The Wabash Cannonball Trail: Part 2, Is that the trail?

So, in my last entry NJ and I were riding on County Road K, somewhere east of Montpelier, Ohio. Please read Part1 if you haven't already. Looking for the Wabash Cannonball Rail Trail. The weather was actually very good, for April in Ohio. County Road K became Cable Line Road,no sign of the bike trail. We were having doubts as to it's existence, it became "The Theoretical  Wabash Cannonball", we rode on and made jokes as we headed east.

Cable line Road became Township Road G, then we headed south to Township Road F which would most likely intersect the rail trail. The roads were an excellent ride. Flat easy riding for the early season bike trip. I highly recommend the trip for anyone experienced with road riding, and a good set of maps of the area.

Somewhere about 25 miles into the ride we came upon the "Theorized Intersection of the Wabash Cannonball Trail." I can still hear NJ like it was yesterday. We drove from Cincinnati to ride this trail. She said , "Is that it?" Her tone was like that of a kid on Christmas whose parents bought the wrong toy. I have to admit it was not at all what I expected. Remember my description of rail ballast, crushed gravel on top of stone? Well, that was wishful thinking. "The Cannonball" is like grass growing on sand on top of what may be stone covered by years of leaves, and underbrush. This combination rendering the trail like a lawn of dense grass stretching on for miles. We decided to take the beast on, since we had our rugged Treks with Hybrid tires and all.

It didn't  take long to realize that this was not going to be a fast ride. I started throwing gears immediately, finally winding up on the smallest of three front chainrings on my 27 speed Trek. This made the peddling easy but the speed incredibly slow. There seemed to be the remnants of a single track path, but that faded as we rode. At 6 or 7 miles per hour, it would be dusk by the time we rode into Maumee, Ohio, having nearly 40 miles to go.

The "Theoretical" Wabash Cannonball intersects several road on it's way to the Oak Openings Preserve, and the paved section of trail. We were beginning to really miss County Road F, as we beat our way through 2 "sections" of  undeveloped trail. At one point, NJ had just had enough. This was somewhere near Wauseon, Ohio. I have only on occasion heard my wife swear. The soft soil and low speed of travel, and the sheer effort just wore her out, and she had enough. NJ looked me square in the eyes and, in no uncertain terms, NJ told me EXACTLY what she thought of the Wabash Cannonball Trail. NJ got off of her bike and sat down in the middle of the trail. No chance of being run over by any other traffic on the route.

Having the maps at this point probably saved our marriage. We rode to the end of this particular section of  "trail" which seemed to dead end into an active rail line, taking an access road we were back on County Road F, and moving at a good pace. We were no longer interested in the "trail" finding pavements and maps sufficient to get us to paved portion of the Cannonball. We were now looking for Route 109 where we would head south to pick up County Road Ef. Continued in my next entry. (Really I couldn't make this stuff up.)