Recap: Shawnee Fall Color Ride (62 mile version)
Three of us were able to get a rare Tuesday off from work and decided to take advantage of the free day by traveling down to Shawnee State Forest to ride the DIY Fall Color Ride. We opted for the 62 mile route. I have so much good gravel that is within 30-75 minutes of me (Bladensburg, Mohican, Amish, Little Cities Region, Lake Hope) that I have never taken on the 2.5 hour drive time each way to visit Shawnee. It took a good friend to entice me into that much car time, but boy was it worth it.
The weather was perfect fall conditions. The temps hovered between 48 and 55 almost all day, making it easy to dress. There was no wind in amongst the hills. The sky was gray, but withheld any precipitation. The gravel was in good shape, but a little dry. The state forest service was in the process of grading the roads. We actually encountered the grader on one climb and had to jump off to the side to avoid getting scraped into oblivion. That made many of the roads unnecessarily soft, but it was still good riding conditions.
Many Ohio gravel roads feature climbs in the 15% - 18% or more range, making it a true grind uphill. I was joyous to find that most of the climbs in this area are in the 7% to 10% range. I think many of these forest service roads were built by the CCC in the 1930s and as such, were designed with that 7% grade in mind for the logging trucks. This reminds me very much of the state forest roads in my home region of PA, except at a smaller scale.
Speaking of scale, the climbs here are bigger than most Ohio climbs. We had two climbs that were over a mile in length, allowing me to get into a very nice rhythm spinning an easier gear up the hills. This was my fifth day in a row of hard workouts, so I kept the climbing mostly in zone 2 save for one climb where I let it loose allowing me to nab 11th place on the strava leaderboard while putting down 240 watts average for 11 minutes of steady effort.
We dropped down into Friendship, OH for a quick lunch at Weaver’s Market, just about a mile off route. Because of the cool temps, I was able to make do with one bottle of water for the day along with a quick softdrink at Weavers. We wanted to nab a visit of Ohio’s Largest Buckeye Tree in Friendship, but we somehow sailed by and decided not to backtrack for it. Paul went back after the ride to grab a couple of photos.
Another major highlight of the ride was visiting the Copperhead Fire Tower. We scampered up a neat rocky singletrack climb to the tower and then carefully ascended the 1,304,265 steps (that may be a slight exaggeration). The view was unworldly. I can very quickly see why this area is called the “Little Smokies”.
One of my favorite sections of the route was the gated bridle trail. We had been riding by gated “adventure roads” all day and the inner mountain biker in me was itching to go explore some of them. I finally got my wish and we traversed the rugged bridal two-track for about 7 miles. It definitely was slower and harder work, but it was also tons of fun.
We ended the day with 65 miles including the bonus climb up the lodge at the end. That gave us about 7000’ feet of climbing at an average 13mph pace. There is a lot of climbing here, and while it is not steep, you are going up or down most all day.
Special thanks to Paul Djupe and Judy Sunshine Stutes for the great company. Judy has been in the area many times and was a great source of information. Time for a cold IPA and about a half dozen Tuesday tacos!