9 1/2 Mile Bike Ride Aspen Park to West Papio Trail

Aspen Park? Where’s that? It’s at about South 52nd Street and Aspen Drive, just a tiny bit south of Harrison, just beyond the end of Omaha and Douglas County.

Keystone Trail and West Papio Trail Bridge

Let's Go To The Bellevue Loop

Ignoring the fact that we really had other things that needed doing yesterday, we loaded our bikes on the back of the car and headed for Aspen Park, a location we prefer for starting our rides on the Keystone trail.

Arriving at Aspen Park, I was pleased to see the porta-potty still sitting there. After all, bike rides for us may take several hours ( we don’t ride too far nor too fast, and we like to stop, take pictures, and look around), and it is comforting to know there’s a toilet at the end of the ride, if need be.

From Aspen Park to the Keystone Trail is a short (1/4 mile?) ride on an excellent trail, and arriving at the T intersection with the Keystone, I paused long enough to point in both directions, asking Vicky which way she wanted to go.

“Let’s go to the Bellevue Loop.” Vicky said, as she pointed south. I reminded her it was about six or seven miles to the start of the Bellevue Loop, and that’d be perhaps 14 miles round trip. We decided to head south anyways, although we pretty much knew we wouldn’t make it to the Bellevue Loop.

Someday we will have to begin our ride a couple miles further south, that way we could make the round trip ride and see the new (to us) portion of the Keystone Trail.

Riding our bikes south along the Keystone Trail was pleasant and uneventful on this early November bike ride, with sunny skies and the temperatures in the 72-77 degree range, and no wind to speak of.

West Papio Trail Bike Riders

Heading Up The West Papio Trail

There were just enough people out to share the trail with. Not so many that traffic would be annoying, but enough to know that if problems arose, somebody would probably come by in 5-10 minutes.

Arriving at the intersection of the Keystone Trail and the West Papio Trail, we stopped for a minute to discuss whether we would continue South on the Keystone, or west on the West Papio Trail. I didn’t think about it at the time, but now I remember this is the spot where we (on our last ride here) turned around because we thought we’d ridden enough. It’s nice to know that after quite a few weeks without a bike ride, we wished to continue further from this point.

A look at the map showed me that the West Papio Trail reached Halleck Park in 2-3 miles (my map didn’t show the distance for this section). We decided to head up the West Papio Trail at least a little ways to see what it was like.

West Papio Trail Turnaround

Time To Turn Around

A ways up this trail, a sign advised us of a scenic overlook. we figured this would be a good place to stop and catch our breath after ascending the hill we were on. Not sure, but this must be the scenic overlook where we took the above picture.

Looking at the map, then at the clock on my cyclometer, then at our tripmeter to estimate things, we decided against continuing on the West Papio Trail and this is the point at which we turned around.

As we pedalled back up the hill to the summit, a huge hawk flew over us. For once I was the one to see something interesting before Vicky did. Unfortunately, this fast flying hawk was soon out of sight. Yet, after crossing the bridge over the Papio, we were both able to watch the hawk for several minutes as it perched high in a tree near the trail.

Later, as we passed a dry and harvested corn field, Vicky noticed a cat entering the cornfield. She let me know of this, and we both stopped in hopes of watching the cat. I know, simple pleasures are sometimes the best.

As Vicky watched the cat, I looked in vain for for this healthy looking golden brown cat that Vicky described and repeatedly pointed out to me.

The cat soon disappeared even to Vicky’s eyes. and we headed north again, enjoying a bit of speed on this straight, smooth, fairly level trail. For most of the ride I think I annoyed Vicky by riding slow just so that I woould get more pleasure out of the miles.

This was our “fast” portion of the ride, and my maximum speed was 16.4 mph. Looking back at Vicky, I noticed she was also accelerating, and thinking that I really wasn’t comfortable with her going so fast, I slowed down to around 9-10 mph, forcing Vicky to slow down also.

Vicky’s cyclometer shows she had a top speed yesterday of 13.9 mph, which must have been in this section. That’s fast enough to make me worry about her on her three wheeler.

Banner Park Along The Keystone Trail

Banner Park

On our ride down the trail, I noticed this nearby park and had made plans to stop there on our return ride for our pop and snack break, if we hadn’t already stopped anywhere else for this.

Ready for something to eat and drink, we headed down the side trail to this park, which was named H W Banner Park.

Banner Park turned out to be a pretty nice spot for a break on this fall day. There were a couple picnic tables there, some playground equipment for kids, quite a few sports fields for soccer or football, or whatever, a track,and the all important toilet (porta potty style).

Although this was a nice spot for a break in the autumn weather, it’s lack of shade trees would make it a lot less comfortable on a hot summer day.

After an extended break time here, we climbed back on our bikes, and pedalled back to Aspen Park and our car, and I wondered if this would be our last ride of the year. After all, it is November now, and this is Omaha.

High points of this ride? The short ride we took on the West Papio Trail, and seeing places we had never been to before. The weather would definitely be a high point. It was perfect for an autumn bike ride. And I must add, the fact that we had no problems of any sort on this ride is quite nice, even though it is the norm, it is still nice when a ride goes well. This was a pleasant 9 1/2 mile ride.

Length of this bike ride: 9.5 Miles

Total miles biked together in 2008: 144.28 Miles

Date of this ride: November 1, 2008

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