail trails this winter too.  I've done a few rides on the Western Reserve Greenway - until I overestimated my skills and underestimated the ice cover, which resulted in the hardest crash I've had in a couple of years.  It's been over a month and the road rash is still healing.  I also got in a couple of rides on the Little Beaver Creek Greenway, which has to be one of the best around.  So far this winter I caught it with just a little snow, with a lot of snow, and in the middle of a blizzard.  But the trail is great, with curves and mild hills, where many of our NE Ohio rail trails are flat and straight.  And the scenery along the Middle Fork of Little Beaver Creek is hard to beat.

The Teegarden Bridge alongside Little Beaver Creek Greenway.

And just to show how far this winter weather has pushed me - I've been out riding on the roads several times.  Usually I don't like to do road rides - as a million mile plus driver I've seen way too many idiots at the wheel to place my trust in a random motorists talents.  But with singletrack unrideable, and the rail trails covered with snow packed down by illegal snowmobilers (and boy does that make me mad), the only choice remaining has been on the roads.  I do realize that I'm lucky to live in an area that has easy access to sparsely travelled back roads - seeing a car every ten minutes is about the average up there.  But I now ride with a rearview mirror and almost always stop when I see a car approaching from behind to make sure I'm not about to become another statistic  (go to crazyguyonabike.com and check out the "Sweet Rolls" tour journal for a sad story about this - and take a minute to leave some words of encouragement in their guest book too).  But it can be a lot of fun on the back roads in Amish country.

Gravel road riding between snows in southern Ashtabula County.

Riding through the old farm country can be very pleasant.  The terrain is mostly flat, and since I ride my mountain bike the road surfaces are always good enough.  As I spend more time on these back roads I'm picking out the best spots for to string together to get a nice road loop that I can access from the rail trail once the snow melts.

Old fashioned quality building.

The trick is finding the balance between traffic and snow cover.  Too little traffic and the snow doesn't get worn down, too much traffic and it's not safe.  So sometimes I choose the lesser of two evils, and ride on roads that are maybe a bit more snowy than I'd like.

Snowy, but not quite TOO snowy.

So I endure, just like everyone else.  The days are getting longer at over 2-1/2 minutes of added daylight each day.  Spring approaches - eventually.  I wait for the weekends, when I have time to ride in the daytime, and hope that the weather will at least minimally cooperate.

In non-bicycling related news, there have been a couple of developments.  For one, the firm that I work for has gotten two big jobs in the last couple of months.  When the recession hit the competition in our field got pretty fierce for the few remaining jobs, and we've gone over five years between big commissions.  But we recently won the contract on the biggest building we've ever done, and another big job not long after that (and another one that looks very promising coming up).  So that means some of the pressure is off about paying the bills etc.  I'm very thankful to the partners in the firm that we managed to stick it out through the lean times, and keep on pushing ahead towards recovery.

Another interesting happening is that I was appointed to the Trumbull County Metroparks board.  One of the retiring board members, familiar with me through my work on the North Park trails, nominated me for the post, and in December I was sworn in.  I have no illusions about the job - things happen slowly, and progress has to be planned carefully.  But I think that we have an amazing county park system for the population we have, and am excited to be able to be a small part of continuing the improvements that we've seen in the last ten years.

With the calendar heading towards spring, and the inevitable return of warm weather, I'll probably be way more likely to get out and ride.  Which means that I won't be likely to go another two months between posts.