Photo Dump

It's tough to follow a post about an epic ride featuring the adventures of Bob Jenkins.  Matt, you should make documentaries for a living.  It's even more difficult to follow a post with obscene Christmas phtotos.  I'm sure that the debauchery that I missed on Friday was even...umm...better than the photos of drunk santa. 

Anyway here's some photos from recent solo rides that I've done over the past month or so.  I traversed many a bridge and braved harrowing conditions to bring you these epic (not really - there's only so much epicnicity around the big city) photos. Ride number 1 is a big-ish 90 mile loop involving many bridges, 30 mph headwinds and a wide variety of scenery.

Missouri River from the Page Avenue bridge heading into St. Charles:

Rural fields in the St. Charles floodplain:

Eastern terminus of the Katy Trail.  I had never been up this far on the Katy.  The only other person I saw on the trail was a homeless dude with his bike so loaded down that he looked like he was touring the world.  I didn't get a photo of him.

Once off the Katy Trail, its pavement through the floodplain over to West Alton.  I picked up the West Alton trail which could also be labeled the West Alton dump.  Roofing shingles, tires, broken glass and over grown weeds were special features of this multi use path.  It's a short trip over to the bridge which takes you into Alton, IL.  Fortunately there's a bike lane on the bridge with moderate amounts of broken glass:

Once across the bride, I turned south into the 30 mpd headwind.  Nothing like riding on top of a levee into the wind.  Crossing back into Missouri meant two more bridges.  One across to Choteau Island and then the Chain of Rock bridge back into St. Louis:

A few more beautiful sights remained on the final leg home:

Two weeks later I thought I would hit the trails at Lost Valley.  To add a few miles, I decided to ride out to the trails.  Ended up an 80 mile trip.  Nice day a good trails:

Only one mishap.  Can't believe that I caught this before the tube ruptured:

Repeated the trip out to Lost Valley again last weekend.  Figured I'd better make the most of it before the trails become un-rideable for the winter.  Gawd, I love singletrack!

Looking forward to some winter gravel rides, boys!

Pete

Comments

[Bob]

Looks like a good time, I've never been that far East on the Katy. Sounds like I need to make my way over there and see if your bike-lane glass is any different from ours:)

Chain of Rock bridge.. Is that a bike-bridge or just a poorly maintained roadway?

I've never ridden Lost Valley, do you have to be a member out there to gain access?

[matt]

I've heard that Lost Valley on a cross bike is the tits...I definitely need to check that out.