Seg #42 Little Miami a Beautiful Ohio Trail Newton-Yellow Springs, OH 5/20-21/14

Seg #42 Little Miami Scenic Trail

End	Yellow Springs, OH	N 39.80772 W 83.88798	N-S miles 47
Start	Newton, OH	N 39.13552 W 84.35847	Trl lgth 72mi Ride62.5 mi

Ride hr 6:34

AVS 9.3

MXS  mph 16.6

DST62.5 mi

Tmp55-73

Kcal 5374

Two thumbs up from the Newton, OH trail head. Mark took
me here after we finished riding the Cardinal Greenway.

The longest ride for the Cush and Cam boys (see previous posts regarding the naming of Cush and Cam) in 2014 was the Little Miami Scenic Trail (LMST).  A fully paved trail runs nearly seventy-five miles from north of Cincinnati to Springfield Ohio. The LMST is the fourth longest paved trail in the country. The fact that I accrued forty-seven miles of latitude, plus beautiful scenery, made this trail a Cam top ten. Lack of water and potty stops are the only "rubs" I have with the LMST. We got on the south end of the trail at Bass Island Trail Head at two o'clock. Within fifteen minutes I was peddling my way north to Spring Valley. Rain had been forecast but I managed to dodge almost every drop. Mark drove ahead and then rode south to meet me heading north. Then he scouted out a place to stay in Waynesville, OH. It is so helpful to have a partner to shuttle the car ahead, explore for trail heads, roads, food, locate a place to stay. When I carry out these rides by my lonesome, it is a colossal challenge to drive the car to a spot and then ride out and back; doubling the time and mileage needed to complete the mission.

Mark met up with me at the half way
point of the LMST. Then we rode to
the car ten miles north (back for Mark)
of here to the car at Spring Valley. 

I am indebted to Mark, Chris, Geoff, Don and Connie for hauling me around on nearly half of the TAVRT trips. Psychologically the "Selfie" rides are a drain on the Cam Spirit Gauge. I mean, riding one direction and then back is not very uplifting. To realize that not only have I "been there, done that", but if the scenery is of the bland variety, the "what a drag-factor" kicks in especially when factoring the repeat mileage and time.All this doubling translates to double thank yous to the support crew for making this venture more interesting and less demanding. I made good time on this trail averaging over nine miles per hour. Therefore it wasn't dark at the Spring Valley trailhead when I met up with Cush. We had a great meal in Waynesville, OH, a Quaker town with a self proclaimed title of Antique Capital of the World. By 11 p.m. we were sawing logs.

Happy Birthday Dan! From Cush and Cam :-) Spring Valley OH

The next day was Mark's son's birthday, so we took a selfie and sent Dan a Happy Birthday greeting. I was able to ride from Spring Valley to Yellow Springs in a little over two hours. Then headed to Dayton, OH to visit the Wright Brother's cycle shop #5. The visitors center at Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park contained bicycle and air plane displays. I expected to be able to see more but after I got home and read the brochure, I realized the there were buildings and shops spread out over a large area that we missed.

Harry Ford bought the most significant
cycle shop (#2) and moved it to Detroit.
This building is Orville and Wilbur's
5th shop.

We were running out of time anyway so by 2:30 we were heading back to Iowa to battle some extremely heavy thunderstorms. Golf ball sized hail was predicted but we were lucky on that one. We made it to Davenport after dark where Donna was there to pick up Mark. After we reloaded bicycles and clothes, we were on the road to Dubuque for Mark and Donna and Coralville for me.

I am not certain where this newly built covered bridge
crosses the LMST, but the bright red color makes it is
recognizable from afar. Mark is the speck up ahead

This trip went very smooth without a hic-up sans the thunderstorm on the way home. This trip completed the northern half of the USA latitude except for the nearly three mile stretch I couldn't make on the beach at False Cape State Park. I have been able to find a trail in Clarksville,
TN, called the Clarksville Greenway that will allow me to close the gap between the False Cape Trail and the Mt. Airy Greenway. Whoopee!