Originally Posted by
livedarklions
I'm mostly on roads, so it keeps my routing options quite open. I have both North/South and East/West round trips of various lengths I can do. Every once in a while, I'll totally screw it up due to a bad forecast, and then I really pay for the turn around halfway approach to routing. Second half of a 100 plus mile ride into the wind really is awful.
Rail trail through woods is a really good wind-dampening strategy, and if I'm reading you right, the path is 15 miles long. Two round trips is about a metric century, but I bet you knew that already!
The path is most likely about 30 miles end to end. They keep making it longer !! If I take it to the end I should get past 62 miles. The route I have takes me from my job to a crushed limestone tow path that parallels an old canal. About 4 miles or so to get there. It links up with the Monon trail in a super trendy part of the city at about the 9 mile mark of my ride. Then I head north for a super long time , turn around and head straight south to downtown Indianapolis. Downtown is where I pick up the cultural trail that ends in a bike lane for the last 1 or 2 miles. I really love this route. Lots of road crossings but they are well marked and I am very cautious. People are very good about slowing and stopping as the trail is popular and well known. I know my landmarks for 20, 25 and 30 mile rides without even looking at my odometer.
10 or so years ago I carried a pistol as the last 5 miles of the south part of the trail was super sketchy. Now it is home to super expensive apartments and remodeled old homes. I probably couldn't afford to live in what used to be the heart of crack-ville.