I decided to bust out My Therapist (the Specialized bike you see above) for her first long distance ride of 2019. It's been a while. In my never ending quest to find more cycling enthusiasts to ride with, I stumbled upon this ride through CycleNuts via Facebook:
We met mid-morning at the Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park, and although overcast, it was a perfect day for cycling:
Photo courtesy of CycleNuts
The best part of that picture is that I knew literally no one before the start of the ride. All people from different places with different stories together for one reason. That's what it's all about, right?
We headed west toward London. It's a pretty good ride for riders of any cycling prowess, as it's essentially a straight line that mostly parallels railroad tracks. Other than facing a slight headwind, the ride was quite leisurely. We did stop one to make sure everyone was still in good shape, and thankfully the trail provides several handy stops like these:
There's also a nice little bench just before London that features a nice old Schwinn that's nearly exactly the same as my Dad's bike. I paused for a picture:
We reached our midway point at M&M Diner right around noon. It's just off the trail and features ample bike parking, of which we made great usage:
After a quick re-fuel, we headed into town to stop at the London Coffee Peddler:
They were offering free coffee and refreshments for cyclists celebrating the opening day of the trails. Of course, we had to stop in to say hello:
They have a ton of cycling memorabilia, decorations, and cycling-centric things for sale:
I ended up buying a bag of coffee, as I have enough t-shirts and other random decor around my house. Great to see such support for the cycling community in a small town that's really embraced the fact that it's right along a major cycling route:
About half of the group continued further west to see the campsite and recreation area my friend Jason and I camped at a few weeks back. As I'd already been there, I decided to head back east with the other half of the group. By the end of it all, we'd enjoyed a nice 25-mile round trip and were still full of energy (maybe due to the nice weather that finally showed itself). I would have loved to keep riding, but we all had chores to tend to. The good news is, the trails are fully open, which means there will be plenty more rides, and Summer is right around the corner...
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