Dan Burkhart 

I can't seem to upload pictures from the connection I have, so they will have to wait.
I found myself with a couple of days off in Council Bluffs Iowa early this week, so a ride was definitely in order. The weather was fully co-operative, except for blustery winds on Monday, but Tuesday was as perfect as it gets.
I contacted Billydonn to see if he was up for a ride, and it took no arm twisting to get him to go. On Monday afternoon, I rode across the river to Omaha and met up with him for dinner and to make our plans for a ride on Tuesday.
After he got off work, he came to the truck stop and picked me and my bike up, and off we went to the trail head.
The plan was to ride the 15 miles to Silver City, have dinner there, and ride back in the dark.
the trail is great. Smooth and fairly wide, hard packed crushed stone. Just enough grades to make it a good workout.
Billydonn is a fairly strong rider, so it kept me stroking to keep up with him on my heavy steel 3 speed.
We had a great dinner in Silver city, washed down with a couple of Fat Tire brews
The lights had to be turned on for most of the way back which made it a fun ride. Billydonn was up front, partly because he has the stronger headlight, but mostly because, well, he's faster.
At one point, three deer ran across the trail right in front of him. I was too far back to make out just how close he was to them, and I only caught a glimpse of them in his headlight beam, but they looked pretty close.
By the time we reached the trailhead, he was far enough in front that I lost sight of his lights, and I overshot the parking area. Things started to look unfamiliar but I kept going. Then I thought, I don't remember passing a stadium, and then, yeah, I'm pretty sure we didn't start out on pavement either. That's when I decided I better turn around, cause I was pretty sure by that point I'd missed it.
Sure enough, a couple of km back, there was the parking area, and my host waiting for me patiently.
There's more to tell, like the story of a squirrel encounter that I should have had my camera running for, but I'll leave some of the story for Billydonn to tell.
Many thanks to Billydonn for showing me around. It was a great ride.
Pictures to follow.

Retro Grouch 

I guess it's been over a year now but Billydonn drove all the way to Des Moines to ride the High Bridge Trail with me. It was a wonderful time in fact, my avitar photo is one that he took during that ride and added the barely readable legend. Thanks for the reminder.

qcpmsame 

Congratulations Dan, you have now ridden with "The Man, The Myth, The Legend, BILLYDONN" not at all surprised he is strong and fast, he has a really disciplined winter indoors program, rides hills a good bit and is from Mobile, AL, another LA homie of mine. Great report, look forward to hearing from BD and then pictures.

Bill

Dan Burkhart 

Well, I'm back at the same location I posted from this morning, so we'll see if I can upload the photos this time.
One thing occurred to me after I posted it, we actually did not have our dinner in silver City. The restaurant we were going to go to was closed up and a real estate sign was hanging on it. We rode the 4 1/2 miles back to Mineola and ate there. It was early when I posted this morning and the coffee had not yet done it's work. I knew you'd understand.
The trail map and distance chart. https://www.wabashtrace.org/index.php/trail-map
Anyway, lets try some pictures.



Streetscape in Silver City.



Billydonn doing his looking away pose. In the background, the restaurant where we had dinner in Mineola.



There are more pictures from Mineola, I'll put them up later.
Meantime, when we got back to the truck stop in Council Bluffs, we had to make it an official pie ride.



I can recommend the pies and pastries at Sapp Bros. I had peach.

Dan Burkhart 

I remembered reading about that, and he mentioned it. I was in Des Moines a while back and did a bit of trail riding, but the High tressle was too far away to ride to, so I rode some of the trails in town.

Dan Burkhart 

Yes indeed. He was telling me about his winter program. Sounds pretty intense.

billydonn

What a nice surprise it was to hear that Dan B was in my area with time on his hands! And it was truly an absolutely great day/night for a ride on the Wabash Trace.... just perfect really. Better yet, the company and conversation turned out to be just as good. I really enjoyed spending a few hours with Dan the trucking man. (He has driven the "iceroad" as seen on TV in case you didn't know.)

As Dan said, I picked him up at the truckstop about 3:15 pm and we were at the trailhead in about ten minutes and were riding by 4:00. It's about 6 miles gently uphill to "Margaritaville", a spot of the trail where a good deal of partying takes place on Thursday evenings for the famous weekly Taco Ride. From there, it's 4 miles slightly downhill to Mineola, where the steakhouse is located. After checking Mineola out, we headed on another 5 miles to Silver City, where we planned to dine. Finding the restaurant there shut down (bummer) we took a break and soon headed back to Mineola and the steakhouse. With 20 miles ridden and it being nearly 6:00, we were both hungry and thirsty when we got back to Mineola.

(Sidestory: About 3 or 4 miles into the ride, with us riding side by side, a squirrel darted out and, undecided on which way to escape, got caught between the two bikes. For a few seconds there we were actually herding this panicked critter up the trail between us, hoping against hope that he would not make a bad decision! We slowed down for him of course, but it was kind of exciting and we both laughed when little Rocky finally decided to sprint ahead and get off the trail. I sure do wish we had video of that.)

Here are some pics of the early part of the day, taken at the truckstop and at Margaritaville. I'll upload my pics to Photobucket so that I can include larger photos for part two of my report.... at which time I will defend myself against these slanderous accusations of dropping Dan on the ride back! There were extenuating circumstances.

GeorgeBMac

That sounds like a nice ride...

I just did my first night ride this week.
... Sweet! Just me and the soft sound of the crickets chirping ... Quite different from all the busy-ness of daytime riding.

Dan Burkhart 

Oh, you didn't drop me, I just went into cool down mode for the last couple of miles.
Many thanks for everything. It was a great ride.

Dan Burkhart 

I should point out that the picture of the bike on the back of the cab does not show how I normally carry it. It rides in the cab on the top bunk out of the elements and out of view.

billydonn

Here's a short video about the Wabash Trace Trail, with some coverage of the Thursday night Taco Ride.

Click Here for Video

And these photos were taken where we turned around in Silver City.



The trail is concrete for a few miles around Silver City and the rest is crushed limestone which is packed pretty hard.

jdon

Knowing your passion for that bike, no one would ever suspect you would abuse it like that.

Sounds like a nice meet up boys. Those were BIG slices of pie!

Barrettscv 

I had the pleasure of riding with Dan in Illinois a few years ago. That was a night ride on the Forest Preserve MUP near Schaumburg, if I recall correctly.

I might also be cycling with Don this month, if the weather cooperates :-)

Dan Burkhart 

I pamper all my bikes when I can.
When we left the steakhouse at Mineola, I really didn't think there would be room for pie, but the 10 mile ride back made some space.

Dan Burkhart 

Yup, that was a great ride too Michael. I really enjoyed meeting up with you. I think we had a deer encounter on that ride too, didn't we?

Dan Burkhart 

Jeez, it looks like I'm packed for an overnight trip.

CrankyFranky

It's really great that BF'ers can meet up like this. Sounds like a good time!

Dan Burkhart 

Some pictures from Mineola.
They'll put you up here for the night if you get out of hand.



How clean you want to get depends on how much money you got.



Take yer hoss yonder t' th' livry stable, n gwan over n' git some eats.

Dan Burkhart 

I was just looking back through my pms to see when that was. It was the end of Oct 09, so almost three years. Sure doesn't seem that long.
Hope the weather co-operates so you guys can do your ride.

billydonn

Okay then,
Here's a few more photos of our ride:

This is Dan outside the Mineola steakhouse as we head for home.


Looking west into the setting sun in Mineola


I think this hotel is closed for remodeling


The Wabash Trace Trail is down at the end of the street



This hill doesn't look too appealing with a gut full of chicken livers and beer


Dan, I really wish we had more pictures... maybe you've got some video?

Dan Burkhart 

Yup. Just got finished editing a video down to a manageable size. Uploading to Youtube now. after I get some annotations on it, I'll post it.
I really wish I'd have had the camera running for that squirrel encounter. that would have been priceless.

Dan Burkhart 

Video is live now.

billydonn

Very nice Dan! However there was no video of you dropping me on the uphill out of Mineola after dinner. Tonight was date night for my spouse and I and we drove up to Mineola for dinner. It was great fun and affordable, as you know. I forgot to mention in my report that we ran in to my friends Dusty and Megan in Mineola. They do triathlons and had driven up there to go for a run on the Trail.

Dan Burkhart 

Oh yes, and mustn't forget their dog, Mavic. Glad you had a nice date. It is a great spot.
Did I drop you on a hill? you must have let me do that.