Tuesday, June 2: Another day, another ass kicking! Funny, but as I was riding along today, and as on almost every day, you have so much time to reflect and talk to yourself, and I was kind of talking out loud - just to myself mind you - about how some people take these wonderful bicycling vacations to like France, Italy… dada, dada, dada. And here I am, just doing this bloodletting damn near every day thus far, save for maybe a couple of nice days riding some real dbl track trails like the North Bend. And honestly, I was making myself laugh at what a freaking nutcase I am doing a whole summer of this self flagellation. Hell, maybe it was temporary insanity. 

Anyway, got going on another cold and steely grey day - June in Ohio?? I was wearing my bush pants again (this for the berm riding on the Adena aka Tri-County Trail) where I’m going through knee high shit on occasion on either side of the asphalt trail, and up top I had on a short sleeve Underarmor and a long sleeve polypro over that. Add some mt bike gloves and thick socks for the feel and I was set for a June day in Ohio. Got going from where I left off yesterday and downtown Frankfort. Now having done recon on this trail system I was well aware of the berm situations. Sometimes they are just great, and sometimes they’re pitiful, if not downright horrible. My notes for this section said something to the effect of pretty good sections and terrible sections. So I knew what lay in store for me.

Hit the trail at 9:30 AM again, and just like yesterday, I just had a lot of work to get done in the morning. I hate to just go straight to the ride when I have to get my work life straight first. That makes me feel very guilty all ride long. Now the first few miles were pretty darned good for berm riding anyway. And actually the best sections were those that were in the deep woodlands. For some reason the lime ballast and the black earthen soil form a pretty nice matrix that is like a hard-pack. But get into the farm areas and all of the sudden the farmer’s fields come right up to the trail, and the berm is soft and grassy or soft and weedy. But the farm sections are way less in frequency and volume than the woodlands section. 

So for this stretch, about 18.5 miles to the city of Washington Courthouse, I just went on my own with no support. Didn’t make sense from a logistical standpoint seeing that off of Rt 35, there were on two exits that went directly down to the railtrail. The first was just 3.5 miles to the west. The second was at about 16 miles. So rather than have Judy do a ton of backroad drive to actually meet me at a non-trailhead X road, I just decided to do it in one fell swoop. But remember now, my cruising speed on this junk is like 6-7 mph on a good day, and 4-5 mph when the terrain is crap. So I told Judy I’d meet her in W. Courthouse in three hours. Yea, three hours to go 18.5 miles. It’s just a whole different world going X-country at such a slow pace. But that’s what it is. If I tried to go any faster I’d just implode after 20 miles. 

And I know it won’t always be this way, it’s mainly through Ohio and Indiana, then things open up a bit in IL, and really pop in MO. So it’s just a matter of enduring the slow go for a few weeks. The first half of this thing, about 8-9 miles I was definitely going along at 7 mph, but then came the second half. And I’m not sure exactly when it came, but there was a for sure point where the easier berm riding went to hard berm riding. But suddenly my flat stretches turned into just ballast that was at a 20 or so degree angle, and it was completely unconsolidated so the wheels washed pretty easy with the slightest turn of the front wheel. That was agonizing, but then when it would turn to flat I was riding on this crappy weedy stuff that was just clumps that sent the front wheel in every which direction. Then there were other sections that looked as if I was riding on a bed of holly, but it was so soft I had to shift back down into the little cookie. 

Yea, the difference between going fast and working hard, and going slower and working even harder is the middle or little chain ring. Middle ring, faster but hard. Little ring is slower and harder. So the difference between the first half of this 18.5 miles and the second half was the difference between the middle ring and the little ring. I mean it was that pronounced. Can’t tell you how many times I washed those big, fat 2.4s on the angled ballast, and how many times I yelled *&^$^$ when I went from that to the holly fields or the big clumps of weeds. And they just went from one to the other non-stop. Move to the other side of the trail, same thing. But like a fool who cannot learn a lesson, I’d go from one side to the other like a dog chasing his tail. It was a pretty funny thing when I think back on it right now. Yea, “things always look better on the other side,” the mantra of a crazy man!

Well, the trail actually gets on roads for about 2.5 miles, and I was SO looking forward to doing road berm instead of the trail berm. Now to be honest, the old RR grade goes through this industrial park, the same one that the trail signs take you through on roads. And I could have opted for this and do it as a hike-a-bike - and a absolute crapfest to! So I went for what I though would be the most time efficient choice - road berm. And…IT was the same garbage as on the trail - grass that’s soft and slow. Just couldn’t win on this one. Got through that and back onto about a mile of trail to meet up with Judy and downtown Washington Courthouse. Man, I was just beat. 

Jude made me a super turkey/ham and cheese sandwich and a bag of fresh strawberries. Then it was on to the next segment, which had two options: first was to just ride berm of Old Rt 35 to Jamestown (where the easternmost part of an extensive railtrail system reaches), which was about 16 miles up the road west from Washington Courthouse, or the second option, follow a feeder line west to a point where this old B&O RR line went, and then joins up with the railtrail in Jamestown. That B&O line is so abandoned that it now has farm fields and such on it. There are places where it’s ridable dbl track, and then areas where I’d have to sight across a farmer’s field to find the exit point of the thing. And as yesterday, I just didn’t want any hassles with trespassing, so I decided to go with the berm riding on Old 35. Judy liked that idea because we could keep track of each other mush easier. 

So Old 35 it was to bridge up to the railtrail in Jamestown. And it must have been deja vu because the first half of this was just bomber, I mean BOMBER berm. It was like hard pack sand that I could crush out about 10mph on. Loved it! Then came the second half - at exactly the point where I left Fayette County and entered Green County. I mean there was a definitive line, because when I Xed I went from that great sandy berm to nothing but grass, sloping grass to boot. And when it wasn’t grass it was weeds, sloping weeds. And the road seemed to be elevated above the rest of the surroundings by about 4 feet. I mean this was just killer hard to ride on. So again, from the middle ring to the little ring, just spinning away at like 5 mph. After a few miles of that, temporary insanity kicked in. I mean combine aching legs, fried brain, cold weather, stiff headwind and worst of all…the dreaded BONK, and you’re a candidate for temporary insanity! Couple of times I was just livid, creeping along on the crest of this grassy slope. 

I stopped when I saw Judy in the van rather than waving her down the road again, and I kind of slinked in and told her I was wiped out…needed sugar, a big sugar fix. That’s when she gave me this amazing, spectacular, stupendous Amish carrot cake vanilla muffin she’d bought at this Amish country store back in Frankfort. It was just a gooey, oozy wonderful sugar rush. Calmed me down. Hence, I was able to ride those last several miles to Jamestown and the railtrail. I was done for the day with about 34-36 miles in. OUCH! But it is what it is. We got a motel in Xenia. Just too cold to camp tonight. Tomorrow I’m hoping we got west of Dayton using the railtrail network that spider-webs out of Xenia. So deal - riding berm of railtrail cuz the trails are all asphalt. Things get a little tricky outside of Dayton, but hey, that’s the nature of this endeavor right?