From the western edge of London Rt 42 runs straight as an arrow to the next town, South Charleston. For my part of the bike trip it is a set of 4 hills, two of which are only noticeable on a bicycle where you provide all of the power. The first two are worthy of the name hill and they occupy the first two miles of the trip. The cemetary where my family is buried is at the top of the first hill. On a leisurely trip I stop and wander amoung the grave markers. There is a nice view of the town from there. The recent wind storm that caused extensive damage to the courthouse also downed 8 trees here. It is a lot more open now than before. I liked the trees better, but my cousin Jim Slagle tells me that his mother would violently disagree with that.
From the top of the second hill there is a long, gentle downhill stretch that crosses Walnut Run at the bottom. Walnut run is such a small stream where it joins Oak Run near our farm that it seems impossible that it rates a highway bridge here on 42 so far away. At the top of the third rise sits an abandoned house. There is nothing of the interior left and no paint on the exterior, with one strange exception. The small porch provides enough shelter that there is white paint still on the exterior walls there. It looks so strange in contrast to the rest of the decaying house. This is the start of real county. There are no strip houses that are cluttering up the countryside elsewhere. The farmland is open and it is wonderful, open, peacefull countryside.
The last hill to climb is part of a Palomino horse farm. There are 15 or 20 in a large field to the left as you cycle towards the southwest. They are beautiful horses. Just past this last hill, I take a right in Davis Road. This must be the least traveled and worst road surface in Madison County. Just over 3 miles long, there are only 5 houses here. It has never been 'improved'. The old time roads have pairs of right angle turns in them, generally where farms are located. Davis Road has two sets of these one near each end.
The first set are at a small farm that is not the most properous. They do have a corner on old Farmall tractors sitting in the side yard, along with a lot of other defunct vehicles. I like the fact that they have livestock, though. That is something that has been missing from our farm for many years. Cars have to slow down to 15 miles an hour to get through the sharp curves. That is probably the point. Farmers don't really mind as they generally don't travel at very high speeds. Generally speaking, the rural pace of life is much slower than it is in the city. However, as city people move on to such roads, the curves eventually get straightened. They are too busy and too important to put up with such an slow curves.
At this end of the road the road surface is stable, but very old and when the temperature rises above 90 degrees, little balls of asphalt form on the road surface. The bike tires break these little globs, making a strange popping sound. This first happened on a day when I was worried about the amount of air in the rear tire, making me even more uneasy.
From the first set of curves, the road climbs a small hill that gives a bird's eye view of the surrounding farmland. I am sorry to say that I am reduced to middle gears on the bike for this small hill. I imagine that a bike racer would hardly notice it and would not have to drop the gearing nearly as much as I do. On my last bike ride, I heard a train whistle from the direction of London. It is about a mile and a half to the railraod crossing on Davis road and I don't like to stop and wait for the train to pass (my city persona showing through). Mentally I calculated that I should have a chance at beating the train to the crossing. A mile and a half at 25 mph verses 6 miles at an average speed of 50 mph means I can get there first. So I put all my energy and effort into pedaling the bike. This part of the road is the worst. It is really composed of large chunks of broken asphalt and it is not a smooth road surface.
It passes by a large hog farm with large, half buried fibreglass cylinders forming hog houses. And there is the typical lack of any vegatation from the hogs rooting for whatever they can find in the soil. I am remined of the countless hog rings I have placed in their noses in an attempt to stop that behavior. That basic plan is to ame rooting in the soil too painful for the hog. Hard on the hog, but you do keep the vegatation that way. These are just pigs and they are too small for such treatment.
Back to the race, as I near the train crossing, there is no train whistle. Somehow the train must have been going eastbound and I just wasn't paying enough attention. I sould have heard the train as it passed within two mils of me as I has heading down Rt. 42. All that effort has sapped any strength I had and left me with nearly 7 mile to travel back home. This is the furthest point in my circuit from home. I resolve to not try this train racing business again as I gently finish the last of the Davis Road section through another set of slow double curves and cover the remaining distance to Old Springfield Road.
I am now very near the Clark County line. It is less than half a mile to the west near a beautiful country church. Old Springfield Road has a series of small hills on this section. The worst thing about this road is the fact that Betty Young's father drives this twice a day. While I joke that I travel faster that Capt. Deichel does in his rusty Datsun, it is not really true. He used to drive to Springfield in US Rt 40, but a state trouper gave him a ticket for driving too slowly last year. Since then he uses this road exclusively. It would be hard to justify such a ticket given the slow speed of the farm vehicles that regularly ply this path. I am sufficiently worried about an encounter with him that I move onto the gravel berm for each car that comes up behind me.
This section is full of strip houses. They just don't look like they belong in the country. In fact they don't really belong. There are a lot of problems in the city/country collision represented by these strip houses. These folks go to bed early as they work in Columbus or Springfirld or other places far away During planting or harvesting time, farmers work quite late, sometimes all night. The turbocharged farm machinery of today keeps these city-type people up all night too. Farms with livestock also come with oders not found in the city since the invention of the automobile. And this is the subject of a lot of controversy. Having grown up on a farm, I am unsypathetic to the city folk's complaints. Basically they seem to want to turn the countryside into a quiet surburb... something that it is not.
The good news is I have recovered from the race with the non-existant train and I am entering a long, straight, slightly downhill run back into town. This section goes through the state prison farm. I estimate my speed to be in excess of 30 mph here, as I'm going flat out in high (21st gear). There is one point in this section where the county courthouse blends with a large grain elevator to form the 'castle of London'. I have been trying to take a good picture of this for several years now, but I still don't have a satisfactory picture.
The ride back through town is through the northern part which is nicest and oldest section of town. North Main Street is filled with old Victorian homes, most have been restored to great condition. I generally turn onto Park Avenue which borders Cowling Park and a large field with Oak Run flowing through it. There is a horse as well and this is a really nice feature of an otherwise urban setting. From there a series of quiet streets lead back home. At this point I need a slow and quiet pace.