Great Lakes - Road rides in Hilliard, OH

Hello all, I live in Upper Arlington near Columbus, OH and I frequently see riders heading out to or back from a ride which begins on Fishinger Road headed west towards Hilliard. I can't figure out where they are going to ride, and I'm hoping one of the readers here can tell me. It must be out around Davidson Road but that's only 3 miles or so and these guys wouldn't be interested in a 3 mile ride. Can anyone describe a route in that area?

Thanks,

I'm not part of that group, but I do all of my riding in that area. There are a bunch of routes out that way once you get west of Hilliard.

You can start on the MUP that starts in old Hilliard and head out to Hayden Run -> head west on Hayden Run and you can take that to the end and go north towards Plain City. You can jog around to Scioto Darby and keep heading west out to West Jefferson. Or, you can circle around and head east on Scioto Darby. From Scioto Darby you can head south on a couple of routes - Walker Rd. and Amity Rd. Amity and Scioto Darby are freshly paved with not a ton of traffic and quite nice to ride on.

There are also a number of people that park at Brown Elementary on the corner of Walker Road and Roberrts Road. From there you don't have to deal with the MUP and can use the same routes noted above.

On that side of town, you can just ride and get lost without dealing with much traffic. There are some roads that you will ride on once and never again due to the roughness, but the exploring is half the fun.

Thank you for the Hilliard - area route information, that's exactly what I was looking for.

Are there any areas other than those that you would recommend?

I honestly don't even know the names of half of the roads I ride on out that way. I never really plan my route and just ride as far as I feel that day.

If you are more of a planner, I would suggest using Route Slip, Google maps, etc... to get an idea of where the roads generally go and just get out there. Some of the roads may be 50 or 55 mph, but there isn't a whole lot of traffic and I've never had any major issues. As long as you get a bit out of town, anywhere on the NW side of Columbus is pretty open to ride.

The only "bad" thing about riding out there is that there is pretty much zero cover, so it gets a bit breezy. One of my first rides of the year took me out around West Jefferson. I was feeling great and just kept going. Then I turned around and faced the wind. Now I know what it feels like to limp home.

Join Columbus Outdoor Pursuits (http://www.outdoor-pursuits.org); it is the main bike club for central Ohio and besides weekly rides starting from various points around the city it also organizes lots of longer more interesting rides through out the year including the Grand Daddy of all mass bicycle rides, the Tour of the Scioto River Valley (TOSRV) and the week long Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure. The riders you have been seeing may be headed out to a restaurant in Plain City for breakfast followed by a ride of varying lengths. It is called the Northwest Ride.