Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Tolkein and Trail riding


I loaded my bike on the carrier and headed over to the Little Blue River Trace trail.  I have been wanting to do a 100% trail ride for a while, and today was it.  This trail runs 11 miles from around the Independence Event Center to the North side of 24 Highway. Very well maintained, with a good road surface.

Although the lack of rain has dried out the fields, it is still a great trail.  The Little Blue River runs beside the trail, and there are still parts of the river that have enough water to be fishing holes. After the spring rains, I am going to have to come back with a collapsible fishing rod and give it a try.

I had planned to ride 30 miles, but the gravel surface is a little harder to ride on than pavement, and I was pretty beat when I made it back after 23 miles ( I started a little south of the trail)  The great thing about the trail is that it is mostly flat, with no big hills. For a new trail rider, the bad thing is that it is really flat, and I didn’t get to coast too much.  I pretty much peddled for a little over two hours.
  
Somewhere in The Hobbit, Bilbo sings a song about the road rising to meet him.  I found out what that means today.  I would have thought it was impossible, but I would swear that  the trail is uphill in both directions.  Especially on my way back when a breeze came up and I was riding into it. It s a great trail, great exercise and I plan to do it again in the next few days.  At the end of my ride though, I was happy to think about another song from Tolkein; Merry and Bilbo are at the end of the trail, and sing a song about the joys of hot water and soap.  Good one, JR.

More later,

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