Saturday, August 2, 2008

Head East Young Man!

A while back I had a meeting at Goeglein's http://www.goegleins.com out on Maysville Road. It is located over five miles from my house. It wasn't the distance that was the trouble. It was more the "friction of distance"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction_of_distance. It wasn't the difficulty of the distance but how to get there in the most safe manner.
I mapquested it and it said to take Lake across to Maysville and then up. Anyone who has ever driven n Lake east of Anthony knows that to ride a bike on lake is just asking for trouble. I could take State Blvd out there too but that is about as safe as Lake.
I could take Anthony down to the River Greenway and out, but there is no way to get off of it at Maysville. I would have had to go all the way to Kreager Park and then back track on Lake to get to Maysville.
So, I finally decided to take Vance. Vance is about 1/2 mile north of State and runs parallel to it (in case you didn't know). It runs from Parnell to Maplecrest. It is a great route to use if you live on the East side. Granted the Right of Way is not all that inviting, but the traffic on it is light (even at peak hours, which my journey was).
So I took Vance all the way to Maplecrest and then Maplecrest south to State and then State to Maysville. Just an FYI, Maplecrest has a lot of room on the shoulder in most places so it was not that bad but State Blvd. and Maysville Road are different stories. It is not for the faint of heart if you know what I mean.
Vance worked great though and I would and will recommend it to anyone who asks.
That leads me to another point. I didn't have to take Vance the whole way. Here in the older parts of Fort Wayne there is a welcoming (at least to bikes and pedestrians) grid pattern of streets for the most part and it is easy to use lower traffic residential streets to get around within the immediate area. A plus for those who live in and around downtown.
Ride safely.

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