Milford-Mansfield Ohio Tour 2008
Pre-Ride: Cardinal Greenway
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
Riding the Cardinal Greenway Trail was an idea of mine based on my desire to ride as many new and interesting rails-to-trails that I can. And since Indiana is on the way to Ohio...
Anyway, although not part of the actual Milford-Mansfield bicycle tour, I'm including this short segment of rails-trails riding since it was on the way to the aforementioned journey. And since it's within the neighborhood of the main ride, I believe it deserving of special mention, especially since the entire Muncie, IN bicycle trail system may quite well be deserving of its own dedicated bicycle tour at some future date.
I didn't get into Muncie until early afternoon. Finding Wysor Station was a cinch. I purchased a nifty little "Cardinal Greenways Trail Users Guide" at the station, signed in on the guest registry, and hopped on my bicycle and headed south. I figured on riding only about 20 miles or so round trip, just to "shake loose" some of the road weariness from my legs from so many miles of driving.
The weather was partly sunny and mild. The skies clouded up around the halfway point of my ride (Delaware / Henry County Line). The main thing about this particular segment was that the trail was basically straight. As an arrow. Still, it was interesting as the countryside had hints of the coming Fall colors and the surrounding countryside had some fine Midwestern charm, .e.g., farmland and hardwood trees. And, of course, being a rails-trails pathway, the elevation was pretty flat (slightly downhill going South).
The return trip introduced me to an Indiana historic round barn (near mile marker 97.5.
All in all, for a very brief and short trip, the Cardinal Greenway Trail holds much promise for a future ride / tour. The relatively vast interconnecting network of bicycle trails with Cardinal Greenway as well as other local attractions (e.g., Mounds State Park) hints at a very interesting and wonderful area ripe for exploration. The local area definitely proved a fine warm-up to the Milford-Mansfield, Ohio adventure in the days ahead.
Total miles ridden: 22.2
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