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!

Carry On

Sure enough, it DID snow after my last post.  We had actual accumulation of snow on one day, plus some stray snowflakes a couple of days later.  But now that we're in May, I feel it may be safe to declare that winter is actually gone for a couple of months, and we can get back to the business of spring.

Good thing too.  Seems like people around here were getting slightly squirrely from over-exposure to winter conditions.  Lots of people kind of had a wild look in their eyes, like they were pretty close to either doing something crazy or heading south in search of a more hospitable climate.  After being lulled into complacency by several years of mild winters with comforting mid-winter thaws, this year was like being slowly crushed to death by an indifferent glacier.

And so I've really been enjoying getting out.  The weather has been warm enough that its mostly been enjoyable to get out and ride.  That means getting used to not packing extra layers of clothes to bring along - just in case.  And it also means that I've ridden a couple of times with in shorts and t-shirt, which feels amazingly free after wearing three layers for the last five months.  But we have had enough rain coming at regular intervals to keep the mountain bike trails pretty soft for the most part.

I did get to head out to Quail Hollow State Park, near Hartville, Ohio, for a ride a couple of weeks ago.  My brother Matt and I have been getting out on the weekends and we took a trip hoping that the trail would be dry enough to ride.  We found out that much of the trail was in good condition, but there were some new wet areas that had been damaged by too much traffic while wet.  One major surprise was that the boardwalk across the meadow is now a boardwalk across a marsh.  This area had always been susceptible to moisture, and had turned to mud under use - which was why the boardwalk was installed in the first place.  But after the wet weather it looks like it might be morphing into a small wetland area.

Matt on the boardwalk at Quail Hollow.

So the trail wasn't in perfect shape, but at this point in the season we were happy just to be able to ride on dirt singletrack.  A couple of laps were enough of an early season ride to leave us smiling for the drive home.  And it's a good thing that we did get out and ride then, because the timing of the rain since then has kept the trails too soft for riding.

The paved trails have been fine though - they're like that as long as they're not covered in snow! I got in another night ride out on the Little Beaver Creek Greenway, which is quickly becoming my favorite paved trail.  I got to the trail a little while before sunset, so I quickly got on the trail without mounting the lights.

The Leetonia trailhead.

The weather was warm enough for a pleasant ride as the sun started to set.  As I passed through the Franklin Square area the evening light turned copper colored, giving the trailside scenery a warm tone.

The route 558 trailhead at Franklin Square.

By the time I'd passed the Teegarden Covered bridge sunset was over and dusk began to dim my surroundings.  It was beautiful riding alongside the creek and hearing the soft sound of moving water.  By now I had the trail pretty much to myself, and I took a short break to relax and enjoy the dusk at one of the trailside benches.  It was still early enough in the season that I wasn't being attacked by mosquitoes, so it was a nice opportunity to rest and listen to the spring peepers.

Dusk by the creek.

By the time I made it to the outskirts of Lisbon and made my turn around it was starting to get really dark.  Since my night vision seems to work pretty well and there was no one else on the trail I continued on for a while.  Eventually I stopped at a trailside bench and hooked up my lights.  For this trip I used two lights, more than I really needed.  It only took a few minutes to get everything hooked up, despite the fact that I had to jury rig one of the battery pack mountings with an emergency bandana.

Lights ready to go!

Once I got back on the trail it was easy going for the last couple of miles.  My lights provided a huge amount of illumination that picked out everything ahead of me - even the woozy opossum that wandered onto the trail as I approached and raced ahead of me for a short spell.

Plenty of light!

Besides riding at Little Beaver Creek Greenway there were several rides on my local trail, the Western Reserve Greenway.  Besides riding the local section I made a couple of trips onto the Ashtabula County section, up around Orwell.  The trail is just as nice up there, though it doesn't seem to get as many people using it. 

Approaching Orwell, with the trailhead by the blue building.

Once you get north of Orwell the trail gets pretty quiet, and it's easy to spin out the miles in peace.  Along the way I saw that someone with property along the trail had set up a maple sap collection system for making maple syrup.  Clear tubing tapped into each tree and ran downhill, collecting sap from other trees as it made its way to a plastic barrel.  I also saw a new kind of rule breaker (to me) on the trail.

Horses are only allowed on the grass verge of the trail, not the pavement.

 After riding over 200 miles last month I thought I'd try to beat the total for this month, but it didn't happen.  So on the last day of the month I looked at my monthly mileage and saw that I was less than five miles below the 200 mile mark.  It seemed like a shame to not at least try to get to that milestone.  Despite the rain I gathered my gear and headed out to the Western Reserve Greenway to put in some miles.

This time there were no other cars at the trailhead - apparently no one else was eager to get out in the driving rain for a nice bracing ride.  After putting on my rain shell I headed north into the wind and rain.  At first I was more or less miserable, but as my metabolism warmed up I started to enjoy the ride, and once the rain began to lessen I was glad to be out.

The trail was empty of people as I headed up towards Bristolville.  Motion in the trees to my right caught my attention and I watched as a sopping wet Barred Owl flew out of the woods and crossed the trail only 25 feet in front of me.  It was so close that I could see the wet feathers stuck to his hooked beak.  Then just another hundred yards down the trail a rabbit darted across the trail.  Of course rabbits run around the trail area all the time, especially in the evenings, but this one caught my attention.  It looked like it was carrying something in its mouth, and I kind of doubted that it was food, so I quickly braked and u-turned to where it had darted under a bush.  After a moment I could see it in the brush, sitting stock still to avoid detection.  And in its mouth was a tiny baby bunny, all curled up smaller than a ping pong ball.  Mama rabbit held her ground for just a moment, then bounded further into the woods, vanishing into the shadows beneath some tree roots.

That kind of made my day.  It's always nice to see nature carrying on the way its supposed to.  And I finished the month with 205 miles.

Morning sunlight on spring fields.

What's been happening lately

It's been a little longer that usual since my last post, but don't fear because I'll fill you in on every spine-tingling detail.

My latest camera stopped working a week or so ago, and I haven't replaced it yet.  I tried using a couple of other cameras that I had sitting around, but the results were pretty disappointing.  The first one didn't work at all any more, the second one was very blurry, and the third had some other quality issues with the images.  I also tried taking some pictures with my GoPro, but trying to get in a decent photo with the wide angle set-up isn't easy.  For example, here's a shot from up at the Fellows Riverside Gardens.

Kind of distorts the edges just a bit, huh?  Of course you can always crop the shot, but it gets old pretty quick when you have to crop every shot.  Here's one with the edge distortion removed.

With less photos to post I haven't felt much like spending a lot of time trying to get something online.  But I guess I've worked up enough of a backlog to get something typed up.

It's been 14 days since my last entry on May 14.  I've tried to keep up my 5 out of 7 riding schedule as much as possible. My MapMyRide workout log shows that for the first week I got in my five rides, with two days of singletrack - including a nice, big long ride at West Branch.  That week also included the normal bunch of yardwork and gardening, as well as a trail work day at Beaver Creek and a canoe ride on the Clarion River with my son.  So that was pretty much as good as I could have hoped.

This week was going pretty good, but the wife, son and I headed on over to the Allegheny National Forest for a camping trip.  We left just after lunch on Friday and found a great campsite back on Loleta Road, right on the banks of East Millstone Creek.  My brother and his kids came over for Saturday and Sunday, so there was a whole lot of fun being had by the young 'uns.  I missed riding on Friday and Sunday, but managed to get in a really great ride along the forest service roads and what I think might be abandoned logging roads from a hundred years ago.  Just spending the little bit of time that I had available riding out in the deep woods makes me want to get some real backwoods bikepacking in this summer.  With the research I've done to get my Allegheny National Forest mtb and bikepacking map started I've found some very interesting possibilities.

Nice lawn.

So this last week I only got in four days of riding, and there was no trail work.  But it's all good, since we don't really get very much family time together.  Kenny had a great time camping, and also really enjoyed spending some time with his two cousins.  And Matt took the three kids for a ride on the river in my canoe - the first paddle boat ride for his two.  So it turned out to be a great weekend even if it didn't revolve around mountain biking (who would have thought?)

I ended up the second week with a mountain bike ride with my brother out at West Branch this afternoon.  With it being Memorial Day I expected to see a big crowd of people out on the trails.  The marina beside the mountain bike parking lot was packed - there must have been a hundred trucks with boat trailers - but there were only a few cars in the mountain bike lot.  Maybe it was the 92 degree temps and muggy conditions that kept most people away, but we had a great ride on the rocky side of the trail.  I kind of pooped out on the second half of the ride (I forgot most of my water) and took a shortcut back to the car, but it was still a blast and I feel re-hydrated and happy this evening.

Back to work tomorrow morning, with a can't-miss deadline hovering over my head for the whole week.  But I'm going to try to get some saddle time tomorrow and aim for a singletrack ride after work on Wednesday.  Here's hoping for a tolerable week and a good weekend.