The weather is getting warmer and it's time to drag the bikes out of the garage and blow up the tires. I've already been out a couple of times this year on those days when the thermometer nudged 70, and it got me thinking about the view of the backside of Xenia Township that you get from the Bike Trails. Now I don't mean "backside" in a derogatory way, just that the view of our countryside that you get from the Trail is in many ways opposite from the view that you get while speeding down the road in your car.
I used to go canoeing on the Little Miami River on days like these. You could almost feel what it must have been like in the pioneer days. No sounds but the birds and the water. Knowing that the nearest person could be miles away. I get a lot of that same feeling on the bike trail now, but without having to haul a canoe all over the place. In the early spring as you ride through the Township, the fields are covered in stalks and stems left over from last fall's harvest. The creeks and hillsides are there to be seen through the bare branches of the trees. Houses that you didn't know were there in the summer just seem to pop up. Groundhogs and deer out for a spring meal don't have any cover, so you can see them easily as you ride up to them. Soon the wildflowers will begin to show splashes of color on either side of the trail.
The view isn't as lush as it is in the summer, but it is just as interesting. Occasionally a farmer or homeowner does show his "backside" to people on the trail. What used to be the back field down by the tracks is now the close-up view from the trail. There are several places where old farm dumps and rusting, abandoned farm equipment remind us of the time before landfills and recycling. There are also hand dug mill races and railroad spurs, road cuts and enormous areas of railroad fill to remind us of all of the hard manual labor expended to build the transportation and industry which made the area prosper in the early days.
The view from a bike seat is different in other ways too. You notice when the land begins to rise and if the wind is behind you or in your face. The Trail ride from behind the Xenia Township offices in Oldtown to Yellow Springs is a good example. You start on nearly level ground as you head north. The land doesn't begin to rise until after you have crossed the old railroad trestle bridge over the Little Miami River. You quickly pass by the old gunpowder factory in Goes Station and pretty soon you really begin to notice your speed falling off and your legs protesting from the extra effort.
By the time you make it to Yellow Springs you are ready for a little rest break at the Trail Tavern, some ice cream from the Yellow Springs Hemp Company, or a fresh loaf of French bread from the Emporium or Current Cuisine. Maybe a little window shopping or lunch at one of the many local eateries in the Village. The ride home is the fun part; it's nearly all downhill. With little effort you can breeze back to Xenia in slightly more than half the time it took to get there. The trail is flanked by trees for most of the way, and where there aren't trees, there are fields of corn or soybeans. The people you pass along the way almost always have a word of greeting, and they vary from mothers pushing baby strollers to roller blading college students to senior citizens taking a leisurely stroll.
The big stars of the show though are Mother Nature and the Trail itself. When the sky is blue and the breeze is warm, you can almost forget about the months of brown and gray that makes up the bulk of the Ohio winter. The trail sings under your bike tires, the crisp, clean air fills your lungs, the springtime sun warms your face, and life is good.
We are so very fortunate in the Xenia area to have the combination of abandoned tracks, resourceful and persistent people who saw what they could become, and the public funding which give us this unique resource. I hope all of you (a few at a time) manage to use our trail system in some way this year. I'm sure that if you do so, you will find yourself repeating the experience again and again. © 2000 Alan D. King