Downtown New Albany / Looking at it from the East (JFraim)

Fly With The Wind / McCoy Tyner

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Growing up in LA, I’ve loved riding a bike all my life. Since getting my first Schwinn when I was five up to the Trek Verve 2 I’m riding now. From the start, the bike has always represented freedom to me. It allowed me to travel farther away from home than my two feet could carry me. In effect, such a valuable tool in effect as allowing me to see so much more about life in my early years than I could have ever seen on foot, without a bike. Those who are members of my baby boomer generation know this as a cultural fact. Almost everyone had a bike in those years and some traveled far away from home on those bikes in those years. Maybe many did.

In those years growing up on a street in LA with tall palm trees and sidewalks and high curbs. It took a few trips around the neighborhood for me to develop I bike route for me and others. If there were ever others. My brother and sister were always my first targets. After a while, it didn’t matter anymore as I continued to explore farther away from home on my bike. I think I still had my Schwinn bike. See so much more of life. Much more than I ever could have seen by walking around the neighborhood.

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The Ohio Countryside / East of New Albany

I left bike riding for many years but re-discovered it while living in Sonoma County in the early part of this century. When I moved to Columbus in 2002, I made long city routes from my home in Grandview north through Upper Arlington, and over the bridge that ran across 315 and then down the bike trail and through a part of the OSU campus and then back to 5th Street and a little west to my home.

Rode much of Ohio in these years through learning about the Rails to Trails program. It involves former beds for past railroads converted into bikeways. The landscaping is all in place and the trails are usually ten feet wide. Enough for one to get a great workout on. Like the Rails to Trail Heritage Trail in western part of Columbus, Hilliard. I rode it much. Or, the Evans Rail to Trail bike trail in Johnstown, Ohio. The closest Rails to Trails bikeways in Columbus.

Apart from Rails to Trails, I’ve always ridden a bike by myself. Except for the times my friend Rich and I ride together. But I am not one to enjoy riding with a group – peloton – of other riders riding as a group. I saw this also saying that the yearly Tour de France is something I never miss and consider a contest of the greatest athletes in the world.

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The race is such an incredible battle and always inspires my desires to get more into bike riding. The riders in the Tour de France are the greatest athletes in the world if measured in terms of oxygen levels of intake and outage percentages. I think something like the VO2 max is typically measured in milliliters of oxygen consumed in a minute per kilogram of body weight (mL/kg/min). Having a higher VO2 max number typically means you’re in good cardiovascular shape, but you could also increase your VO2 max by losing body fat.

Along New Albany’s Southern Bike Loop

I’m now living in New Albany, Ohio after moving here from California in 2015. Last summer, I bought a Trek Verve 2 with an odometer that measured distance, time and calories amount other things. I also got a Polar Ignite watch that tracks heart rate maximums, minimums and averages during workout. I wore the watch and the device on the bike was automatic.

After a summer of riding my bike all over New Albany, both below and above the divider between North and South New Albany: Highway 161 from west to east. Now being expanded with Intel moving into the area.

I came to know the city I’ve lived in for eight years. Better than I ever thought possible.

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Only those others who have really rode bikes all around New Albany like I have are the only ones who can really comment on this it seems to me. Not that I know this town better than others. Just know it in a different way. Through her streets and bike paths I’ve transversed over the past few years.

From all of this, it makes sense that a group centered on urban bike routes should be developed in New Albany. There is little doubt that we have a superb group of bike people on a high level with the New Albany Bike Club. The bike routes listed utilize the maximum amount of city bike paths.

It’s important to distinguish a difference from my sense of riding a bike and the rules for the New Albany Bike Club. My ideas for riding a bike is to 1) ride alone or in a small group of person friends 2) ride on quiet city streets with little through traffic on them 3) see and sense one’s own urban community.

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Part of a Major New Albany Bike Route

My goal was to see if one could get a safe, pleasant and good workout in by staying in the current bike routes within the central city limits of New Albany. This is one of the distinguishing factors between any group I might start and that of any club I would ever consider starting. All of this while I was a member of New Albany’s Heit Center and went in for workouts. Less so now, with all the bike riding.

The NABC heads east out of New Albany on a two lane country road a few nights a week. In a group. The distances averaged are between 30 to 40 miles per ride. Average speed over 15 mph all the way out to Alexandria, Ohio and back. This was definitely not for me. Not that I didn’t respect club members.

Not that the NABC is not doing one heck of a job as a fitness machine for a number of people in New Albany. Club members of the New Albany Bike Club. The fact that New Albany has this bike group might make others in urban groups like bike clubs attempt to copy methods developed here.

Who the F*** cares though?

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A group might move ahead to show routes in local settings based on an excellent GPS app for my iPhone 15.

as target of attacks from all over the place. Like the attack on Luke’s craft in Star Wars. There are many others that would like to ride their bikes a greater distance in the city of New Albany.

But there are many others who love riding a bike and would like to find bike routes of various distances near them in New Albany they could simply get on and ride. Using new voice technology through the Ride with GPS app, any bike rider is told where to turn in advance with the same voice in one’s car. The tie into GPS with the app is amazing and allows many new things for a local bike club. Individual bike rides can be recorded and their mapping viewed and commented and voted on. So many new ways for social interaction. Not by fingers on a computer but by the riding numbers of a local bike club. Those for whom a bike has always been that source of a freedom in life.

The amazing thing to always be aware is that one is seeing about four to six times as much of the world as someone just walking around.

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There are some fantastic bike routes in New Albany – both south and north of 161. But not many – right now – east of New Albany, towards the great business parks of the city and the incoming Intel. The north and south bike routes in New Albany can be ridden at an average speed of around 10-15 mph. Of course a number of current bike riders in New Albany have their own routes in mind. Perhaps there is an overlap in what we’ve discovered?

New bike routes can be documented and a social community developed around the incredible app Ride with GPS. A GPS tracker of bike riding activity. And so much more. You have to divide the major bike sections of New Albany into south and north of Highway 161. The town is divided with an even horizontal line by 161. Those south of 161 are the first I explored since I live in this area. But I learned there was much to explore in the north section of New Albany.

I didn’t learn about bike routes in New Albany as there was nothing to really learn. At least I couldn’t find any information on bike routes. So, last summer, I started mapping the north and south territories of New Albany and bike routes I created. All created by me as I had no maps. My friend Rich went with me and was of great assistance. We seemed like great explorers of a neighborhood, like great Portugese explorers in their greatest years.

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The fact is that I mapped routes in New Albany from a few miles to 15 miles. There might be more later. I’ve ridden all of the routes I recommend as safe and in and continue to update any comments (from myself or you) on them.

Soon, The Bike Routes of New Albany will be published. For this great town to use and improve upon. Many already have their own bike routes within New Albany. Routes all over. The bikes from elementary and high school kids.

But for the older adults in New Albany, I’ve highlighted some of the best bike routes in New Albany, both south and north of 161, the dividing line between North and South New Albany. In reflecting on whether a New Albany bike riders group would make sense.

As a social group? A fitness group? A group that wants to recapture that original feeling of freedom on a bike? That first bike.

No matter what nationality. It’s the same experience for all. The experience of getting one’s first bike. The first tool of freedom.

The bike plays a prominent part in early life. Does it operate as a symbol? Might it all play an important part in mid-life to later-life?