Today Mike and I decided to try out the trails at Ritter park. We live about 4 miles from the park so we rode the streets up there, then found the trail, and dove right in. I'm not sure if we missed a big chunk of the available trails or not but we didn't see many there. The first one we found was behind the indoor tennis bubble. It was a fairly gradual climb to the top but then we basically just came right back down the same trail. There were a variety of small side trails that seemed to just run parallel to the one we were on so I'm not sure if that was all there was or if we were missing something.

After we got back down to the bubble we headed down the length of the park to a metal bridge than spanned the creek near west 2nd street. Once over the bridge we found a trail that ran along the bottom of the hill and that was quite muddy. We followed it a way, navigating through automobile tracks and dumped trash for a bit, until we came out near Safety Town on the far side of the west end.

The trail ended, specifically, on Harvey Road which, as we looked to the left, led you into Harveytown. Neither of us had ever heard of Harveytown so I suggested we ride in and see what it was. It turns out Harveytown is this oddly rural little section of Huntington. There wasn't a whole lot over there considering it was wedged between the huge hill in Ritter Park and the I-64 freeway. However, as we crested a small hill near a Radio Museum we found a great little park that was done in a barn yard theme. There was a nice new playground thing with 3 slides and plenty of poles and platforms to climb on. There we also normal swings, infant swings, and one huge swing that four people could sit on together. The final bit was a sand box that was designed like a pig pen. In fact, in the pen there were 4 or 5 sculpted pigs. There was also a nice pavilion with picnic tables. Overall it was a great little park.

After we checked out the park we kept on riding and then climbed a pretty step street over the big hill in Ritter Park and then enjoyed the coast back down into the city. The ride down the hill was great except that I was hit in my right eye by a chunk of mud that my front tire shed. Once we reached the city streets we navigated our way back to our homes and parted company. Total trip was about 15.7 miles.

We didn't do nearly as much hard riding as we normally due thanks to the streets but 15.7 was still my longest ride and, a bit later, while at the grocery store, my legs started to seize up a little bit. I took a few minutes to stretch them out and it helped a lot.

It's too bad we didn't see more trails at Ritter but at least we got out and rode; plus it was a nice change of pace from our typical rides in Barboursville.

#MountainBiking