On Saturday, I rode around Lake Lemon with Dave. This was a paved-road ride, and Dave is more of a mountain biker, so this was a bit different. I rode my Long Haul Trucker, and he put slick tires on his full-suspension Cannondale Prophet mountain bike. The bike disparity certainly put him at a disadvantage, but he rode very well despite this.

I rode to Dave’s house before the ride (7.5 miles or so). It was rather foggy, and the roads were wet. It was a weird week; the roads were wet all week, even on days when it didn’t rain. It was just VERY humid. It was also a very warm day, in the 40s. It may have even topped out around 50. It felt luxurious to ride without a ton of layers of clothing.

I got to Dave’s house, and we rolled out, right down a big hill to Lake Lemon. The water level was very low, and we saw a couple of people with a high-end video camera taping a group of riders. I wonder what that video was for. The lake looked especially beautiful, with the fog.

After debating which way to do the loop, we started riding, counter-clockwise. This is the way I prefer to do the loop … but each direction has its challenges. Going counter-clockwise, there’s one VERY steep hill, but it’s over before long. Going the other way you suffer for a lot longer, even if it’s not as steep.

We rode across the causeway.

After this, we rode around to the other side of the lake, and over some rolling hills. Then, up the very difficult hill described above.

As we made our way along the north side of the lake, Dave suggested we make a trip over to the spillway. I’d never been to this part of Lake Lemon before; it was rather small, given the size of the lake. We saw a couple of Great Blue Herons and some geese, and had some nice views to other parts of the lake. I had ridden very close to this spot many times before but never knew it was there.

We headed back toward the main road.

Once there, we had a few more hills, and then we reached a flat road for a few miles. We enjoyed the easier cruising on flat ground, after all the hills.

But, it wasn’t completely flat.

We turned onto another road, where we had quite a bit of climbing to do. It was very steep toward the bottom, and got easier after that, but it sure was a lot of climbing. Along the way, I took a photo of my favorite sign in the area …

NO TRESPASSING
VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT
SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.

Once we finished climbing that hill, it was just a few more miles back to Dave’s house, and then another 7.5 miles home. My total for the ride was about 37 miles.

This was a great ride. It was a route I’d done before, but not for a very long time. It was cool to do a road ride with Dave for a change, I love the gravel/mountain bike rides we usually do, but this was fun, too. And now I have a new spot to go to, the spillway.

It felt great to do some more road riding, I haven’t done enough of it recently.

On Saturday, Dave and I went hiking at Yellowwood State Forest. He had spotted something on the satellite view in Google Earth that looked like an undiscovered pond, so we set out to see if we could find it.

We started on a horse trail, and hiked up a hill. Once on the ridge, we bushwhacked down into a ravine. We saw a creek at the bottom, and worked our way down. Along the way, we saw bare spots where turkeys had made their beds.

We didn’t find a pond, instead, we followed another, very muddy horse trail out to a nice view of the lake.

We turned around and got on another trail … just because we didn’t find the pond didn’t mean we couldn’t hike more.

We climbed a bigger hill on the 10 O’Clock Line Trail, a 14-mile trail that ends in Brown County State Park. Once we reached the top of the hill, we followed some horse trails for a while on some narrow ridges.

We looked through the trees and thought we spotted a pond. Dave got out his binoculars and it was pretty clear there was SOME kind of water down there. We couldn’t tell if it was a wide creek or a small pond, and the ravine was too steep to go down and check.

We got to the bottom and followed the road back to the car, getting some more views of the lake.

Later, we looked at my GPS and realized we had been pretty close to the water we spotted from the top of the ridge. We just turned the wrong way. Next time, we’ll be able to go there and see if there is, in fact, a pond.

It was a fun hike of about three miles, with a couple of good climbs and some great scenery. And it was great to see Dave, I hadn’t hung out with him since before Christmas since he was sick, and we’ve both been busy.

On “Black Friday,” I went mountain biking with my friend Dave. We have made this a tradition: every year, on Black Friday, while millions of people flock to shopping malls to try to find the best sales, we go ride our bikes in the woods. It’s a great way to spend the day and avoid the crowds. This year, we went to Versailles State Park, which is a couple of hours away by car. This is also where we went on our first Black Friday ride, but there are several new trails since that ride. We rode all of the trails, in a big loop. Here’s the map and elevation profile.

View 2009-11-27 Versailles Black Friday Mountain Biking.kml in a larger map

We started out on the new Shadow Run trail. This is an intermediate trail which begins with a climb. It was in the 30s outside and we were cold when we started riding, but this climb helped us warm up. Once we reached the top of the hill, the trail was much easier; it’s quite flat for a while, but it winds through the woods with many twists and turns. Along the way, we got some great views of Laughery Creek, and saw quite a few sinkholes. Rolling on flat ground for a while allowed us to get warmed up before hitting the harder trails.

You can see Dave in the above shot, if you look closely.

The trail got a bit harder as turned to go downhill. It wound its way down the side of the hill, with more views of the creek and ravines below.

Next, we had to redo part of the Shadow Run climb in order to make our way up to the Cliffside Trail. This trail was more difficult; it skirts the edge of a cliff, and the trail is narrower and rockier. It even crosses a waterfall at one point. We walked this part due to safety concerns. Trail conditions were mostly good, but parts were muddy enough that traction was poor at times. We had more great views of the creek this whole time, but we had to stay focused on riding, so it was hard to take in the views, except when we stopped.

This shot taken by Dave. The iPhone shot looks nice here!

Stone bench along the trail

Dave took this shot of me with his iPhone

Next was the Center Loop. This went by really quickly. It was a fun trail, with some twists and turns and a bit of climbing, but it was over just as I was getting into it. It mostly serves as a way to reach the Grandview Trail, which at six miles long, is the longest trail at the park. When we reached the Grandview Trail, we saw this sign, which we promptly ignored, pointing us back to the trailhead (photo by Dave).

The Grandview trail is aptly named, as it offers views of a bend in Laughery Creek some 150 feet below, as well as some nearby hills.  These views would be much obstructed during the summer, but with no leaves on the trees, we could see quite a bit. This trail has some fast, flowing riding for a while. Conditions were much better than the last time I rode here. Back on Black Friday of 2006, the trail was covered in several inches of leaves. This year things were considerably better; the trail was fairly clear and those leaves that were there had been compacted. We had only to worry about the occasional muddy section.

Last time I was here, the Grandview Trail was also much shorter. At that point, it had a few minutes of fun, flowing riding, then a climb back to the start. We rode it twice in a row, last time. Now the trail is over twice as long as it used to be. Instead of turning back so soon, it goes down almost all the way to creek level before winding through mixed hardwood/pine forests and finally, climbing back up to the starting point. This gave us another nice perspective of the creek, as well as some extra fun.

The rest of the ride is a blur, we were on Center Loop again briefly, then a fast-but-brief descent on the Creekside Trail, followed by a creek crossing and some very rocky sections.

We finished the ride, right around 11 miles, in 2 1/2 hours of riding. It felt a lot longer, thanks to the climbing, mud, technical sections, and views. We contemplated riding the Grandview Trail twice, but we were tired and hungry.

The trails at Versailles are just awesome. Each has its own character, but they are all extremely fun, and all are very beautiful. I’ll definitely be returning.