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Bicycle Around Lake Pontchartrain - Part 1 of 3
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I try to make this ride twice a year on a pristine day of Spring and Fall.

Part 1 of this three part series (I would call it a Trilogy if I were George Lucas) starts at the outskirts of New Orleans where the scenery becomes rural and less interrupted by industrial features. I am 20 miles from the starting point when I attach the helmet cam for the first time.

The real star of this video is the Highway 11 bridge from Irish Bayou to Slidell. The bridge is 4.8 miles long and 80 years old. I have never biked across it before as there is another route, but riding solo I chose to save the 7 extra miles and take my chances early A.M. on the bridge. I have heard other cyclists call this "The Death Bridge" although I know of no cyclists being actually killed on it.

I let the camera roll the whole time on the bridge, then sped up the video 2x in editing. I keep the viewer (you) on the bridge a long time on purpose to give you a real feel for what it was like bicycling across it.

One last note. I was not rushing this ride. I intended to utilize the entire day from the first planning stages. There was about 12 hours of light this last day of September 2009 and I used most of it.

Bicycle Around Lake Pontchartrain - Part 2 of 3

This video is filmed on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain from Slidell to Ponchatoula through the piney woods, past majestic oaks, and lots of rural land. From Slidell I ride through Lacombe, Mandeville, Madisonville, on the way to Ponchatoula. Mandeville is 24 miles from the New Orleans area via the Causeway Bridge - no bikes allowed. The bike ride to Mandeville is close to 60 miles riding counter-clockwise, which I always do. Roughly 15 miles of this route is a Rails to Trails route called The Tammany Trace.

Bicycle Around Lake Pontchartrain - Part 3 of 3

This last section starts out with a long ride on one of the loneliest roads in Louisiana - Old Highway 51 - that has been rendered useless to all but a few fishermen, very few locals living in camps, and even fewer cyclists.

I used to do overnight bicycle camping tours with a friend of mine from New Orleans to the State Parks and campgrounds of the Northshore every good weekend. He and I calculated that we probably biked this road 160 times over the years. Except for the lack of services, including drinking water, it is a great route for biking into or out of New Orleans.

After reaching the end of "Old 51", the route enters Highway 61 also known as "Airline Highway" as the first commuter flights from New Orleans to Baton Rouge in the 1940s and 1950s would visually follow this highway that was constructed from materials dug from the sides of the road and piled up in the middle leaving two new waterways that look like canals or bayous - one each side of the road. Bass and perch are fished from these waters by the locals.

Eventually I turn off of Hwy 61 for a short ride to the Mississippi River Levee Trail paved atop the east bank river levee all the way into New Orleans. Even though I am still 20 or more miles from home upon reaching the trail, I feel like I'm done. I'm home.

Total mileage from my front door, around the lake, then back to my front door is 142 miles. Nice! Not bad for a 51 year old kid.

Bicycle Around Lake Pontchartrain - Outtakes

Natural sounds, actual speeds, awful smells.

These are the clips that almost made it into the last series of videos from my 140 mile around Lake Pontchartrain ride. All clips are raw, just like the camera recorded them.

Tammany Trace and Northshore Area Bicycling

65 Miles on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain

Take a virtual bicycle ride with us through Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville, Lacombe, Slidell, Bayou Pacque, and Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge - mostly on the Tammany Trace Rails-2-Trails path.

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