{"id":1602,"date":"2023-07-09T18:09:55","date_gmt":"2023-07-09T23:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2023-07-09T18:09:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T23:09:55","slug":"long-cane-scenic-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/long-cane-scenic-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Cane Scenic Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some who know me will know that I’ve been road biking for quite a while. Recently I came to possess a mountain bike, rather unexpectedly. I’ve always thought I’d enjoy mountain biking, because I like being in the woods, but with a dearth of trails nearby and having a lot of time constraints, I didn’t pursue it. A couple months ago I got an Email at work saying “hey, 25 years, congratulations, go to this web site and pick you out an award gift”. I started scrolling through endless lists of watches, small appliances, jewelry, coffee makers, and was about to decide not to bother with… OOO! I can get a mountain bike! And with fewer time contraints these days<\/a>, as Chang said, “when the time is right for something, nothing can prevent it”.<\/p>\n

So I got the bike (it’s not a high-end bike by any means, Walmart and Tractor Supply sell these), but for the price it’s a good learning tool. The Most Important thing I learned right off is that mountain biking and road biking are almost, but not quite completely<\/u><\/i> different. Two wheels, two pedals, gears, that’s about the overlap. Even the handle bars and shifters are different. In fact, in some ways, my extensive road biking experience is a hindrance, as riding trails is apt to set off all my road-biker-instinct alarm bells. Gravel??? Emergency stop! Mud! AKKkkk!<\/b> Plus there’s skill involved in this. I’ve often hiked trails used by mountain bikers and thought “Geez, they ride<\/i> this trail? Intense!”<\/p>\n

I don’t know that anything I’ve been doing so far counts as “intense” (to anyone except me), but I’ve been getting better at this. I spent this morning on the (so-called) Long Cane Horse Trail<\/a> (it’s actually multi-use), completing my most ambitious ride so far. I’d say I rode most of the trail, hopping off to walk just intermittently when it got more technical than I wanted to attempt or I couldn’t silence those road-biker alarm bells.<\/p>\n

I started at the Parsons Mountain Lake recreation area, joining the trail at point “I” if you’re looking at the map<\/a>. I decided to go clock-wise, as the last segment in that direction looked a bit tamer (I was right about that). The trail was pretty easy to follow, although a few places where it crossed a road could have used some additional marking. Looking at the map you’d think the trail just crossed the road, but in reality, there was an offset left or right.<\/p>\n

This was a nice leg along the McGill Branch:
\n<\/a>
\nAlong the way there were some historic sites. I’m not real sure what this one was:
\n<\/a>
\nbut this seems Important:
\n<\/a>
\nThere was some logging going on south of Curtail Road, this swath cut across the trail (one of those crossings that could use some additional marking):
\n<\/a>
\nPoint “B”, a bit over half-way for my planned route, was a good place to stop for some fuel transfer:
\n<\/a>
\nI’m still not too keen on some of these water crossings:
\n<\/a>
\nThere was another one on a narrow metal bridge that I ended up tip-toeing the bike across because I just wasn’t ready to charge down the hill, across that little narrow bridge (even though I know I can ride a straight line) and back up the other side.<\/p>\n

I’ll get there.
\nStrava link: https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/9419102990<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some who know me will know that I’ve been road biking for quite a while. Recently I came to possess a mountain bike, rather unexpectedly. I’ve always thought I’d enjoy mountain biking, because I like being in the woods, but with a dearth of trails nearby and having a lot of time constraints, I didn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildcorvid.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}