The only experience I’ve had riding there was that time in September 2003. The multi-use trail I wrote about has been completed since then.

Holmes County Routes

What I’ve done here is mark the route I used in Holmes County that year. It wasn’t a continuous ride. One day I rode from Howard to Millersburg and then out to the campground on the highway east of Millersburg. Two days later, after we had been doing some tourist things near Bolivar, I rode back to the campground.

Some of the roads I took after I got off of state route 520 were gravel, and some had steep hills, and some had both gravel and steep hills. The road I took into Glenmont had some fast downhills that made me think I should start wearing a helmet again. (I quit in 1999, and I did finally resume wearing one in 2005 or thereabouts.) Some of the steep hills made me think that if I was going to go through country like this with full panniers, that I’d need lower gears. I put lower gears on my bike the next year.

If I remember right, the road I took along Indian Trail Creek, between Dundee and Winesburg, was a very nice, idyllic route through Amish country. It was getting late in the day, and the only pictures I have are the ones in my head.

In my last post I mentioned the possibility of riding to Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion country by way of the Greenville Treaty Line. The above map on the left shows that treaty line as a dashed red line. Well, maybe you have to click to get a larger version to make it out. Or you can go to this site to see higher quality images of this and others of the Charles Royce maps (Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1899) from which it was taken.

In late August, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina was heading toward New Orleans, I did a ride to the area in the rectangle bounded by white. The right hand map shows this area in greater detail. It’s from “Ohio County Maps” published by Thomas Publications. That book of maps is an excellent resource for my type of riding. It shows all the minor county roads, and also shows the Greenville Treaty Line. There are places where modern roads follow the treaty line. I wanted to visit a couple of them.

Two small segments of treaty line roads are on either side of the Great Miami River. The small “horizontal” jog shown on the highway sign above is one of them. I was on the north side of the line. On the other side was land that the Shawnees and other Great Lakes Indians were forced to cede to the United States after the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.

That jog was on the road in the foreground of this photo that leads to the right. The covered bridge is how I crossed the Great Miami River, from west to east. It’s not such a large river this far upstream. On the other side, I rode up the hill out of the valley, turned to the right, and then right again.

Here there was another segment of treatyline road. The ceded area was on the lefthand side. Of course, it’s all ceded now.

That wasn’t my only stop of the day. I had other places to visit further down the Great Miami. It was already late in the day when I was at the point in this photo. By the time I got to my final destination, the sky was starting to fill with clouds pushed north by the hurricane. But that was the end of the trip (a 3 day outing). We drove home, and the next day listened to the news of dikes giving way in New Orleans.

In the map above, I’ve circled the site of Fort Recovery near the western edge of Ohio. It’s where St. Clair’s defeat took place in 1791. (Harmar’s defeat took place in 1790, near Fort Wayne, Indiana.) In 1794 General Anthony Wayne defeated the Indian coalition at Fallen Timbers, in the circled area towards the top of the map. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville was signed at Greenville, at the circle south of the treaty line.

I’d like to follow the treaty line east as well as roads will allow. One nice thing about that route is it will take me to Amish country in Holmes County, which includes the town of Millersburg. Then I’d ride to Stuebenville, which has a connection to Bezaleel Wells, then west to Whiskey Rebellion country, including the area where Bezaleel Wells’ father had a distillery.

Another trip I’d like to do someday would be to the Seven Ranges, the area bounded by a blue dashed line. That’s where the Rectangular Survey System got its start. Some of the bugs in the surveying system were first worked out there. By the time the State of Ohio was surveyed into square mile sections, the technology and techniques were quite a bit better than at the beginning, but they still left lots of room for interesting misalignments that give me excuses for more bike rides and photos in Indiana and Michigan.

In September 2003 I did a bike ride to Holmes County. When I got to our campground near Millersburg, a family stopped me as I was walking my bike to the campground my wife had picked for us. The man and woman were genuine tourers, and had done more riding than I had the previous year. But the man said he was on some sort of governor’s commission for creating trails like this. My wife had talked to him, too. He wanted bike paths for Amish buggies and bicycles so they wouldn’t have to mix with the traffic. It looks like that’s what they now have.

I thought this was a bad idea. In general I do not favor these trails for bicycles, and I couldn’t see how they would possibly be useful for the Amish people. Trails like this are often good for recreational riding, where one wants to socialize while riding, or for family outings with children who don’t have sufficient control of their bicycles to be on the road.

But when I’m touring, I want to go to the places where the roads take me. I want to see the houses, towns, and business places along the way — the places where people are. Converted railbeds are often safe, but boring. And they don’t go to the historical places I want to go to, which are usually where there are people’s homes, too. I want to be able to stop at gas stations to get water or fuel (e.g. a Subway BLT sandwich). Those things are not usually located along multi-use trails.

There are places where trails are a good thing, e.g. some urban areas have networks of trails to help one get through areas that really are difficult to ride through. But in general I’d much rather that the money be spent to improve the roads — resurface the roads so cars can be controlled better, and provide shoulders for bicycles and buggies to ride. Those are a win-win-win for cars AND buggies AND bicycles.

I also fear that where there are trails, bicycles will not be allowed on the roads. Basically, bicycles and buggies will be shoved off into a ghetto and not be allowed to use the roads for transportation. Such things have already happened in some places. Bicycles need to be out on the roads, asserting their rights to the roads, and helping drivers learn how to share the roads with them.

Well, Amish America says that the new trail is actually used by Amish people, so that means it does go some places people want to go. In fact, it looks like this trail connects to one that I used that day on my way to Millersburg. Yes, I said I don’t care for these trails, but sometimes I do take them. If they go where I need to go, I can often make good time on them. But they don’t make for all the wonderful memories that I get from riding on the road. I don’t have a single photo from my ride along the trail from Howard, Ohio. After the trail ended and I got out on the roads, I got my camera out and took the following photos.

They are in black-and-white not because I was trying to be artsy. The day before I had been using my camera to copy documents at the Kenyon College archives, and I didn’t realize until later that I had left it in B&W mode.

This photo may be just outside of Holmes County, perhaps not too far from where the trail ended.

I took some gravel roads cross-country. Some of the hills were fairly steep. It was this day that I got to thinking that 1) maybe I should go back to wearing a helmet, after all. Some of those downhills were fast. And 2) I should put lower gears on my bike if I’m going to be touring in hills like this.

I came out somewhere north of Millersburg. The Treaty Line would be the line of the Greenville Treaty of 1795. But I’m not sure I was quite that far north.

And here’ s where I’ve written about a short bike trail near Homer, Michigan, which was a complete waste. No redeeming social value to this one. The money should have been spent upgrading the roads, instead.