Bike Trails

These last few weeks I have been bringing the bike back to my life. For those of you who knew me in NY you know that I used to ride my bike all the time, commute to work on it in all seasons

ride it to get grocery’s, do bike races and basically have it been my form of transportation.

Along with liking riding it in NY, came an element of total fear. Fear for me, fear for my husband and distrust of anyone who was in a car.

After I moved out of NY, I sort of gave up riding all the time. Part of it had to do with the necessity of a car and that places were actually far far away from each other, But also I think I gave it up because I needed an emotional break from all the worrying that went along with riding in a large city.

In North Carolina we rode a bit, and mostly on long rides through farmland, where your only risk was hitting a cow or something. As the winter came and we moved to St. Louis I just stopped riding all together. Along with no longer riding my bike, I then no longer had leg muscles and or calf definition. It's sad but true.

So, after a hot hot hot summer here and the very occasional ride on my bike I have decided to ride again with the help and coxing from my husband, who swears that he will still love me even if I don't ride my bike ever again.

I have decided to give it a try but I am going to ride my way. No more dodging cars, and racing through traffic. No more carrying tons' of grocery’s over the handlebars. I am going to ride for exercise and on trails and in neighborhoods that are not heavy with traffic.

Trail Net is the St. Louis bike advocacy group here, kind of like Transportation Alternatives in NY. On the Trail Net website you can access a lot of fun bike ride's and ideas of places to go. And the good thing is that all of these trails are with in 45 minutes of our house.

So far we have gone to the Katy Trail, which is a lime stone paved old railroad tracks that stretches for over 100 miles.

It's fun because the few times we have done it, we found out that there are breweries and wineries along the way that you can stop at and try new things.

We went to Babler state park which had more hills than my but was ready for, and I could not even cheat cause I was on a fixed gear bike.

It was nice there because you could only hear the forest and the birds.

And this past weekend we found the river front trail that is 22 miles of paved trail stretching along the Mississippi River.

I really liked that trail because it was newer and you could look at Illinois while you were on the St. Louis side. That trail is not one to go on at night because there are no lights and there are a lot of junkyards and people who live in their car along side it.

Along with all those fun options, we ride around Forest Park,

which is about a 6-mile loop, with some fun hills to make your legs pump.

So, my plan to bring the bike back is in full swing and I will keep you updated as to the progress of getting my leg muscles back!