Oh My God! A Mountain Ride In Ohio!

If you add 10,000' ft of elevation to Ohio, you get Utah!









I managed to find a mountain bike ride in Ohio! O.k., it's more of a hill bike ride...but it was "mountainesque." It was a twenty five mile loop, all singletrack, that never ONCE crossed the same section twice. Located in the Mohican State Park off rte. 3 and rte 97, it was a heavily wooded area with covered bridges and streams aplenty. Non-technical and very flowy, it was a rollercoaster of short and steep "stinger" climbs, followed by fast and smooth low-grade descents. The occasional switchback and log pile thrown in for good measure, it had only one or two discernable rocky sections that were short and...not that rocky.



This is also the site of the Mohican 100 mtb race, and the course is well marked up until about mile post eight. this is the short-loop cut off, and at least as of Wednesay at 8a.m., didn't appear to have anyone past that short loop in days if not weeks. The trail beyond the covered bridge was all but unrecognizeable in many parts, with vegeatation (read that as poison ivy) closing all but the last inch of the trail off. Looking like a whale shark on a bike, I managed to clear a twenty foot-wide-swath for the remainder of the ride. Only two miles were off-limits, thanks to the gas company doing work on the line. Those were probably the two best miles of trail, right?





After it was all over, I was tired and happy to find a ride that was physically challenging and had a switchback or two! Switchbacks mean elevation change, and in C-Bus we only have about 230' top to bottom. Thank GOD the upper part of the state has a small 1,000' bump or two to roll up and down on. I will miss Alum Creek (not really), but will likely never ride there again unless someone really begs. I will be hitting the road mileage and cutting out my Bucket-a-Day fried chicken habit to better attack that loop. I would like to cut that lap down from 3.5 hrs to 3, and loosing twenty lbs. may just give me that gap. Colonel, I'll miss you and your crunchy fried yard-bird, and buttery biscuits.....


mmmmmmm...biscuits....