Pedalling Along

I have this plan to build up to a century this year.  I also am looking at being able to ride from my house to the Heritage Rail Trail and back; and survive both the traffic and the hills.  My ride to the trail follows the route I’ve been riding to get to Manchester, but then just continuing south to York.  For the return route I’m looking at taking Route 74 north through Dover.

Saturday I wanted to test the first leg with a ride to Rt. 30 via Manchester.  The only change to my usual ride was a detour onto Wago Road instead of following York Haven Road to Manchester.  Wago follows the river, so I figured it would be a bit more scenic and flatter.  I lucked out, and it turns out that it is one of the state bike routes (J).  The road is a little bumpy in spots, but its a nice level ride with a gentle climb into Mount Wolf, and then Manchester. 

Here are some shots when passing the Brunner Island Power Plant.  I shot these while riding, keeping the camera low so as not to attract the guys with sunglasses driving the black Suburbans.

The second shot shows a coal train about a mile long sitting within six feet of the road.

The rest of the trip was uneventful… a few good hills but nothing too hard heading into Emigsville.  The traffic picks up at the intersection of Rt. 181 and Interstate 83, and the only tricky part is the section from that exit into Rt. 30 - about 1/2 mile, because there is no berm.  I turned back at Rt. 30 because everything beyond is basically city traffic.

I took the same route back because I wanted to check out a recreational area on Brunner Island.  It looks like they have reclaimed some landfill area and built sports fields, hiking trails, and nature areas.

I had to make a pit stop so I took a turn and found a soccer match in progress!  I didn’t know that they even had a club in this area.  I stopped and watched for a few minutes, and what I found unusual was that these kids appear to be U9/U10 or so, and are co-ed.  Usually at this age you have one or the other, with the occassional stellar girl playing on a boys team, but in this case, both teams were mixed.  I’ll need to do some investigating.  The fields were in really good shape (meaning: not a very busy club), and they had some storage containers set up for equipment and mowers, etc…

The trip from York Haven to Lewisberry is a steady slogging climb - not fun for tired legs….but still a good trip.

Misc. miles: 8

Distance: 36 miles, 2008: 313.5