The Kentucky Bluegrass region is a beautiful place with great country roads and low traffic to cycle. You can ride short or long distances, rolling terrain to challenging hills, horse farms and open farm land. It's all beautiful and just waiting to be enjoyed.We think of large horse farms with miles of plank fencing when thinking of the Kentucky Bluegrass. The horse farms are magnificent but the bluegrass region is more than that. It's miles of country roads with smooth pavement, low traffic, and some of the best scenery in the country. Throw in a country market or deli here and there and it becomes a cyclists dream.
Our small group met in Lexington for lunch on Monday before taking a short ride around the horse farms surrounding Keeneland Race Track, including Calumet Farms which claims over 700 acres and more derby winners than any other farm.
We had planned to ride from Lexington to Berea but due to heavy rains and flooding the ferry was shutdown. We drove to Berea instead and did a nice valley ride which took us along the south side of the Bluegrass Army Depot and into Irvine where we lunched. The return ride meandered around Haystack Mountain and back to Berea.
The following day we rode along the Trans-America trail from Berea to Harrodsburg. As we started a long climb a couple miles out of town, we ran into some sprinkling of rain. The rain was forecasted for late afternoon. A couple miles further and couple more long climbs and the rain got heavier and heavier. We stopped at a small grocery about 20 miles out, soaked to the skin. The rain stopped after a short while and the afternoon turned out to be beautiful. There was a lot of open
farmland on this route as well as tobacco barns. But don't let the open farmland fool you; this was a very hilly ride.With 80% chance of rain predicted for the following day, we took the day off from cycling and did some sightseeing. First, we toured the Perryville Battlefield and later Shaker Village. Both sights were very interesting and we highly recommend anyone visiting the area to take advantage of the history.
Back on our bikes the next day, we rode from Harrodsburg to our B&B in Loretto, just south of Bardstown. This day took us through all three subregions of the bluegrass ... the smooth Inner Bluegrass, the Shale Belt region of ridges and v-shaped valleys, and the open farmlands of the Outer Bluegrass.
We experience the Bourbon Trail on Saturday, stopping at several distilleries, as we made our way back to Lexington. Gotta' have a taste of that real Kentucky Bourbon.
Our last ride was Sunday morning, the Jot 'em Down ride, named after the Grocery Store on the corner. We skirted some of the most famous horse farms in the Bluegrass and wandered along some of the most beautiful farmland in the country. We saw new foals on all the farms. I think this was my favorite ride because of the beauty of it.We hope you'll take some time and experience Kentucky as we did. There's nothing better than cycling beautiful countryside with your friends. We promise you'll love it.
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