Powered By Blogger

Saturday, January 8, 2011

"this was the ride that was" part 2


Last Spring I spent 3 days biking across central Ky with my friend Anna. We started at Long Run Park (eastern Jefferson County; we considered starting from my house, but that would mean 15-20 miles of city biking which is where we usually ride, why do that again?) and ended in Maysville. Neither of us had done any bike touring before this trip.


On our first day we went to Frankfort. No, we did not go on US 60 (too much traffic). Instead, I cobbled together a route of backroads for a beautiful and mostly low-traffic trip (I highly recommend the Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer).




We got to downtown Frankfort and quickly found a bar with a good happy hour special on PBR. After a few of those we got directions to our campsite from a nice lady on the street. ADVICE: don't get directions when you've had a few beers. We accidentally got on a highway (ack!!), but eventually made it to the campground (as you can see, my tent is bit jacked-up).






The next day we took a few wrong turns, but eventually made it to Cynthiana. More beer (with Mexican food this time) and we soon realized there was not a campground anywhere around. After riding around for awhile we finally asked the firefighters hanging out at the station where we could camp. The Chief called up the Mayor and we got permission to stay at the city park (view from the tent). Small towns can be so cool.






We breakfasted (see below) and then took off for Maysville. Below is Anna's bike.




In Maysville we found another bar with fries and beer right downtown (although getting to downtown required getting on four-lane highway - sorry about that, Anna). We camped near the river right outside town. It would have been lovely, but a barge blew its horn all night and in the morning it rained. That's how I found out my tent leaks. When I woke up I was floating, there was so much water on the floor.


Lunch in Bagdad, birthplace of Martha Layne Collins (1st woman governor of KY). There is a grassy spot out back to picnic in and inside is a wee deli.


















A sweet little road on the way to Cynthiana.










I made a mistake and took us a few miles out of the way. This view is down the hill we just climbed. It may not look like much, but around the bend it gets scaaaaarrrrryyyy.









At the top of a ridge - it was very windy and with all our gear packed onto our bikes it was a fight sometimes to keep from swerving across the road.












A friendly Cynthiana firefighter.
















I'm hoping to do another trip this coming Spring.

No comments:

Post a Comment