6 Mile Bike Ride On Bellevue Loop Trail

Bellevue Loop Trail Ready To Ride

Let's Go For A Bike Ride

Last weekend was a case of "Let's go for a bike ride", selected a lake ride that sounded sort of scenic, and that 3 mile ride around Walnut Creek Lake had more hills than we expected.

Today (April 25, 2008) we decided to try to end up on a bike trail that was as nearly level as possible, not too curvy, and we decided that whether or not it was scenic was of no importance. The Bellevue Loop, about 15 miles from home was the location of today's ride.

Bellevue Loop Trail Straight And Simple

Down The Bellevue Loop Trail A Few Miles

If we were truly ambitious, we could have ridden the complete 8.9 mile bike trail, turned around, headed back, and ended up doing almost 18 miles. However, that was not our plan. Our goal was to at least equal the distance of last week's ride.

In other words, we wanted to bike at least 1 1/2 miles down the trail, turn around, and head back to the car, parked at the trail entrance near Haworth Park.

We did end up going 3 miles before turning around, giving us a total ride today of just a touch over 6 miles. It was tempting to keep going, but we knew the return trip would be slightly uphill, and we sort of had to guess at when we were halfways tired. You see, we didn't want to discover we just didn't have the stamina to make it back to our car.

I suppose today's ride was a bit longer than we should have attempted. Around the 4.2 mile spot the ride was beginning to become work instead of pleasure, and I found myself eying the odometer and sort of wishing the car was a lot closer

Bellevue Loop Trail Heading Back

How Are You Doing?

We took several breaks both on the way down and on the return trip. These breaks served multiple purposes. The first priority was to question each other with "How are you doing?". Of importance also was to get a few pictures taken at various locations along the trail. The above picture was at the Missouri River Road trail crossing, I believe.

Bellevue Loop Offutt AFB

Scenery Along The Trail

Much of the scenery was last year's corn fields, though some spots showed a bit of spring farming chores in progress. Along the trail we were able to view Offutt Air Force Base, and near our turn around point we were able to see a wastewater treatment plant in the distance.

Bellevue Loop Trail Head

Bellevue Loop Trail Head

More than a little bit proud of ourselves and a 6 mile ride, we arrived at the bike sculpture at the trail head parking.

Overall it was a very good ride today. Yes, we plan on riding this trail again. I discovered on a map there is a parking spot in about the mid point of the Bellevue Loop. This may be a good future beginning point where we could head up the trail to Haworth Park, take a break, and head back.

Vicky did quite well on her single speed Worksman three wheeler. Her endurance was about the same as mine, and I was on a 7 speed. If I really wanted to, I could go to 5th, 6th, or 7th gear and easily pull a ways ahead of her. However, it isn't short bursts of "speed" that count, its the endurance that matters.

Before today's ride I tightened down the sensor on my speedometer, and it worked the whole time on our ride. I am more than a little skeptical of the speed accuracy of it, though. My maximum speed was 12.9 mph? Yet the distance of shown for today's ride on my speedometer is very close to what Vicky shows on her Cateye speedometer.

Vicky's maximum speed recorded today on her CatEye was 9.7 mph. That sounds about right, and is faster than I really wanted her to go till she gets a bit more riding experience.

All weather forecasts we saw called for afternoon rain today. It was sunny when we left the house, but by the time we arrived at the trail it had begun to cloud up. Temperature was 67 degrees when we began our ride, but had dropped to 59 degrees by the end of the ride. The wind was sort of cold feeling today.

On our drive home it did begin to sprinkle, but not too much. We timed our ride just right, and were able to avoid too much of the colder temps and the sprinkles.

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