The missing link

Thursday 10 November
We got out for a bike ride today, quite likely the last for a while - the cold weather moves in tomorrow, and neither of us are keen on cycling in very cold weather! Today’s ride involved a new section - a missing link. For years now, the southern end of the Little Miami trail has been at Beechmont Avenue, by the Little Miami River. On the other side was another trail linking to the Lunken airport trail and Otto Armledder Park. What was missing was a safe way to cross the river. Back in September the Beechmont Bridge connector was opened, crossing the Little Miami on a a new bridge extension that is adjacent to the eastbound lane of the existing and busy Beechmont Avenue road bridge. This was obviously a huge undertaking, and very expensive, not just constructing the bridge extension, but also a tunnel to take the trail under the State Route 32 westbound ramp to Beechmont Avenue. So today we started at the Avoca trailhead, cycled to and over the bridge, and then continued on to Otto Armledder Park, did the 2 1/2 mile loop around there, and then returned. It made a really nice ride of 14.3 miles. My top picture shows the bridge extension, separated by a wall from the traffic on the road you can see in the background, whilst the lower picture shows the view from the bridge.