I love to ride my bike! I think it's probably what I enjoy most and am most willing to do regardless of weather. I enjoy trail riding a lot more than road riding, mainly because I don't trust people to pay attention while driving. I also have come up on packs of riders while I'm driving and I find it annoying (sorry to all you road riders out there) so I try not to burden others with the same annoyance. I get bored on the road, I can see the same thing from my car, where I already spend many hours of my life. The trails give me different scenery and take me to places I wouldn't go in my car. Trails are more technical, they provide obstacles, terrain of all varieties and hills for a good workout. What does the road give you? Hmm, hills, road grit and road rage. Maybe a pothole to avoid every now and then.
There is an annual ride in Ottawa, IL I've wanted to try for several years but it's never worked out. The Pumpkin Pie Ride! Offering several distances to choose from, including a trail ride. It's on the I&M Canal and is limestone so nothing technical or challenging as far as terrain. Anyway, I found a friend and we signed up for the 42 mile trail ride. I have been to Ottawa but it had been a long time so as I was telling people that I was doing this, the common response was that will be a hilly ride. Really? Who knew. I was going to be on the trail along the river so I wasn't expecting hills, just a pretty scenic ride for distance.
Fast forward to the day before the ride and the trail is closed due to flooding damage (flooding that occurred back in the spring by the way) and all routes are on the road. Ottawa is about a two hour drive for us so switching bikes wasn't an option. So, off I go on my very heavy mountain bike. The ride was all farmland, corn to be exact. By the time we finished I was really sick of the corn. The first 25 miles was all hills! I think we went up 24.5 miles and somewhere along the way there was a short little downhill. That was a great workout on my very heavy mountain bike. The last 20 miles we rode into the wind the whole time. Between the wind and the corn, I really was sick of it and just ready for it to be over. Finally, we rolled into the parking lot where we started. Tired and sore, we set out in search of food and beer!
Ottawa is so pretty! Not the corn, but Starved Rock State Park. We didn't have our trailer, we had to have something fixed so we stayed in a hotel. That was fine but I would much rather have been in my camper at the park. I really dislike hotel stays, I don't care to eat out for every meal and in this situation there wasn't anything for us to do except bar hop really. I can't wait to do it again next year, in my camper and on the trail, not in the corn!
