Family Rides on the Erie to Ohio Rail Trail

Eli pounding out miles on primitive rail bed.

I'm using this in between period (in between races) to get some family time.  Thursday I took Eli to ride the Heart of Ohio trail from Centerburg to Mt Vernon and back.  The first 7.5 miles is very smooth asphalt but the last 5.5 miles is primitive rail bed with big chucks of gravel and lots of overgrowth.  It was a real slog for those 10+ miles (to and back) on that path.   We picked up speed once we hit asphalt again and raced a storm system back to the car.   A quick stop at a local diner in Mt Vernon gave us some fuel for the return trip.

Family on the Holmes County Trail

On Saturday we packed up the family minivan and headed to Killbuck OH to ride the Holmes County trail to Millersburg and back.   It is a double wide paved trail with half for bikes and half for Amish buggies.  We saw about a half dozen buggies on the pathway and several others tied up at local businesses along the path.  Kind of like a super highway for Amish.   Unlike this blistering hot summer, Saturday was the one chilly day we've had since May.  It hardly got about 60 for the ride and we mostly froze.  Once again, we raced a storm back to the car but avoided getting majorly wet.   This was Dyl's first real ride this summer so she was a trooper to make the 15 mile round trip (with pizza lunch as a bribe in Millersburg). 

Both the Heart of Ohio and Holmes County trails are part of the larger Erie to Ohio cross state trail.  It will be fun to get this completed. 

Gravel goodness, old Mike climbs a gravel farm road.

Today I got out with J.G. and old Mike for some gravel grinding.   JG  rode his warbird prototype, I was on my Masi cross bike and old Mike showed up on a Trek full susp 26er!   Wow, the guy is strong but this was probably not the right bike for the ride -- he was suffering near the end.  We got in 61 miles of gently rolling gravel goodness in and around Mt Vernon including the primitive rail trail that Eli and I had done a few days earlier.  We pushed it and my legs were tired of hanging on JG's wheel for almost four hours.  I was glad to have old Mike there as we were better matched. 

Friday I head to New Hampshire for the Hampshire 100, my third NUE race of the season.  I'm excited to try something very new.  The long range forecast calls for rain, but this is so far out there is a very good chance things will change completely by race day.  Still, I hope we don't ride in the rain all day.