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.
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.
Particulars:
Haven’t I seen that layout before?
Amidst our beer-fueled discussions last night, Ben mentioned wanting to do a S24O, which I’ve discussed on my personal site. We’re looking at the weekend of Dec. 5-6 as a potential RCCS S24O trip. More on this to come, if it does come to fruition. Fundamentally, a S24O is a bike-supported, non-car overnight camping trip. Lots of info can be gleaned from some of the following sites or accounts:
I/Grant’s take at Rivendell.
RussRoca (EpicureanCyclist/PathLessPedaled) on BikeCommuters
The very influential Kent Peterson
Apertome, who has returned to the Kentuckiana area
3 intrepid souls started out the Brew3Cruise from KCA, with usual suspects Tim and Dave and a 3x rejoinder in Ben (who rode the cold-ass Jan. ride and the April IN one too). With downtown ‘Ville offering a myriad of brew opportunities, we set our course. Following is a brief overview of each establishment.Warning, there is very little cycling content in this post, but we did use our bikes to go to these places and a fine bike time was had, I do believe.
Louisville Beer Store; This is a new establishment on Market St. in the Toast/Artemisia area. It’s as stripped down as you can get, with a wall of beer, a cooler of beer, a bar with taps and a standing area bar next to the window. We didn’t lock the bikes up, so the window standing bar proved useful. The LBS has a find selection of bottled beers and last night had, I believe, 4 on tap. To that end, I’m not really sure what they had on tap. They have a big blackboard which may or may not have corresponded with what was actual being served. I guess that would be “strike 1″ against L.B.S., but who’s counting? The beer was fine- mine was a little fruity- but Dave and Ben had what looked like a nice rye stout. Tasty! “Strike 2″ was the lack of chairs. It’s a tiny place and there isn’t anywhere to sit. Strange. But who’s counting? We had our one and moved forward.
Sergio’s World of Beers Became stop #2. This is a newish establishment (like LBS), but it a totally different vein. If the first was spartan hipster Euro, Sergio’s was packrat grandma’s house full o’ shit. There was beer everywhere! And more-so, boxes everywhere! As importantly, you have to find the entrance first. There is actually a neighborhood dive on the corner of Story and Frankfort, but Sergio’s is hiding behind the Mexican flag. I never actually saw a sign. (Strike 1? but who’s counting?) The front is the tap area with the cooler facing it. There is a bit of seating and this area was rather full of people; that’s where the beer is! Again, it was sort of tough to figure out what was on tap b/c there might have been 10-15 beers available across the entire bar. Who knows? We ordered beer and then went into the back room seating area for a bite. We eventually got some food via “interesting” service, but my won-tons were fine. Dave had fish-n-chips and found it OK. Ben had taquitos. I won’t speak for them, but my beer was better than my food. This could be a “strike 2″, but they had LOTS of beer on tap, so you have to give them that one. It’s not Sergio’s World of Beer and Food.
Stop #3 was just down Main (from Story where Sergio’s is found), the BBC taproom. For me it was the third new stop of the night. I learned that the Taproom and the 2 BBC restaurants are sort of cousins. I assume the Taproom is aligned with the brewery that supplies bottles for stores, while the restaurants brew their own (more on that later). I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the Taproom. It was a nice blend of casual and comfy, perhaps a nice compromise between L.B.S. and Sergio’s. Fresh BBC was on tap and we were in for another surprise. When we arrived, we were asked by the barmaid (is that PC appropriate?) if we were the RCCS ride and then we found Chaz and Kristin (spelling?) at the bar. They rode our April Indiana ride, so that was exciting. In fact, they were waiting for us there, assuming we would swing by, which of course we did. We had one and then headed out, with Chaz and Kristin in tow. They had driven their vehicles down there with the bikes in the back, so they would return later. 3 had become 5 and away we went to stop #4, this with a bit of distance involved.
The only real “bike” content came with the trip between the Taproom and BBCEast in St. Matthews with out trip up Frankfort Ave. We did a nice pace here, as Ben, and MadDogs Chaz and Kristin are all stronger riders than me (I won’t speak for Dave). And fortunately, we negotiated the whole Shelbyville/Breckenridge/Hubbards nightmare. Way to urban plan St. Matthews! This joint was real busy, but we found seats at a long “sit-down bar” and got yet another. (Oh, I actually had 2 at Sergio’s.) We ordered some more food this time, in my case a Bison burger. It was good, as were the fries. The beer, for that matter, was good too. We had a good time here, but after #4 it was time to move on.
Our last stop of the evening would involve our trip through the park. En route Chaz and Kristin carved off and head for home, NOT for the vehicles down on Main St. They were vivacious company. Our 5 had become 3 again and we had a great trip through the park and up to Bonnycastle and our final stop at Cumberland. Ben, mirroring my own thinking, had had enough of dark beer for the night, so we all went lighter. We had our beer and a plate of very excellent cheese fries. Did we drink more or eat more? Not sure, but after stop #5 we split up. I had the shortest ride home (2m). Who planned it that way? Ben had 3-4m home, but Dave had the long commute to Charlestown. A fun time was had, and how could it be any better? Bikes n Brews!
3.0 Checked out a new place downtown. No tables but several on tap and a nice selection of bottles. Not sure how it will pan out long-term w/out seating. It’s on the list, though.
2.0 This Friday many many mighty men and women will meet for the prebday (mine) Beer Run- the Brew3Cruise. Particulars include:
**5.30-???
**starting at Kentucky Center for the Arts on Main Street
**first stop will include food for those who need to fill up
**stops at 4 or 5 beverage stations
**mileage in the 13ish range, sorta
**lights horribly helpful. helmets too.
A quick announcement that Friday a week (Friday the 13th, of course) the RCCS will host its 2nd Beer Run, this time on a Friday a night to take advantage of the BBC taproom. More info to come, but we’re looking at a 5-6p.m. start time and we’ll hit 4 or 5 well-chosen ‘Ville beer spots. We prolly *won’t* go over the river, but we’ll find plenty of refreshing beverages.
Dave plotted a very interesting afternoon of pavement and gravel roads roaming through the Hoosier Nat’l Forest in S.IN. We were returning to the scene of our July mixed-terrain effort, one that left a little wanting, at least for me after I finished that ride in very poor shape. Dave’s route had us a little north, towards a lunch stop in English and along some significant gravel through the forest. We left from Carefree in the company of Jeff, who was a first-timer to a RCCS ride. Things started nicely along easy roads until our turnoff at Beechwood, where Jeff had a flat. Omen? July’s ride had 4 flats between me and Dave, one reason which cut that ride short.
Shortly after the turn onto Beechwood we passed by the Crawford Co. Coonhunters Club. It’s a wonder folks in NY think we all ride tractors and walk barefooted down this way. We then had a quick downhill to this nice bridge crossing, over a bridge deck that was sort of a metal mesh. Strange. The climb out the opposite side was short but intensely steep
We had a bit of route/map confusion before taking a correct turn onto our first gravel of the day on E. Deuchars Rd. Later we found that we had missed a turn onto S. Jellison (not to be confused w/ *not* S. Jellison), which was probably a good thing b/c some maps say that S.Jellison dead-ends at the creek over which the green bridge spanned. E.Deuchars and then Orchard Rd. gave us our best gravel/mixed-terrain of the day, on empty roads through mixed and pine forest, with an occasional hunting cabin. We even passed one strange car with a random woman on the phone in the middle of absolutely nowhere
This portion (below) of Orchard was a bit tough as gravel conditions were a little softer at the creek bottoms. Little did we know how appreciative we would be for such “soft” conditions.
After Orchard, we turned onto 66, which was the road back in July that brought my downfall with a big climb. We had an easier time and decided to stop at the W. Oriole Trail trailhead to have a quick bite. Soon thereafter we turned onto 52/Orange Grove, where we immediately encountered more gravel and a vicious little climb at the top, where Jeff found a second flat. We had another July/Nov mixed-terrain synchro, when Jeff’s rimstrip gave in, his years old dry rotted strip causing his flats, as my non-existent strip had done previously. I suggested the old-tube-as-rimstrip trick, which he decided to try out. Would it hold? 52/Orange Rd. took us rather deeper into the woods and closer and closer to gunshots. I don’t know about Dave and Jeff, but I didn’t like that part. Our trip then changed even more dramatically we we were confronted with a gate and instructions for the bluediamond trail- W.Oriole. This had stopped being a road, per se. We decided that it had to go somewhere, and hopefully would link us up with the rest of our route.
After long and rocky descent, we followed the blue diamonds looking for our cut-through when we came across our first creek crossing. Hmmm? Interesting. Truly “mixed” terrain. Jeff took off his socks, Dave barreled through with his big boots and I found a rocky way around. We went deeper.
A mix of some occasional cellphone coverage and Dave’s gps gave us the basic info that we were indeed on the Oriole trail, a 7ish mile loop- NOT a cutthrough to the rest of our road loop.
“Trapped” on the loop, our mixed-terrain/gravel/road ride became a full-on mtbike ride, with me on a 26″ touring bike, Jeff on a 700C lightduty road/hybrid and Dave on his commuter. In the course of the loop I found it personally to be some of the most challenging terrain I’ve traversed. Conditions were always changing with mud, mud, more mud, horse-hoof damage, soft dirt, mud, more mud. Strangely, much of the mud was rideable, but you never had an idea what the track was like underneath tires. We trudged, walked, rode, sank, pushed, bitched, rode, stopped, on and on and on. It was evident at some point that our fate was to finish the loop- sans cut-through- and see where out path took us next. By the time we finished the trail-who knows how long it took us to do it?- we saw our path back on 66 to Sulpher and then back towards Carefree. Funnily, these were the exact roads that defeated me in July, but yesterday I was slightly better and was able to trudge up. Jeff had a great pace, that of a fixie rider (which he is) who just ground up ‘em. Dave too, all of us just did the job. We stopped in Sulpher for snack and used 62/66 and its 2 nasty little climbs to link back to Carefree to the trucks.
In all, we took 7 hrs to do 40 miles in some of the craziest, or at least, unexpected terrain ever. I spent some time earlier today looking at different maps to figure out our plight, and who knows? In traditional clubs ride captains are supposed to pre-ride/drive routes, but the RCCS is supposed to be finding adventure, and that we did yesterday. As Jeff and Dave know, I will be buying one of these.
p.s. Jeff’s rimstrip did hold in the our mtbike undertaking.
p.s. There are 2 52s in somewhat proximity, “Orange GroveRd./52″ and “52/Union Church Rd.” That might have been the cause of our demise. The 2 52s have nothing to do with each other, at least on modern maps.
I wanted to write up the very adventurous foray we made yesterday into the banjo-tinged backwoods of Indiana, but my pics own’t upload, so there’s no story to tell tonight
Windsor @ Heine's
More anecdotage coming soon.
Come join us this Sunday, November 1st for our Mixed Terrain ride at Hoosier National Forest.
We’ll meet up at the truck stop on State Road 66 just south of Interstate 64 (exit 92). Be there at 10:00 am EST (DST ends earlier in the morning).
The course will be hilly and includes many gravel and chip-seal roads. The course is planned at just over 50 miles, but due to the terrain, plan to make a day of it. Bring spare tubes and some basic tools.
Store stops may be quite limited until we get to English IN. You may want bring enough to eat and drink.
We are hoping to stop at Big Al’s Pizzeria and Pub in English. I’ve confirmed that they are open 1-9 on Sunday.
Remember, RCCS rides are about staying together as a group and enjoying the company as much as the ride.
