October 4, 2024
Oct 4 - Rogue River and Roseburg Loop
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Today was a ride of two cities … so to say.
Our first ride was along the Rogue River and it was simply a joy to ride. As soon as we started the trail we were greeted with lots of kids and scattered adults. After passing the first group we asked and found out the local elementary school was on a bike trip with the entire 5th grade class. That brought back quite a few memories from my teaching career and the Mighty Bike Days.
Mighty Bike was an annual bike trip where I would take my class and cycle them to my house, a 20 mile journey. I was teaching a multi-age class so I had kindergarten through 3rd grade students. Once at my house a big picnic would ensue and the kids had a great last day experience. After a few years of that, I moved to open a new school and ended up taking the entire 600 student population on a similar experience, just not to my house. The school had invited the author of the “Hey mom, Can I Ride my Bike Across America?”, to do a presentation at the school and we celebrated by cycling. It still amazes me that we had no injuries, only 1 broken bike, and we shut down the housing area of the Air Force Base where the school was located.
We finally cleared the kids after 30 minutes and continued on this wonderful trail. The only issue was simply it wasn’t long enough.
Our second ride was a little bit further north on the Roseburg Park Loop. We knew it would be a short ride but wanted a few more miles on the day.
This loop was quite a bit different from our morning ride. A few sections were on a designated bike lane, one section took us through a 69 tent structure homeless camp, and the remainder took us through a VA Center. The bikeway was nice in a few spots but overall simply was not the best of rides.
I will say that we had no problems in the “homeless camp” portion but the riding just isn’t quite the same.
Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km)
Total: 8,357 miles (13,449 km)
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