That’s good friend Ken Johnson (right) and yours truly at the conclusion of our recent, celebratory, 70+ mile bike ride. The photo was taken beside the Bellville Train Depot by the male half of a Mansfield couple who, ironically, were riding bicycles exactly like mine. In the small lower photo you can see the word “Trip” and the digits 72.4 on my bicycle’s computer.

TWO OLD GEEZERS—
And a 70+ mile bicycle ride

As we rolled through 35 miles on our bicycles that day I really wondered if I could make our objective of a 70 mile ride.

Leg muscles would burn gently especially when the headwind acted pesky. Ken joked, “In this section between Bellville and Butler it doesn’t matter which way you are riding, you always have a head wind.”

My good friend Ken Johnson and I had been talking about doing this ride since our shared workout routine in his basement over the past winter. It was our way of celebrating our approaching 70th birthdays which will occur just weeks apart in October.

Our local B & O bike trail is 18 miles long so all we had to do was ride from Butler to Mansfield. And back. Twice.

Actually we left out the run to Butler from our launch in Bellville that early morning because riding into the rising sun would have been blinding. We planned to replace those miles by riding equivalent mileage in laps around North Lake Park. That strategy would allow us to finish our ride on a “downhill” segment from Mansfield to Bellville.

The trail, constructed on an abandoned railroad line, climbs very gently from Butler through Bellville and Lexington. Then the upgrade increases slightly until just a bit north of Marion Ave., Road where it levels off then begins a slow descent to North Lake Park.

While, to the unpracticed eye, the trail appears level, helper engines had to be used in years gone by to give northbound trains a boost in that uphill segment.

As we neared 50 miles that day I really began to question our sanity. My left knee began to complain about a riding injury from earlier this year, but the recumbent bike provided great comfort to the rest of my aging bones.

Actually, I was playing mind games with myself as our ride continued. If it turned out I couldn’t make the 70 miles, I would regard the effort as simply a tune-up.

Since it was 12 miles from Mansfield to Bellville we needed only 58 miles behind us when we left North Lake on the final stretch. Our series of loops around the lake’s 4/10th mile oval soon rewarded us with our calculated mileage and we smiled our way back onto the bike trail and headed for home--

--only to encounter very suspicious stacks of downed tree branches blocking the bike trail. We cleared the first blockage and hopped the second 8” branch then could see a gang of silhouettes far ahead of us constructing yet another barrier.

Evidently, these Neanderthals had recently been paroled for the day at Mansfield’s nearby high school and their barricades were occurring near the W. 4th St. bridge with its abutments seriously blemished with gang graffiti.

Was this just a harmless teenage prank, or, something substantially more serious?

Even with adequate means of self defense we decided discretion was, indeed, the better part of valor and did a “U” turn back to the park and headed south past the old Coliseum site and up Linden Rd., toward Millsboro where, if we survived the traffic, we could rejoin the bike trail.

Soon we cycled across the bike trail’s divide—near the lake behind Alta Greenhouse—and shared a quiet cheer as we began the downhill ride toward Bellville.

While we joked about continuing our effort to the century (100 mile) level, Ken, the far stronger rider in our duo, was standing on his pedals to get some relief from his tender seat.

So, we simply left those final miles slide by on our glorious afternoon of fair skies and moderate temperatures and shared expressions of appreciation for the fellowship of our adventure.

I verbally counted down the final tenths of the 69th mile and whooped a hefty Cha CHING!, as mile number 70 went into my personal record book.

Thank you Ken for being my friend—and, for first encouraging then sharing this very special day.

____________________
Statistics:
Average speed:  11.6 mph
Max speed: 28.6 mph
Riding time:  6:12
Total miles on bike:  550