OMG! Now I have to get home again.

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So, having emerged unscathed from a 37-mile ride, I decided to try one a bit longer: 50 miles. Choosing the route was easy. I've been to the Art Museum a few times already, but I'd never been on the Pottstown-to-Reading "Thun" trail. The time was an easy choice, too. Saturday morning was looking to be cool and clear so, on the morn, I packed my camera into my shiny new trunk bag, I filled my water bottle, checked the tires, and drove to Pottstown.

The first thing you notice is that trail is nice but there's not much to look at. If you picture 19-miles of forest, interleaved with overgrown industrial sites and the occasional semi-rural neighborhood, you've got a handle on it. The bridges are all converted train bridges (here's a second example), but the trail itself has far too many twists, turns and hills to be a real "rail trail" - there are parts of it that run within a few feet of railroad tracks, but then it dives back into the woods. There are also a few stretches where the trail stops and you're on the road, but the roads are all secondaries without much traffic so that's not a problem. Finding the trail again - now that was a problem. One of the reasons I was able to turn a 19-mile long trail into a 50 mile ride was because I had to do a good bit of exploring here and there trying to figure out where the next bit of trail was.

On the upside, I encountered lots of other riders on the trail who were all more than happy to provide guidance and advice, and to ask me about the trails down my way. By lunch time there were any number of casual riders and kids on the trail as well, which made me smile - I always have to say hi to the kids.

So, let's see. What else? Trees, abandoned train tracks, piles of gravel, the odd piece of industrial machinery, oh, yeah, I remember: the trail crosses a river, creek or stream about every mile or so. For example, I believe that this is the Schuylkill River, which the trail actually crosses a few times, and I'm pretty sure that this is Hay Creek - although it might just be the Schuylkill again. I also kept my eye out for wild flowers, but it looks like the time for those is mostly past around here. I did find a few here and there, though.

Getting into to Reading, I found the world's shortest nuclear reactor and, a little later, I left the trail completely and headed north to the airport (Why they named the field something that rhymes with "splats" I don't know. Seems like a bad omen, to me!) So, I rode around the outside of the airport for a while, looking vainly for a good shot of an airplane landing or taking off, but the fences and barricades were everywhere, so I had to settle for defying the police and George Bush by taking pictures of the radar tower.

Coming back home was a little harder. Around the 40 mile mark, I failed to listen to Ambrosian, as I took off my helmet while riding, so I could change sweat bands. Sure enough, while I was trying to snap the helmet back on I hit a soft spot in the trail and biff, bang, ow! I was down. Not too much damage, just scrapes on my arm and knee, but enough that Ambrosian get's to feel smug about the whole thing. (And so does Mary, every time I ride no-hands around her she yells at me to stop showing off...) By the 45-mile mark I was feeling deeply exhausted, so I used a barn as an excuse to stop, rest and take a picture of a door - but I eventually made it back.

Today I'm not feeling too shabby. My one palm is scraped up from the fall, my muscles are all very tired, but the only real soreness is in the leg that cramped up after I got home - consensus is that I was stupid and should have taken gatorade or an energy drink with me instead of just water, so next time I'll know better!