BIKE TRAILS
Departed Bob & Colleen’s (Warm Showers) around 8. Almost immediately both RidewithGPS and Google Maps conspired to put me on a private dirt road. I managed to thwart their combined effort by doing an end run.
The day was overcast with some drizzle but mostly dry. SW breeze so I had a quartering tailwind, high temp around 80. It was a good day for a bike ride.
Of note today: I crossed the westerly extension of the Mass Pike (I-90), not seen since Billings, MT.
The scenery today varied widely including soybeans, corn & cabbage, suburban residential, small town commercial, heavy industrial, large grain storage, an Amazon fulfillment center and a power plant. Soybeans were predominant, followed by corn. with cabbage a distant third. (If you need something to do count the number of “squares” vertically in the two nearest grain elevators. I think each square is 3’ x 3’. That should give you an idea of the height of these grain storage elevators.)
The best part of the day was the North Coast Inland Trail, which I was on for close to 40 miles.
This trail and yesterday’s Wabash-Cannonball Trail have made riding easy and enjoyable for the last two days. Flat, NO CARS, & good pavement = good riding, in my opinion.
I am now at another Warm Showers home in Huron. This is a very pleasant riverside community. The friendships run deep and the banter level is thus quite high - all good. Much discussion tonight about whether or not to move cars to higher ground as the river may flood. The consensus is likely it will not flood, but is it worth the risk to leave the cars???..
By the numbers:
Dist - 74.3 miles
Elev Gain - 974 ft
Elev Loss - 1,010 ft
Moving Time 6:05
You’re the best thing on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI counted 66 vertical panels on the grain towers , so does ~200 feet high sound about right?
Have you taken a dip in Lake Erie?
This is great stuff! 40 miles of well-paved trails is a real blessing. I am glad you found a way to avoid the dirt road. The favorable wind sounds good, too.
ReplyDeleteWe saw a lot of grain elevators on our Fargo-VA trip. And some of them were huge. I remember also the Campbell Soup plant somewhere in Ohio. It seemed to stretch out for half a mile at least.
Paul estimated the height of the elevators at 200 feet. That seems very likely just looking at them and at how small the auger machine at the bottom looked.
Enjoy the soybeans and cabbage. If you could eat some of the cabbage, you could create your own tail wind. Nancy said that you were now in Cleveland. We rode across Cleveland near the lake the day before the GOP convention started. We had our picture taken with some of the cops. We had to ride across Cleveland and well into the eastern suberbs to find a room, since everything in the city was booked. Not good timing.
Enjoy the Lake Eire views -- different than soybeans. I hope Huron did not flood. I hope for more trail tomorrow.