This fall, since I’m not vying for a cyclocross world championship, my coach has me taking a different approach to training with long “fun” rides… the first of which was Tuesday this week. I decided to ride the 3 greenlines in town  with a stop downtown at Mud Island to take a picture or two of the Mississippi River.

It started with the Shelby Farms Greenline…

Which was fun, because at 10am on a weekday, there’s almost no one out there.

I then cut through some sketchy neighborhoods to Overton Park, where I rode on a lot of the trails, though I have no idea which ones, because it’s a relatively small area, they all look the same, and there are next to no markings out there. They’re very suited to a cyclocross bike, though, so it was a good time. (Click HERE for an Overton Park map)

I stopped and refilled my bottles, then found my way out to the Vollentine-Evergreen Greenline…

…also deserted at that time of day.

Once I was at the end of that, it was mostly bike lane until I reached Downtown and crossed the bridge to Mud Island, where I rolled around like a tourist and took some photos before crossing back over and riding down Main Street.

We got trolleys and shit.

There’s no way out of the south side of Downtown that isn’t through a ghetto. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good ride…

I rode back on a slightly southern route through the University of Memphis and up Shady Grove road to the Germantown Greenline. I was hungry by then, so no stopping to take photos.

It looks like there’s going to be some killer cyclocross racing this weekend in Nashville. I plan on making a road trip out of it and race the Keep Calm race on Saturday, spend the night in Nashville, then a Bamacross race on Sunday. It’ll be a nice break from the Memphis cyclocross frustrations. Also, I’ll get to race the singlespeed CX bike for the first time since I re-built it.

I am excite. Now, it’s time to get out and do some soggy intervals.