Biking During the Past Forty Years

Yesterday I had the opportunity to take a good look at the O-Hill trail. It has been used quite a lot over the years. I heard from a reliable source that it started as an equestrian trail and not as a biking trail. I am pleased that bikes were allowed on it without being outlawed from it as can happen from what I've read in magazines from the west.
It was an outstanding day for riding yesterday, I enjoyed getting up early on Sunday and taking off on a pristine morning with clear light shinning and helping me to see. I took my camera with me. The rider on the trail is just someone I ran into on the rim trail who didn't mind having his picture taken.
What's good is to be healthy enough to make it up the hill to these wonderful trails. Not all people of my age are so lucky. I count my blessings as I look at these photos of my trail riding.
So far, I've ridden on Walnut Creek trails, The GW Parkway trail, the Hanncock Maryland trail (24 miles of it) and the Virginia Creeper Trail both of which are Rails to Trails efforts. Then I've ridden in a park in Goochland, Va. then also I've ridden at the Cape Fear State Park trail, and I've ridden many roads around here from Charlottesville to the Blue Ridge Mountains and back. I've ridden here in the woods with people who grew up here and knew there way around, we got lost but then knew where we were once we came upon a road. And then, I've twice ridden from Charlottesville to Kerr Dam and Reservoir on the border with North Carolina after raising funds for the MS 150. I also rode two other times with them both times doing 150 miles in two days after a nice party in Farmville at Longwood College over night. The food was good and the rooms were air conditioned. Just what I needed at the time, all and all I've enjoyed my time on my bike on all these trips. The nice thing is looking back on my trips from here they looked so impossible to accomplish, but I did it one foot stroke at a time.
While living in Philadelphia Pa, I rode many miles in that city for work at PAFA and for the fun of it along the bikepath along the River and up and down alleys of that fairly tough city. I also spent a couple of days traveling with friends on bike along the Black Horse and White Horse Pike on our way to Atlantic City for seeing some friends at Stockton College. There were often four or five of us who rode in a pack along the sixty some miles we rode on to get their.
Then one summer, I took a trip from Philadelphia to Atlantic City then from Atlantic City down the coastal waterways to Cape May, where I took the Ferry to Cape Henlopin Delaware where I camped out. Then I rode into Maryland, camped out one more night, then made it across the Bay Bridge with some help of a friendly man with a pickup truck who loaded me into his truck bed and drove me over the Bay. I stayed with a friend in Annapolis over night where I had maybe one of the very best salads I ever ate. I left overnight and made it to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and rode my bike illegally across it to Alexandria. The cars and trucks had mercy on me that day, it was very dangerous and I wouldn't do it again even if I had to. Finally, I made it to Alexandria and rode the GW Parkway trail that had just been built down to Mt.Vernon where I stayed with another close friend who put me up for the weekend. After that weekend I retraced my path back to Philadelphia.
Upon my return, I learned that my current girlfriend had slept with my best friend. No sweat, it was bound to happen back then in those situations we lived in, after all we were all roommates back then.... I also had lost a good amount of weight from the ride in the mid-summer days that I had been riding.
All in all, I've spend some time between the handlebars spanning the past forty years.