GWTOMW review

We had 4 hearty souls ready for a morning/afternoon of cycling adventure on a near, if not perfect, day for cycling, the first warm sunny day of ‘10.  Leaving from the park in Edwardsville, IN, we ventured south towards New Middletown, further south of NM, back towards NM and finally finishing our day through Lanesville and up 3 more rollers to the park.  For all of us it was the first ride of mileage and warmth of the season, although Dave had done nice mileage this winter on the LHT and Patrick in the gym.

Dom's Windsor

Patrick's Bomba

Dave's LHT

Our path took us towards NM where we ran into the MadDog’s TT, with cyclists running into our paths along Pfrimmer’s Chapel Rd.  After a pit stop we headed west along some primo roads (and 1 wrong turn) such as Fogel, Shiloh and Pleasure Ridge.  I would suggest for everybody to check these out for low traffic and enough rollers to keep you honest. The intersection of Fogel and Shiloh gave us a recurring theme over the course of the day.  Lest I be mistaken, everyone had something goofy happen to his bike: Dave’s shimmy, Dom’s dropout, Patrick’s loose bar and my loose spoke.  None was detrimental, but it did make for some extra time on the road.

Pleasure Ridge Rd.

On the south end of the trip we ran along the big valley of Buck Creek Valley Rd. where we had a special friend run with us for over 2 miles.  Stupid dog!  While at the bridge the first of the LBC pack came by, and shortly thereafter the remaining peloton, 20 strong or so.  They had the good fortune of coming down Union Chapel from the east.  We made the poor decision of ascending said hill at a 14% clip instead of the more benign 6-8% (according to ridewithgps).

Buck Creek

dumb but very fit dog

As we made our southern end we took a turn on Goshen Rd, very flat and sort of open, but one of my favorites.  The eastern end provided nice vistas looking to the growing hills in the west, all over open farm country.  I’m going to make it a point to personally return in summer.

Perseverance Barrens Nature Preserve. Almost missed this one due to the cattle stampede on an adjacent farm. We'll blame Dom.

Andy's Coffee shop in New Middletown

We headed north towards a second stop in NW, this time for pie and salad (not together) before heading out on our finishing leg, which took us through Lanesville the subsequent many short climbs, especially a couple doozies after Lanesville.  We finished strong enough, and I for one am ready for another tour in that part of the word, some of the best cycling roads I’ve come across.  Might be a dandy area for a RCCS century down the road.

GoneWiththeeOldManWinter Ride 2.0

A little bit more info about Sunday’s GWTOMWR.

• We’ll head out at 9.00a.m. Louisville time. I don’t know if any crazy IN time is in play this time of year.
• See “messages” section for more info on catching a ride if you’re interested.  I might or might not have truck room.
• Our ride happens to correspond with the first Mad Dogs ride of the year, so we might cross paths with them around or south of New Middletown.
• RCCS don’t tend to do cue sheets.  As Dave so eloquently put, we group ride.  You’re welcome to download/copy the map posted in the previous post if you plan of heading out on your own.  We’ll follow that route behind you. And nobody gets dropped.
• We should have food options in New Middletown and Lanesville.  We pass NM twice.
• Please come prepared.  We like to be a self-sufficient lot, but Dave has a tool for every occasion. And it’s the first longer road outing of the year. Hopefully you’ve done a few miles during this cold spell.

View Edwardsville Park in a larger map

GoneWiththeeOldManWinter Ride

It’s time, time to ride the $@%@# bike. Time for real miles. Time to get put down the coffee and get on the open road. The RCCS will host our first “real” ride of ‘10, well, save the 40m epic FatGuy and I pulled off on New Year’s Day.

We’ll leave next Sunday, 3/7, from Edwardsville, IN just west of New Albany. It’s an easy trip off I-64 and if anybody needs a (truck) lift, I’m more than willing. As best as I can tell, we have store stops at 12m and 38m, but you never know. It’s best to come prepared. And prepared we’ll be for rural, country roads.

The RCCS strives to be an inclusive, informal bike group. All are welcome and no one will be left behind. Our rides are somewhat social, but the first ride of the year demands some leg stretching. I’ll be sweeping b/c I’m too slow to do anything otherwise. Feel free to leave any questions in the comment section.

Coffee Ride #2 Review

Don't get no better, LHT, Bomba and Litespeed

We had a very pleasant time yesterday on our 2nd coffee ride. If the first was rife with damn-cold weather, the second drenched us in heavy rain and 40F, but no matter. The pic above is considerably more impressive than our actual cycling effort, which for the group ended up being 23 miles. We started at Heine’s at the Loop where, to be amazement, I found two amazing bikes for our foray. Dave was there with his new, shiny Surly Truckacchino LHT, and for the first time, Patrick came along with his (newish) Rivendell Bombadil. I brought the Litespeed Blueridge because titanium doesn’t rust in the rain, right? I dare say you couldn’t find a flashier batch o’ bikes in the city unless you happened upon a crabon convention, but what fun is that? Dominic even came by briefly before he headed on for some work.

We headed through the parks and towards Mockingbird Valley Rd., which Patrick had never been on, being new to the area. We window-shopped at that new shop down next to Zorn who’s name escapes me. We continued to Frankfort and up we went- well, until Dave lost a bag- and then up we went some more and stopped at Java for a cup. Yum! What a great treat with the cold and damp. Patrick needed to head home so Dave and I followed into St. Matthews, where Patrick split and Dave and I did some St. Matthews noodling before going back into the parks. I dare say Dave has picked up an automatic mph or two with this new steed. We looped through the Cherokee Triangle and made our way to a 2nd coffee stop, this at Highlands. After that, we returned towards the Loop where I bid adieu to Dave and thusly ended the ride. A total of 23 wet, cold miles, was significantly improved with 3 coffees, and we had a good time, especially talking bikes, cool bikes.

New Year’s Day Cold-as-*#@$ Ride

The RCCS took up a quickly organized New Year’s Day ride leaving from Sulpher, IN. The only ones to show up were the usual suspects, meaning Dave and I. Typical. Everyone else who didn’t show missed quite a time out in rural country with mixed-terrain aplenty and cold enough temps to prove you fortitude.

Our route left from Sulpher, IN and headed down the IN66 hill that had been our nemesis on other occasions. Speaking of downhill, the most cogent piece of information to start the day were the temps. Aside the significant climbing and gravel, the tenor of the day was ruled by our starting temp of 17F, although the sunshine helped the psychology a bit. That starting descent already had Dave’s fingers quite cold at the bottom, so an extra pair of gloves were on and away we went up Old Union Church Rd., which gave us a warm-up of 1.5m of climbing with a high grade of 15%. Steep gradients would be another theme of the day. In hindsight, this climb was one of the toughest.

From here we took a left onto King Rd. and found our first gravel of the day. I made the appropriate decision to put a 1.95″ tire on the front of my LHT and that proved an excellent choice for such texture. After a quick stop to adjust a front brake, we turned onto one of my favorite roads of the day, Eaton Rd., a bottomland gravel road that had a very remote feel to it. We spent a good time here discussing the merits of Surly LongHaulTruckers in general, me exhorting Dave to try one out.

down King Rd.

Eaton Rd.

Stinking Ford along Eaton Rd.

We crossed IN62 and I-64 and made our way up the gentle uphill of Eckert Rd. until we arrived at another half-mile climb with a high gradient of 18%. Whew! At the top we were honored with an outstanding view
northward on the IN and Hoosier Nat’l Forest countryside. Wanting more gravel, we found it on our left turn onto Hatfield Rd.

Eckert Rd. view

top of Eckert Rd. climb

Hatfield Rd. mixed-terrain

Hemlock Cliffs

LHT

After a dicey, steep descent on Hatfield Rd., we passed by the access road for Hemlock Cliffs. We saw a young couple exiting the road in their Subaru and I wondered if they had camped, but the map shows no such official access. After some lumpy riding that almost appeared to be ridge riding- and no savage climbing- we quickly dropped a perilous descent into Mifflin. We can make much fuss about climbing gradients, but his downhill brought a max 19%, and this on gravel. I have a feeling we were both white-knuckling it here. Once through Mifflin, we took the turn up Trestle Rd. with one listed portion of 16.9% and it allowed us to pass by Yellowbirch Ravine Nature Preserve, although the N.P. has no facilities. From there we used our only busy road of the day- IN64- towards English. We turned off onto Tunnel Hill Rd. where we found more gravel , more climbing and Sycamore Springs. A little googling found that this is a privately-owned campground and outdoor park with a little bit of everything, all with a “family feel”. It might be worth a daytrip to see what it’s about, especially if you take grandma.

Abandonment along Trestle Rd.

Faint signs of Yellowbirch Ravine N.P.

Sycamore Springs Family Park outside English, IN

English brought us our lunch stop, although our well-laid plans went awry here. I called ahead on New Years Eve to ensure that Big Al’s Pizzeria would be open. Once we climbed the 10% climbed into English, we found that Big Al’s was closed up. No good! We ended up eating deli sandwiches from the JC’s across the road, but that was by far the biggest failure of the day. When we left, we noticed a big 4×4 parked in front of Big Al’s and the ‘open’ sign was lit. Oh well, too bad for us. We descended back into English and made our way south towards our return destination. An interesting note about English is that the entire town was moved from the creek valley up onto the hill in 1990, making it the 2nd largest move in the U.S. I was really hungry coming and cold going, so I didn’t take any pics of this bizarre place.

English In, speaks for itself

Sawmill Rd. outside English, IN

From the almost high point of the day we dived down onto S. Magnolia Rd, for me my fav road of the day. It had a nice mix of gravel, rough pavement, steep pitches (13% at one point), and scenery. Hopefully the pics below show it to be a really, really nice ride.

S. Magnolia Rd.

view along S. Magnolia Rd.

If S.Magnolia was a highlight, then our turn onto Riddle Rd. was not. We were tired and cold, the roads were poorly marked and Riddle Rd. was strewn with crappy houses and high traffic (relative to what we had experienced earlier). We were glad to find Camp Jerry Rd. near our return into Sulpher. Camp Jerry Rd. included a very long gravel descent (2m total) into the creek valley and to our final challenge of the day, the ascent of Camp Jerry. I had seen the %gradients while planning the route but didn’t know to expect. Ridewithgps claims portions of 24%, with a top of 28.5% in the switchback. I had personally never done such a steep climb, but up it we went. I won’t speak for my ride partner, but I made it up with one stop near the top to suck in enough oxygen so as to not collapse right in the middle of the road. It was breathtakingly steep and I would begin to try it without my LHT mtbike gearing.

We just passed an Amish house construction before seeing this sign.

Camp Jerry Climb

We made it, though, and cruised into Sulpher with 40 slow miles under out belts. The temp when we finished was 21F and it felt every bit that. The only thing that disappointed us was the variety of roads that weren’t quite gravel, but not quite pavement. Most of the route was a mix of gravel, pavement and chipseal. At the end, I decided on a new designation: paved, sorta paved, and gravel. Many of the roads were sorta paved, and I was glad to have fat rubber underneath. For those who missed it, you missed something special, a great way to start 2010.

New Year’s Day Mixed-Terrain Ramble

Leaving from Sulpher, IN at 10.30. Store stop in English (hopefully). Significant gravel and climbing, as map shows. Feel free to contact me at mysurly69 at yahoo dot com.

HenryCo Hootenanny Review 2.0

I’ll be posting pics later, but for those sick and/or busy folks who couldn’t quite make it, you missed a heck of a ride today. Only two of us were able to answer the bell, me and Jeff (from the epic IN mud ride). With some creative mapping late in the ride, we did 52m instead of 60, but those were well-earned miles with the conditions today: cold, fog, rain, drizzle, gravel, climbing, more fog. I must encourage all local cyclists to take in the charms of Hardy Creek Rd. coming out of Bedford, Trimble Co. That was as good and fun a stretch of riding as I’ve done personally. “Car up!”.

Kavenaugh Rd. MT #1

Along Pattons Creek rd.

Kidwell Pike MT#2

Wise's Landing along the Ohio R.

Bedford, my place up employment for 4 years

At least for me, the best story of the day was while we we descending Hardy Creek Rd. and I posed to Jeff the question why the “road” existed; who would use it? To my surprise- shock!- around the next bend I see a small silver pick-up coming up the hill. He rolled his window down and say “Hi” and moved on, coon dog box in the back bed. Even better, it had some type of title (coon dog box) of “cur”, which is a word for dog in Shakespearean English. Who would have known that they’re so erudite along Hardy Creek?

Carmon Creek Rd., MT #4, tricky one here

HenryCoHootenanny

We go off tomorrow. May be that the usual suspect Dave and I will be the only ones on the road, but that’s a mistake for the rest of you. Should be a nice day for cycling and for taking on some mixed terrain.

Last chance to contact me for directions: mysurly69 at yahoo dot com.

We are doing some carpooling on the way, and we have room for one more for sure and another as needed.

HenryCo Mixed-Terroir Update

Our 60-mile mixed-terrain is coming up in one week, the 13th. We’ll be leaving from a private residence in Henry Co. near Cambellsburg and I’m hesitant to broadcast their address to the 4 corners, SO, if you’re interested in the ride, drop me a line at mysurly69 at yahoo dot com and I’ll give you directions. The ride will start at 9.00. With the climbing, remoteness and gravel, come as prepared as within reason with sustenance and tubes.

HenryCo. Mixed-Terroir Hootenanny

Particulars:

• December 13th
• 9.00 start
• **start location to be announced depending home availability
• 2 store stops (Sulpher, Bedford)
• 3700ft of climbing
• 4 gravel sections
• 2nd 30m with no store stop
• group ride, no cue sheet (maps maybe, b/c maps are cool)