Two Wheel Blogs

[Riding Tunes: Led Zeppelin, MOTHERSHIP; Creedence Clearwater Revival, CHRONICLE, VOLUME 1; The English Beat, BEAT THIS!]

I love rides like today's. I just set out without an idea of where I was headed. All I knew was I had four hours to burn, and I wanted to ride somewhere I don't normally ride.

I headed for some county roads on the northwest corner of town, and right away I was glad I did. It felt like the wind was coming from the west, so I decided to try to ride into it as much as possible for the first two hours so I'd have it mostly to my back on the return.

This led me, naturally, to Alton. When you live in Edwardsville (as I do) and you ride west, you rapidly run out of west to ride into. Once in Alton, I got on Humbert Road and followed it as far as it went. Then I rode north on Illinois 111 until I came to the first county road heading west. I followed that until I came to Irish Lane.

This was my favorite part of the day's ride. Irish Lane was a nice little stretch of road, mostly flat initially, with a few curves that were fun to ride. Farther along, it dipped down into a little valley and took me over a bridge. Awaiting me on the other side was a nice little climb up a hill to where the land flattened out, but at a higher elevation than where i'd started. I was rewarded with a great view of the surrounding countryside. I recognized the woods of Pere Marquette State Park looming in the distance to the north. (It helped that Zeppelin's "Kashmir" was in my ears the whole time, and the song peaked just as I was finishing the climb.)

From there, I took Langeman Road, which took me to Godfrey Road, which took me back towards Godfrey. Nothing against Godfrey, but I didn't want to ride through it. I wanted to ride on rural, county roads. So I took the first one I came to, Airport Road. From there I turned onto Pearce Road, which looked like it would lead me towards the river, where I'd hoped to hop on the Great River Road Trail. Unfortunately, road construction on Pearce closed the road, so I had to follow the detour, which took me ... back to Godfrey. Great!

So I followed Godfrey Road to Alton. By this point, it was late enough that I was ready to start in the general direction of home. But since I was in Alton, I decided to treat myself to something I've long wanted to do: ride across the Clark Bridge. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but just hadn't made a point of it. The ride over the bridge provided a majestic view of the river and the Missouri and Illinois shorelines. I doubled back across the bridge, then got on the trail that runs along the river, and headed towards home.

I finished the day as I had started it, riding the county roads northwest of town. I did a loop through Belk Park as I'd done on my way out, then pointed my wheel towards home and followed it there. All in all, it was a good day's ride. It met the goal of covering four hours, took me down some roads i'd never ridden before, and rewarded me with a sweet roll down Irish Lane and a great view of the Mississippi from the Clark Bridge. I'll take that any day.