42 mile Ride

 

Start at Clear Creek Park Amphitheater

Miles            Total

Miles

Right onto Burks Branch Rd. 0.2 0.2
Right onto Freedom Way 1.1 1.3
Left at light onto 55 1.5 2.8
Right onto Bellview 0.1 2.9
Watch for gravel bottom of hill    
Straight onto Mulberry/Cropper Rd 3.7 6.6
Left onto Mulberry 1.6 8.2
Right into Mulberry Orchard Rest Stop 1.2 9.4
Exit right from Mulberry Orchard onto Mulberry Pike. Stay on 1899
Right on Banta 2.2 11.9
Left on Pleasureville Road (241) 0.8 12.4
Optional Stop in Pleasureville at Amish Bakery 1.4 13.8
Right at Fairview St (Cemetery) 0.2 14.0
Left turn to Ditto Cemetery Rd 0.3 14.3
Right on Magruder 1.5 15.8
Right on Cropper Rd (43) 2.1 17.9
Left on Flood Rd 0.5 18.4
Left onto Christianburg-Cropper Rd 2.0 20.4
Right on Elmsburg Rd (395) 3.5 23.9
Right on 12 to stop at B&N Market in Bagdad 0.5 24.4
Exit right from B&N
Right onto Bagdad Rd  (12) 2.6 27.0
Right on Heinsville Rd 1.2 28.2
Left on Christianburg-Cropper Rd 1.6
29.8
Right on Cropper Rd (43) 0.9 30.7
Left on Washburn Rd 3.9 34.6
Right on Bellview Rd 1.1 35.7
Right on Clear Creek Rd (watch for gravel) 1.5 37.2
Right on 55 0.5 37.7
Left on Fox Run Rd 1.0 38.7
Left on Burks Branch Rd 2.4 41.1
Cross Freedom Way (by-pass). Stay straight on Burks Branch Rd 1.1 42.2
Left into finish. 0.2 42.4

 

 

 

20 mile Ride

 

 

Start at Clear Creek Park Amphitheater

Miles    Total

Miles

Right onto Burks Branch Rd. 0.2 0.2
Right onto Freedom Way 1.1 1.3
Left at light onto 55 1.5 2.8
Right onto Bellview 0.1 2.9
Watch for gravel bottom of hill    
Straight at intersection with Washburn 3.7 6.6
Left onto Mulberry 1.6 8.2
Right into Mulberry Orchard Rest Stop 1.2 9.4
Exit right from Mulberry Orchard onto Mulberry Pike. Stay on 1899 .6 10.0
Left on Washburn 2.5 12.5
Right on Bellview Rd at the Tee 1.1 13.6
Right onto Clear Creek –Watch for gravel 1.5 5.1
Right at KY 55 .5 15.6
Left onto Fox Run 1.0 16.6
Left onto Burks Branch Rd 2.4 19.0
Cross Freedom Way (By-pass) stay straight on Burks Branch Rd 1.1 20.1
Left into Finish 0.2 20.3

 

Summary:     These rides start in the parking lot at the Ampitheater in Clear Creek Park which you access from Park Service Road #3 off Burks Branch Rd. These are great group rides primarily on country roads with small to moderate hills.  The 21 miler is easy enough for our friend to ride on their 1978 steel framed, upright, 10 speed.   The 42 miler can challenge anyone who wants to hammer.

The Parks Pedal Party

 

The Parks Pedal Party is a supported ride held each spring and kicks off the riding season in Shelby County.    It is accompanied by family/children routes within Clear Creek Park and adjoining neighborhoods.”   There is no fee for the rides but donations are accepted.

Proceeds from the events benefit the Greenway Trail which is a 5.4 mile paved trail which starts at the Park and follows Clear Creek as it winds through Shelbyville to Red Orchard Park south of town.  One mile of the trail which runs downtown behind City Hall and Wakefield Scearce Galleries was completed two years ago.  The second one mile phase on the west side of Seventh Street adjacent to Calvary Cemetery will be paved in June.  Grant applications have been submitted for the third phase which will bring the trail out to Clear Creek Park.    This will permit the residents for the neighborhoods surrounding the park to walk, jog, or bike to downtown without going out on a street.

The Rest Stop Rides

If these rides were not titled the Parks Pedal Party rides they would be called the Rest Stop Rides.    We are going to borrow heavily from their websites and the local newspapers to let you know about them.

Mulberry Orchard

Amanda and Matt Gajdzik planted over 3,000 apple and peach trees in early 2010 with the desire to sell quality, local produce. The orchard currently has 17 varieties of peaches and 16 of apples so everyone can find their favorites.

 

Each fruit season brings different pleasures. Apples are harvested late June until October, and Amanda and Matt make the best apply cider on the plant.  Peaches are available July until August.  There are also a variety of berries and fresh vegetables available throughout the season.

 

Stop by on your ride and them come back with the family and take a hayride through the orchard, visit with the animals, play in the kids’ area, shop in the market, or just enjoy the beautiful scenery from a rocking chair.  In the fall too you can pick pumpkins and have an adventure in the corn maze.

Main Street Bakery and Café in Pleasureville

The Bakery recently changed hands, but here is a quote from the web reviews:

“Loved it!” Owners are friendly. Food is all homemade. No artificial additives. Great tasting.”

Hours are 6:00am to 2;00pm, Tuesday through Friday, 6:00am to 11:am Saturday, Closed Sunday and Monday.   They have standard breakfast and lunch fare with a special nod to the homemade soups.  The bakery offers donuts, pastries and breads all of which are made from scratch.

B&N Market in Bagdad

This story by Steve Doyle in the local Sentinel News says it all:

When you have a special celebration, don’t you like to do something unique and make some personal history? There’s nothing like putting a red-lettered date in neon and setting a bar that you may not reach again, is there?

At least that’s what I take from last week, when my wife and I celebrated a wedding anniversary by having a day that I firmly believe not only created personal memories but also perhaps history for Shelby County as well.   ………

My wife: “Will you go on this adventure with me?”  Me (thinking, you know, New York City or the Bahamas, as she has sprung in the past): “Sure, what time should I be ready? What should I pack?” OK, other than “sure,” I never said that. But I was a willing accomplice on a drive, knowing that she had some errands to run and that the real gift was for us to spend a weekend day in the same zip code.

On Saturday, my wife invited me for lunch at the B&N Food Market in Bagdad. I know, B&N has been around since the days when those letters were invented. It’s a place where you are likely to meet a friend or even a relative. But it’s also a place where I never had dined, only stopped their for snacks when passing through on one of my infrequent trips to the northern reaches of Shelby County.

She started to explain to me about the B&N’s bill of fare. We are not meat eaters, and she didn’t mention anything about salad or pasta. She was recommending the fish sandwich.  Now, a fish sandwich to me is a piece of grilled tuna, salmon or maybe grouper hanging among vegetables on a multigrain bun. She cautioned me that that was not B&N’s recipe. She said think more closely to the fish you had on Fridays at the school cafeteria.  I wasn’t worried. I knew the fish would be fried and probably tartar-sauced and, well, quite harmless. So off we went.

At B&N, she was greeted like a conquering hero because of being on friendly terms the owners. Me, I just followed the leader, as our 5-year-old daughter (I know, that’s not supposed to be an anniversary accoutrement) held my hand. My wife did the ordering, and I did the collecting.  And then she introduced us to the dining room.

Now, if you have been to the B&N, you know that this is a small area in which the term “non-smoking area” is a bit, shall we say, undefined. Pictures of Bagdad-born celebrities Martha Layne Collins and Bill Busey adorn the walls. The condiments were not in little cellophane packages but rather in gallon jugs.  We arrived right at noon, and the place was filled with people who were swapping stories about their morning hunts and even dropping off prey for processing out behind the store, but we found a corner table, moved aside the ash tray and chowed down on a really scrumptious fish-and-cheese-and-tartar concoction and French fries so crispy we kept stealing them from our daughter’s plate.

And we smiled and laughed and did a lot of those things you should do on an anniversary. We joked about this being my first meal at B&N and suggested that we didn’t exactly comprise the routine customer base.  In fact, I said, “I bet no one ever has eaten here with a daughter who was born in China.”  In fact, she said, “I bet no one has been here who was wearing a U.S. Open in Pebble Beach cap [as I was].”  True, true, we agreed.

But then I focused on the really indelible piece of history we made that day, something that probably deserves a plaque in the B&N because it was such an anachronistic element of the day.