Tour de Coalfields


Wednesday, March 2, 2022

It was a wonderfully sunny March day. Ideal for a 112-mile bicycle ride in the western Kentucky coalfields.

I took a zig-zagging route to Uniontown (population 1,002), via Corydon and Smith Mills.

Surprisingly, despite its small population, Uniontown has a small supermarket, along with the obligatory Dollar General and a convenience store.

I spent some time poking around Uniontown, then left on country roads.

Some of my planned route was impassable due to flooding from the Ohio River, so I improvised.

I played leap-frog for a while with a woman delivering mail. Once, as I stopped on the side of a road looking at the map on my phone, she pulled up beside me and said "You're making me tired!" I told her I was probably going to ride 100 miles, and she told me that was what she would end up driving on her route today.

A bridge was out, but the workers allowed me to cross the creek on their tiny temporary bridge.

I rode through Sturgis (population 1,654), which, despite its larger size, seemed a lot deader than Uniontown.

About twelve miles from home, the sun was starting to go down, and I had an upset stomach, possibly related to the large amount of junk food I'd eaten throughout the day.

I lay down in a field for a while, then called Joy to come pick me up - A kind of ignominious end to an otherwise great ride.

Link to the ride on Strava