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Taking advantage of a
sunny January afternoon

O r e g o n
P h o t o   T o u r s

Eugene River Bike Path

Shoot Date: 1-28-2011

This new bridge spans the channel recently created between the Heron Ponds and the river.  The channel had become an overgrown ditch running through a grove of trees.  Now water flows from the river through the Heron Ponds and past here to rejoin the river.   I'll be interested to see how this affects the water level in the Heron Ponds this summer.

Heading--very slowly--up onto the Owosso bike bridge, the northernmost of our five river bike and pedestrian bridges.  The little half-circle you see at the bottom to the right of center is the reflector on the front of my trike.  The downside of recumbent triking is that going uphill is hard, since you don't have the gravity-assisted pushing power you'd have on an upright bike.  However, going back down this bridge toward home, I can get going at just a mild speed and then plunge all the way down through the ravine path and then back up to street level without pedaling at all.  And of course, whenever you find a scenic spot, you can just stop and enjoy it, because you're essentially riding a comfy chair.

Close-up of some of the mosses growing along the edges of the bridge

Looking north from the middle of the Owasso bridge

On the far side of the river, I head past riverfront condos where residents sit enjoying a glass of wine on their patio on my way to the Delta Ponds.  After pedaling through the ponds (the path becomes a bridge right through the middle of one) I'll take another bridge back to my side of the river and head home in the fading light.  All in all, it's about a 6-mile round trip, and only between my home and the river do I have to take surface streets and potentially deal with traffic.