Ridley Creek State Park

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This weeks effort to learn more about the roads in and around Philly led me to Ridley Creek State park. This 2600 acre park is about 16 miles south of the city and looked like a cool place to check out. The Philly bike club had a ride from center city to the park and back so I took the opportunity to tag along and learn some new roads.

I ended up doing a 45 mile ride and found some good roads. The nice thing about Philly is that it doesn't take too long to get out of the main city and on to quieter roads. The ride to the park was nice and a little hillier than I thought it would be but there was nothing real steep or long just a lot of ups and downs.

The park itself is nice and has a 5 mile paved trail with a pretty good hill at the start, a 200 foot climb in 3/4 of a mile. The park is mostly heavily forested land with a few open areas. The park also contains an old stone mansion, an arboretum and of course Ridley Creek. The pave trail is one big loop so the group I was riding with sort of split up and road at different paces until we all met up back again at the beginning of the trail.

The ride back to Philly a little more direct. A few people in the group were getting tired so we had to wait at the top of some of the climbs. Eventually as we go closer to the city a few people decided to go ahead on their own to get back a little quicker. Since I was in a little hurry myself to get home I decided to head back with them.

I am enjoying my exploration of Philly and learning new roads. Today's route was one of the better rides I did and one I would probably do again.

Center City

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The more time I spend riding in and around Philadelphia the more I understand it and enjoy it. Although I have ridden the roads and trails outside of center city I have never really spent much time riding around the city itself. So this past Saturday I headed to the city to do a few rides. I ended up doing three loops. The first loop started at the Art Museum and headed to Penn's Landing and back.

Riding in the heart of any city is hard with the crowded streets, traffic and the general impatiences of both drivers and pedestrians bad things can easily happen. I must say through that riding around the Philly really wasn't too bad. This city is made up of a lot of little neighborhoods and as long as you stay away from the main thoroughfares like Market and Broad Street you can ride along most streets. I ended up going down the Schuylkill river trail which got me down to Locust Street where I headed east towards Penn's Landing. I took a couple detours along the way to see some sites like Rittenhouse Square, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Independence Hall didn't look quite right and if you look at the picture you can see what I mean.

When I got to Penn's Landing I took a quick detour south to Old Swedes Church which is the oldest church in Pennsylvania to take a few pictures before exploring Penn's Landing. Penn's Landing was a little disappointing. As waterfronts goes there is not much going on here compared to Baltimore's inner harbor but I did get a few pictures of the scenery along the river. The trip back to the Art Museum was an easy trip down Spring Garden. The city has a lot of bike lanes which makes getting around by bike pretty easy. Of course like any city the bike lanes are some times blocked by double parked cars or other obstacles but as long as you have so good urban riding skills getting around the city is no problem just watch out for the occasional cobble stone road which are harsh even on a mountain bike.

For my second loop I headed to Forbidden Drive which is about 5 miles north from the Art Museum on the Schuylkill river trail. Forbidden drive is a wide gravel path along the Wissahickon river. This is an unbelievably beautiful river gorge and being so close to the city is a very popular place for bikers, runners and anybody looking to enjoy the outdoors. There are also a number of interesting bridges and features along the trail. I really enjoyed this ride. One of the best features was the Valley Green Inn which is an old hotel built in the late 1700's that is now a restaurant and snack bar. It was a good place to take a break and talk to a few other bikers.

There are also a number of mountain bike trails that go off of Forbidden Drive. I have heard from a few people that they are pretty fun. I didn't get a chance to explore them this time so but will try to get back here again to explore them.

My last loop was around Fairmount Park. Fairmount Park is the main park in Philly. Unlike Central Park in NY which is one large park, Fairmount Park is a sort of a series of smaller some what interconnected parks that have grown over time. The park has a series of athletic fields historic houses and museums that straddle both sides of the Schuylkill River. There are a lot of roads that criss cross the park and even on a nice Saturday the roads were pretty quiet. There were a lot of interesting builds and statues along the route I took. I also got some good views of the city from the top of a few hills. It was a little hazy so the pictures weren't perfectly clear but I now know the city skyline for a couple of different angles.

I spent about 40 miles touring the city and feel I'm starting to understand it from a biking point of view. I still have some more exploring to do but so far I am finding a lot to like about biking in Philly.

A Day at the Races

Although I don't follow bike racing that closely I have always wanted to see the Philly International Cycling Championship. I have seen pictures of the riders going up the Manayunk wall, Lemon Tree Hill and zipping along Kelly Drive and just wanted to see it in person.

This year I joined the Philly bike club to get to know the area in and around Philly so when I saw they had some rides on the race day I decided to make the trip in to see the race.

Since I didn't want to deal with the crowds and parking I took the Riverline from Bordentown to the Aquarium in Camden and then rode over the Ben Franklin to get to Philly. The ride over the Ben Franklin was actually easy and nice. The weather was a little cloudy so the pictures I took didn't come out to great but the view was still nice.

Philly has a lot of roads with bike lanes so it was no problem getting to the Art Museum near where the race started. I got there about a half hour before the race so I had a chance to ride the course a little and see some of the hubub going on. There were a lot of vendor selling and giving away stuff. There were a lot of people milling around but it wasn't real crowded.

They cleared the roads around 8:45 am and the race started at 9:00 am. The first 3 lap go around the Eakins Oval to Logan Square and back then they head out on the 14.4 mile course which takes them out to Manayunk and beyond.

After the first 3 laps were over I headed out with the club for a ride. We headed through Fairmount Park and stopped along to course the see the racers a few times before heading out for a ride around town. When ended up at Lemon Tree Hill where the club has an area set up to watch the race which included food and drinks. I hung around for a little while talking to some people from the club before heading back home. All in all it was a good day and something I may do again next year.