32 Mile Bike Ride @ 98 Degrees!

Well - OK, it wasn't 98 degrees when I started the ride, but it was by the time I finished.

But let me back up a bit here.

I've been making the trip between Texas and the clan-home for 44 years now, and in that time I've marked up my map with a few spots for hiking, camping, and biking (And the general location of a fellow blogger's domicile!).

When heading back to Texas I often linger along the way (Maybe because the Wife doesn't always seem that enthused about me coming home?!), taking advantage of one or two of these spots or seeing if I can find new ones.

This year was no different.

Initially I had my eye on the Blackwell Horse Camp (you don't actually need a horse to stay there) between Bloomington and Bedford Indiana in the middle of the Charles C Deam Wilderness section of the Hoosier National Forest. Free, easy access, and a few nearby trailheads.

But other than the narrow corridor of the FS road, no engines, powered tools, or wheeled conveyances of any kind are allowed (even trail maintenance must be done on foot and by hand in all nationally designated wilderness areas) and the Lectric 3.0 on the rack was burning a hole in my pocket,

so, with apologies to a fellow blogger that I bypassed without so much as a long-distance wave, instead I headed further southwest of there to the Tunnel Hill State Trail, a rails-to-trails project in Illinois.

There are a number of places to jump on this 45 mile long trail. I chose the Viena city park about an hour south of where I spent the night before, because it has a large parking area with plenty of room for my diminutive, but larger than just a car, setup.

Where I'm standing used to be part of the tunnel too, but after a cave-in in the 1920's about 300 feet of the tunnel was opened to the sky (it's technically called daylighting, not an uncommon occurrence with old railroad tunnels) and a new portal constructed.

From there it's about 9 miles of peddling, generally uphill, to the trail's namesake tunnel. 

Just on the other side of the tunnel is the remnants of  the 'town' of Tunnel Hill created by the people that were digging the tunnel in the first place. There's also a parking area, water, pit-toilet, and picnic tables for those using the trail.

In the past this has generally been my turnaround spot since continuing on is to head downhill, which, for those of us without access to shuttle-rides, means an uphill slog to get back to this point before we can start the final 9 miles back to where the vehicle waits, but bolstered by the confidence of battery power this trip I continued on

towards the next access, and amenities, point at New Burnside

But before getting that far there's the offset remnants of a bridge over the trail where, back in the day, two railroads crossed each other at an oblique angle.

These were the days of rail-travel and here the town of Parker, with hotels, restaurants, and barbershops thrived on servicing those travelers.

But once the passenger cars quit running Parker completely disapeared back into the woods and is now known on maps as he Parker Site

By the way, the beaver dams that used to be between Tunnel Hill and the Parker Site are gone now,

but the scenery alongside the trail is still there.

 Next stop, Burnside, and

another trail-access point with amenities.

At this point I was pleased with how the ebike was working out on a long-ish ride and was tempted to  continue on another 4.5 miles to the next access point at Stonefort. But I didn't want to do something stupid (OK - even more stupid than being out here in this heat in the first place!), so forced myself to make this my turnaround spot.

But first, time for a bit of lunch to keep a growing boy going!

With that done, and nothing much else to do (you know - since I was being sensible - ohhh maaann, what a drag!) I headed on back to Viena.

By this point, around mid day, things were seriously heating up and I hadn't seen anyone else out on the trail in quite some time.

I guess I was the only idiot in the county that day. But I'm an idiot that lives in Texas and spends most every day year round outside and has learned how not to die in the heat - at least so far.

So, while the heat wasn't all that great, the ride was. First longish ride on the new ebike and I wasn’t disappointed.

I'll go into more detail on how the bike is working out in a future post.

But now that I didn't have the breeze of motion tempering the heat, it was HOT!

By the time I had the bike loaded back up on the rack it was still only mid-afternoon. I didn't  want to get too much further south before stopping for the night, and in this heat (it was 98 inside the trailer at that time and 104 when I crossed Arkansas the next day) I really didn't want to stop until sundown, which was a long ways away.

I knew of a State Forest Recreation site, Lake Glendale, about 15 miles east of where I was so my plan was to head on over there and kill the rest of the afternoon hanging around in shade of the day-use area.

I've stayed in the campground over there in the past, but it's a FCFS campground not that far from several medium-sized cities and this was a Friday, but just for grins, when I got there I thought I'd drive through the non-electric loops to see what was up before heading to one of the day-use areas to chill (metaphorically, not actually).

This recreation area is run by a vendor that gets a healthy percentage of the revenue. I was here close to Labor Day one year and not only were the designated campsites full, the vendor, with thier eye on profits, had campers scattered all over the place. In the day-use areas, the group site, out in the field next to the swimming beach, around the edges of parking areas, even in little clearings just barely off the roads. So I didn't expect much in the way of empty campsites on this summer Friday.

Well, as it turns out, I was wrong. In fact out of the 30 or more non-electric campsites not a single one was taken. 

So change of plans. Damn-fool idea or not, $10 with my geezer card got me a decent, though sweltering, campsite with nearby flush toilets and hot-ish showers tucked into the quiet of the trees.

Come morning, a Saturday, I was still the solitary idiot camping out there, but it wasn't getting any cooler so it was time to head on home where I could at least sleep in air-conditioned space..

That night's stop would be another rest area not too far into Texas, but I certainly didn't want to get there until the sun had been down for an hour or so, so I slow-played the drive. Taking the 'scenic' route down to the southern end of Illinois on State road 37 (I quoted scenic because by the time you get down close to Cairo there's not much scenic about it), then working my way across Arkansas on its smaller roads.

Yes, by pushing it I could have made it all the way home in one shot, but the Wife really doesn't like late-night visitors, even me. (Especially me?)

Wheels And Electrons

There's reason you don't  find many septuagenarians playing on the same ruggby team as tricenarians. It's  not that they can't play the game, it's just that they have slowed down a bit and can't compete on the same physical level as 30 year olds.

It's not that I can't ride a standard bike, it's just that the inevitable passage of time means the kind of riding I like to do is difficult on a cheap standard bike anymore, to the point of sucking all the joy out of the experiance.

I'm not much of a road biker, nor does slamming around on mountain-bike trails hold much appeal, I'd rather hike those and soak in the experiance at a slower pace, I'm not a loop around and around the city-park affectionato, so that pretty much leaves the many rails-to-trails - well, trails.

Only thing is, those tend to have longer distances between access points and being on my own, all my rides are out-&-backs, so no chance to pick the downhill direction for a ride.

The last time I rode the Quad-B (my $120 Walmart Big Box Beater Bike) on the Tunnel Trail from Viena, over the crest at Tunnel, and down to Burnside (there's a really pretty stream and some beaver dams between Tunnel and Burnside) and back again, I thought I'd never make it back uphill to Tunnel before starting the long glide, or what should have been a long glide, back down to Viena. 

Finally back at Tunnel, while I was flat on my back on the bench of a picnic table trying to recover enough from that last uphill slog to finish the ride, I had to work hard to convince a concerned young woman (more like a child in her form, and what a form, fitting lycra) that she didn't need to call the paramedics for me, even though I wasn't entirely sure she was wrong.

That was the last time I road the Quad-B, which, admittedly, was nearing the end of its useful life with worn wheel, pedal, and head-tube bearings and badly brake-worn rims. (Even going downhill from Tunnel to Viena that bike wouldn't coast anymore and I had to work for every mile!)

But I still like the idea of riding the many rails-to-trails opportunities available today, as well as being able to occasionally scout questionable forest-roads by bike before committing a vehicle.

I could bridge the gap between desire and ability a bit by buying a decent mid-level standard bike to replace my ragged out Quad-B. But for that kind of money, enter the ebike (with conciderable help from Mom's estate). An investment that's more  likely to keep on providing as my physical condition ages out.

Now I know there are those out there that quote - would die before buying an ebike - unquote, but we're all different, and for me the electrons seem to be working.

Most evenings now I end up riding the ebike in (rugged) loops around the property for 30 to 60 minutes before calling it a night, something I haven't done on the Quad-B in years. Something that's good for me both physicly and mentally as I de-stress from the day. Not that you'd think I have all that much stress in my day as it is, but a feature of the end of the spectrum where I apparently dwell is having dificulty shutting the mind down.

There's  a ton of decent e-bike offerings out there and after much research over several months I picked a Lectric XP Stepthrough 3.0.

Stepthrough because there's no reason to make life more difficult than it needs to be. Lectric because they are US based, well known, have good quality and customer service reviews, and at the time were offering a package deal that included the fancy seat, saddle-bags, and two extended range batteries for about the same price ($1500 or so) as some decent standard bikes. XP, not because I was particularly looking for a folding bike, but because that was the only way to get a bike with 20" wheels, shortening the overall length enough

that, without taking anything apart, it would fit between the walls across the rear door of the cargo-trailer (by a half inch!)

while still leaving room to fold the bed down.

I added some low-profile D-rings to the floor and the door/ramp so the bike can be securely strapped down.

I also added a 1up bike rack to my arsenal.

Bike racks are pricey and I've had a Thule swing-away rack for - well, since forever - but it's a frame-hanger which won't work at all for this new bike.

Besides, electric bikes, with thier steel frames with integraded welded-on steel rear rack, 3" tires, fancy shock-post seat, saddle bags, and extended-range battery are heavy! 70 pounds ready-to-ride in my case.

Constantly arm-curling one of those up to hang it on a frame-hanger rack - well that's just not in my vocabulary anymore!

Hence the wheel-suport rack with ramp (30 pounds all together), so I can just roll the bike on and off.

The wheel-support trays of the 1up also fold 90 degrees to end up parrallel with the hitch-tube which streamlines the stored rack so I can slide it into the bed of the Ranger when towing the cargo trailer to a destination, then once there, mount the rack on the back of the Ranger for day-trips.

As you may have already seen in a previous post, I added a reciever-tube to the front of the teardrop so I can mount the rack there too,

then travel with the bike mounted on the trailer, then once there, wherever 'there' is, shift the rack to the Ranger for day-trips.

First impresions are good, but I've only got a couple hundred miles on the bike so far and frankly I'm still learning how to use it, so maybe sometime in the future I'll go into more detail on riding it and how it's doing. (Don't you want to just reach through the screen and grab by the neck those people that leave reviews saying 'arrived on time, packaging in good shape, haven't used it yet, 5 stars!'?)