Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

Event: OCIN Indian Creek / TROL Series #7
 

Green Course at Indian Creek Preserve, set by Mike Minium.

OCIN_Indian_Creek_Jan_2013_Green - Splits

Event: Sierra Ski-O Tour 2013
 

Driving around (mostly) Franklin County Indiana planning an extra-hilly, long bike ride. The idea is to simulate a one-day Tour Divide type route. It's almost all paved, so it isn't representative there, but what I'm really trying to get is over 1.5 miles vertical per 100 miles. From the looks of this track, that won't be a problem. Also checking a few things for OpenStreetMap, which might turn into an addiction. I need to start spending my winter indoor time on finishing the orienteering maps I've already started rather than the new shiny bright stuff I never seem to escape.

The most scary part of this was on the old IN-1 Southgate Hill. It was unplowed, but there had been traffic, and I figured going up it was reasonably safe. I got past what I thought was the hard part, but maybe I didn't have enough momentum, because I couldn't get all the way to the top. I had to turn around and go really slow down this narrow and scary hill that has seen a lot of wrecks and deaths before it was bypassed by modern highway engineering. I didn't slide even a little bit. (I took it at idle in first gear, which is literally walking speed.)

Walking across the frozen Pipe Creek (?) at the Pine Rd wet crossing. I've been planning this ride, and one online map shows it not connected, and yet some do. None of the aerials I've seen shows a bridge. The 1986 USGS 1:100K map shows it connected. Well---it is connected, but there never was a bridge. It's a wet crossing, say 30m that varied (today) from 3 inches to 7 inches. Except it was frozen, and something, maybe a truck, broke through, so I didn't even consider driving across it. But I did walk on the ice. (Stopped my GPS watch after driving away.)

The last time I was on Stone Church Rd, it was gravel. That was about 15 years ago. Now it's all paved. Now I know. I started the GPS on IN-1N to Blooming Grove, west on Stone Church Rd to Little Duck Creek Rd to eastbound on Duck Creek Rd back towards IN-1, but there is a shortcut called Crossover Rd. Since I had the GPS running, I took Causeway Rd to the Fairfield Marina, which was closed, and unplowed; and I almost got stuck trying to get back up this tiny tiny hill. Then I went to Egypt Hollow Ramp and back to Everton, IN on a comically zig-zaggy combination of roads.

Egypt Hollow Ramp was absolutely beautiful in the calm air and full moon rising across the lake. I have no comment about any yellow stains on the snow-covered ramp itself and whether or not my track shows evidence of doughnuts on the ramp. Also, speaking hypothetically, you technically can't do doughnuts in a front-wheel drive car, but it is possible to drive in a circle and pull the handbrake; and again, I have no comment about whether any such actions occurred tonight.

After a long stop, I checked out the defunct River Rd closure; but didn't have time (or light) to walk it for passability; and the Treaty Line Ramp, which was gated closed, and earns a "Balls!", because I was thinking it would be a good parking spot for certain winter MTB rides.