jbchybridrider 

Great shots mate. That looks like a nice place to explore, I'd be sticking my nose in that abandoned old building too.

camjr

Man, all these shots are making me realize how much I've grown to love my rides. I've been off the bike for several days as I finish getting my son off for his freshman year at college. It will probably be the middle of next week before I put the helmet back on...

jbchybridrider 

On the road again going places that I've never been...... Well almost. Rode up to Mt. Lofty again the back way from the city, then headed further into the hills toward Piccadilly then back towards the city. It was mostly cold and overcast with some light showers.

Apart from being dive bombed in the head twice by nesting Magpies it was a trouble free ride and saw the first sign that springs coming.




Back at Mt. Lofty, A part of the old light house.




I think the old Ford broke down, it looked abandoned.


The great thing about the Adelaide Hills is at the top of every climb or riding a ridge line is the great endless views.


Just before finishing the ride I noticed how much faster the O'barn buses are getting these days.

mrodgers

Yesterday (got home too late to do any processing of photos) I finally got to travel a little bit to the trail I've been wanting to hit all summer. It's about an hour 45 minute drive which I can only do when my wife is off work, which is hardly ever on the weekends. The Little Toby Creek Trail runs Ridgway, PA to Brockway, PA 36 mile round trip. I should have started in Brockway, but RidewithGPS told me there was a slight uphill heading south from Ridgway and I'd rather start the ride going up then come back going down. Thought it would be like the Sandy Creek trail I ride often which is a definite grade difference going up on the way out and down the way back where I have a 4-5 mph speed difference. Turned out this trail was dead flat as I felt no difference in grade.

As most of our rail trails here in western PA, this ran pretty deep into the woods. I saw people at the beginning and at the end near Brockway, but the middle I felt like I was the only person in the world, LOL. It was a really fun trail to ride, unpaved and more like a trail in most places than the open crushed limestone I'm use to close to work or the paved trail of the Allegheny River Trail by home.





Pretty deep into the woods here. I love the fern growth on the floor of Pennsylvania woods. No Bigfoot sightings on this trip.




Popped out for a bit of civilization crossing. Here's a little guy I shared the trail with for a few feet. The closest I've come to seeing a mountain lion on my rides.




The trail follows an active railroad for about 2-3 miles. I was really hoping to catch a train coming through







Little glance of Little Toby Creek from the trail.




This little guy was just hanging out on a rock at the entrance to the swinging bridge.




About 12 miles in I came to the swinging bridge. I wanted a shot from below but the side I could have gotten would have been straight into the sun.




About and hour 15 minutes, I thought this looked like a good place to stop and have a bite of the Pay Day candy bar I brought.




Another of the trail



Camera batteries died as I arrived at Brockway. No more photo shooting for the ride back.

Grey.

Excellent shots. I have a friend who lives in Bernville that i've been meaning to go and visit.

alexaschwanden

I took my hybrid bike to my parents house for storage.

ColonelSanders

Incredible photos.

Did you ride across that swinging bridge?

Grey.

I think i'd be too much of a wuss to ride over it with half the guard rail destroyed, i'd have to walk my bike across.

mrodgers

It's a swinging bridge. It moves and sways. I think it would be difficult to even walk the bike across. You're prett much holding onto the cable holding your balance. You definitely wouldn't be able to walk across.

Grey.

Yeah i'll pass. It dosen't look quite so intimidating from the photo, but now i'm reminded of that scene at the end of Temple of Doom.

jbchybridrider 

Wow that's a beautiful place, love how the sun light comes through the trees and under growth. This little fella is my favorite

mrodgers

Thanks, I really enjoyed riding this one. That mid day sun coming through and the tree shadows made it difficult to capture. I used a lot of fill light in Lightroom to show more that was shadowed. And it was really dark for that little guy. 1/75 shutter and a lot of bringing up in post processing. Like we talked earlier, my little Canon wouldn't have captured any of it with the vast contrast of bright afternoon sun coming through the tree shadows.

jbchybridrider 

I couldn't see that you lighten'd them and it looks real like being there so good job and quality.

evosteve286

Did a short little 38 miler.....had the day off.

mrodgers

BTW, that was my Fuji S5700. It's old now, 2007, but it's tough to find them with a viewfinder any more (electronic, but at least it's something to bring up to the eye.) So, not the Canon. The Canon would have been either black shadow or white in the sunlight.

jbchybridrider 

Took the camera with me again tonight. Did about 40km's and still very cold at night so very rugged up but really enjoy it.

I passed this abandoned homestead built early 1900's and heard some strange noises so passed on walking around it.


The Southern Cross is seen in the sky every night here being close to the south celestial pole.

Grey.

Who wouldn't want to spend the night there?

jbchybridrider 

It's been abandoned for decades with a number of other buildings. The roof cavity is full of pigeons and in warmer months inhabited by deadly Brown Snakes. I hate those things, need to scan the ground every where I walk.

jbchybridrider 

It could be 2 to 3 years since I've done this ride and I think I'll do it some more. Rode a rail trail from Riverton to Clare way out in the country. A 100km ride on the dot and noticed track maintenance is vastly improved with signage and new bridges over creeks.

Starting at the Riverton railway station. This is privately owned now, not sure how they use the station but the rail cars are motel accommodation.




This is the trail surface in very good condition these days. The only thing that changes is the surrounding country side.


Approx 30km into the ride is this old communication post no doubt morse code in old times.


Being part of the Barossa Valley it's prime vineyard country, you can even ride to the cellar door bicycles welcome. It must have been the apprentice who tried making bike from brush lol.




There many ruins to explore like this one. I believe it was built in 1870 by a monk so he could pray in solitude.


The historic Seven Hills cemetery was great to walk around. This person died in 1835 but going by the flowers not forgotten.


The native trees and plants are all flowering so Spring is not far away. I could clearly smell it too the whole ride.

giantcfr1

Ahhhh, our National Flower (a hayfever sufferer's nightmare lol)

jbchybridrider 

Actually!! There's many wattles. I don't know if one wattle is seen as the national flower (most likely the Golden Wattle) or if they just group all wattles together ? They all have similar looking flowers and totally different leaves, I need to get close to them to notice but the one I photographed is the Silver Wattle or the Cootamundra Wattle **********? I only googled briefly to find this out so before I type wattle any more I'm going to just wattle on out of here. Pretty aren't they

1Treky

Annie Ethel Bell died 21 days before I was born.

mrodgers

Just posted this in our monthly mileage thread in the Clyde forum, but may as well post it here too. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me, but I do have some earlier photos of the trail....

As I said last post, headed out on a ride with a couple of coworkers. Every time I ride down this trail near work for my hourish exercise, I look at the roads I'm crossing and think, as soon as I get time, I'm heading down one. That's exactly what we did.

And WOW! What a fantastic ride! As I've mentioned, around home it is nothing but non-stop up and down hills at 3 mph for 10 minutes to 30 mph for 10 seconds. It's great for the cardio exercise, sure, but not as nice for just going for a ride. We peeled off the trail onto the road after a few miles right into a hill, much longer than I'm use to at about 1.5 miles, but maybe only 3-4% grade. It was awesome! Spinning up it with ease at around 10-13 mph as opposed to grinding up the hills at home at 4 mph.

Rode about 5 miles out on the roads and now I know what rolling hills are. I never left my middle chain ring (could have went to large ring on the downhills and easily rolled past my to date top speed of 36 mph, but the one guy was on only his 4th ride since about 12 years. I've never been on a hill that I could zoom up just dropping a few cogs in the rear and sticking with the middle ring.

We rode down and caught the trail again to head back up. We're about 10 miles down the trail from the cars. Took another little side road that ran along side the trail for a short term a few miles up.

All in all, my favorite ride yet. It wasn't really the roads, they were a blast to be riding on, but the social aspect. I'm pretty much a solo rider and the only other times I've ridden with someone else was with Mr. Superman when I first started who just went all out and he was gone (on the same trail) and another where it took me and another coworker 2.5 hours to ride 3 miles and back because we got caught in an absolute downpour. We ended up taking shelter a couple of times that ride to ride (no pun intended) out the heaviest rain.

Here's some photos I've taken on earlier rides on the trail. No pictures from the road since I didn't have the camera with me this time.

The trail, only 5 minutes from work so I try to get on it to ride an hour a day.



Picture I took riding through waiting for time to allow me to deviate onto the roads. This isn't the road we took today though.



And the smelly turkey farm the trail rides through. Sprint zone here, LOL.

giantcfr1

Good ol' Annie

jbchybridrider 

Only a few km's down the road for my first try at layering images. Gotta start somewhere.