Saturday or Sunday at 11:00 on on March 19 or 20  2011 is the time for, at least according to the astronomical charts, the Last Ride of Winter. Will their still be patches of snow on the eighteen to thirty-two miles of flat road? Will any one do the forty-seven mile extension to Whitelaw? The ride is numbered Min-5 and named “Six Creeks and a Canal” on your OCC web map list.  Dick Matthews is your ride leader and he will post a bulletin to the list later in the week as to which day we’ll roll out from the Minoa Elementary School on N. Main St.

As the club began to expand their roster of rides, long-time member Ed Chin led an “Exploratory Ride- East” of undetermined mileage. The next year, 1983, that ride became the Kirkville-New Boston Loop and started at the now grassed over parking lot on NY290, adjacent to Green Lakes. The loop was expanded to pass the quaint little church in Whitelaw in 1996 and the start venue was changed to Minoa and renamed in 2001. Last year, thirty-three cyclists sought that elusive sixth creek, in similar weather conditions, as OCC started towards their 2010 accumulated mileage of just under ninety-three thousand miles. Let’s get the first thousand of 2011 this week-end.

As the Ides of March limp to a close, Joe Mautz will be leading OCC’s second of the one hundred and seventeen rides scheduled this year. This one is eight to thirty-five miles, an out-n-back, starting at 11:00 on March 26 or 27, from the Onondaga Lake Park parking lot off Long Branch Rd., just East of the bridge.
This ride has been around under various names since the club was founded. It started as a seventeen mile round-trip ride which stopped at the Lamson’s Dairy turnaround where the riders had ice cream and waited for the pack to regroup. Numerous additions and permutations have been added through the years but this ride is traditionally one of the first and last rides of the season. Last year, fifty-two people swung their legs over the saddle.

Note that the route has been modified once again, this time to eliminate the return along busy NY370. Still called the River Road Rides [new map, OLP-1a], it is flatter than the old version but not quite as flat as last weeks ride. Basically, it follows the Senceca River northward, crossing at Hinmanville, rolling through Phoenix and returns along the river. There is a new, three mile extension along Hayes Rd. just to mix the geezers up. So, join Joe as he pedals northward, probably not looking for ice cream.