The Other Part of the Story

I neglected to tell you about the other part of my weekend...the part where Tony and Rita and Mark and I went out to Freeport to ride on the rail trail that (supposedly) runs to Butler. I anticipated a leisurely, flat, shaded ride, which is exactly what we got for the first 15 or so miles.

Then we hit the "undeveloped" part of the trail. Technically, the trail runs from Freeport to Butler, but up until Herman, it is a lovely, developed, fairly flat and pothole-free surface. After that, they din-get-tha-fah, as our beloved, former math teacher, Ray Peters, would say. They removed the rail ties, but that is pretty much it. We carried on even after the sign that warned us, "Rifle Range Next 3/4 Mile".

But really, the best was when we encountered an enormous pile of railroad ties across the path...clearly a sign that the TRAIL WAS CLOSED. Nonetheless, we hoisted our bikes and clamoured over and kept going. That is, until M could literally go no further.

Well, after that, nobody wished to go back on the 6 miles of bumpy rocks, eerily red industrial run-off, and rifle range, so we decided just to take the road that appeared to be parallel to the trail and then get back on in Herman. Well, let me tell you, rail trails are flat, but roads are not. Rita was not happy. Also, after a little while it became apparent that we were no longer directly paralleling the trail, so I had to go into a little country biker bar and ask for directions. And I have to say that some members of our party resembled my little friends from yesterday's post in that they sat down in a stranger's yard and refused to go any further until we threatened to leave them.

Don't worry, everyone survived the journey. Here we are enjoying icy cold beer at Red Robin after we finally finished. We biked about 40 miles, but it took us literally, all day, what with the getting lost, and trying to mountain bike with our road bikes, etc. Next time, I will turn around after the first mile or so of really bad trail, instead of assuming it will get better very soon. Also, we plan to volunteer as soon as possible to help get this trail completely finished.