found my ride report.
I had a good time with the whole adventure. I left here around noon Thursday and headed up toward Greenville. I got some last-minute supplies there, had a delicious meal at Whataburger, and then headed on up toward Ladonia.
I spent the night at the hunter camp in the Caddo Grasslands just west of Ladonia. Being all alone in a quiet place is always an adventure. The camp is nothing fancy, but it has a few things going for it. It's close to Ladonia, which could be a good place to pick up supplies, although I didn't actually go into town. It's easy to find. It's free. It's so dark at night that you can see the milky way. The coyotes sounded great. And, it is very close to the trail. As such, I might use it as my home base for my next ride. On the downside, there's no bathroom or water, and cows moo randomly all night.
My alarm woke me up at 4:30, since I had to meet Lynn down in Farmersville at 6. Wayyy too early. I ate, drank some nasty instant coffee, struck camp, and headed down to Farmersville.
The trailhead in Farmersville was easy to find. There was a restroom and water fountain nearby. The mayor and a fan of the trail, Mark Vincent, were there to greet us and send us on our way. We took off and headed up the paved part of the trail. Jlynnbob is a bad, bad, man, and he rides realllllly fast. On the way out, we met the daily trail crew on their way back in. These guys are retired and they ride the trail every day. I guess during the summer they leave at 5 am? Anyway, there were about 4 of them out there bright and early.
The trail surface was decent. For a while it was paved, and then it turned to fairly hard packed gravel doubletrack. The bridges are a little spooky because you can see down through the ties, but jlynnbob didn't leave me any time for thought. Along the trail, the weeds/grasses were really tall, and lean in toward the trail tread. On a dewy morning we would have gotten thoroughly soaked, but it's been so dry that there was no dew that I noticed. We hammered along (well, I hammered, jlynnbob pedaled easy) and were making good time. We got chased by a couple of sets of dogs. One was pretty persistent. We went fast enough to keep them from getting close, but I would have preferred to hit them with bear spray if I had had some.
We met bergerandfries and bob murdoch in Celeste. The asphalt leading into Celeste really is as dangerous as everyone says, and serves as a good reminder to developers NOT to use asphalt. In Celeste, I realized I had lost the bag I had on my rear rack that had my food and water and spare batteries in it. Giant bummer. On the way back to look for it, a rock kicked up, hit my rear derailer and pushed it into the rear wheel spokes, and the spokes happily wound it up, snapped it off, and locked up my rear tire. Day-ending mechanical. I got a SAG from jtgryk (or whatever Michael's handle is) back to my car. He went out and found my stuff, which had fallen off my rack embarrassingly close to the start of the trip. I ended up with 22 miles ridden.
I loaded my bike into my car and then drove up to Roxton for the meeting. The meeting was really good. Lots of people from different cities along the trail were there. It was encouraging to see how many people were working on their own section of the trail. The lady from the Katy Trail spoke, and it was very cool to see photos and hear stories of their trail. After the meeting I drove home.
I am looking forward to trying again someday soon. Well, not too soon. I'd like for it to be cooler, and for the weeds to die back some.
My idea for my next ride is to head back up to the camp in Ladonia, and ride from there to Celeste and back on the first day so I can cover the section I haven't ridden yet. On the second day, I'd like to go from Ladonia all the way to Paris, and then head back to Ladonia either on the trail or on the back roads.
bergerandfries and jlynnbob were more successful than I was, but I will leave it to them to tell their stories if they choose to.
