The next day, I parked at the Wal-Mart in Paola, and again rode south and east, this time through Block and Fontana.

Both rides covered nearly the same territory, and shared many of the same elements — some rolling hills, some quiet gravel roads, some lush farm country, some rugged terrain.

The obligatory sunflower photo, I just can’t get over how abundant and beautiful the roadside flowers are this year. Just stunning.

Me on a small bridge just southwest of Somerset.

There are some good-sized hills in Miami County. Here’s just a quick look at one nice roller-coaster.

Checking the map … now where the heck am I?

Sunflowers lining a gravel road near New Lancaster, KS.

This photo, along withe the next few, are from the Wea Mission Site near Paola, KS. In 1833, Presbyterian missionaries established the Wea Mission on this site to serve the Miami, Wea, Piankeshaw, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Potawatomie, and Shawnee Indian tribes who’d been relocated to this area from their native lands in the Great Lakes region.

I’ve driven (and even biked) by this site many times, but have never noticed it. But for some reason this time it caught my eye. There’s no really anything here, except for the informational signs, but it’s still pretty cool. I love this kind of historical stuff…

An old (and tiny) one-room schoolhouse near Osawatomie, KS. In surprisingly good shape foe a structure that obviously hasn’t been used for quite some time.

Vickers School, 1869 to 1966, near Paola, KS

Lickskillet Schoolhouse near Overbrook, KS, built in 1905. What a cool name for a school!

Overbrook, KS mural: “Don’t Overlook Overbrook”. The Long Haul Trucker just seems to fit right into that scene, doesn’t it?

A gravel road just south of Overbrook, KS. Nice and rugged.

A prairie hillside near Overbrook, KS. Wow, I love this picture!

A minimum maintenance road in Franklin County, KS.

St. Patrick’s Church in Emerald, KS. There’s not really a town here, just the church and cenetary, but it’s a beautiful structure, situated on a hill with great views in every direction. The town was founded in the 1850’s by immigrants from Ireland (the Emerald Isle).

A dry creekbed in Anderson County, KS.

Pleasantview Cemetery in Anderson County, KS near Garnett.

Middle Creek Bridge southeast of Ottawa. This was another case where the signs indicated the road was closed, but I just had to go and see for myself. Sure enough, the bridge was not only closed, but had no deck left at all. Oddly, Google Maps still showed this as a through road…

Taking a break at a low-water crossing in Franklin County, KS.

Picking Chickasaw Plums in Anderson County, KS. They weren’t quite ripe, but I gathered a few and carried them home. Good eating!

Fording a low-water crossing in Anderson County, KS. The water was just a bit too deep to ride across. To get this picture I had to ford the creek three times!

Interesting bicycle art at a junkyard near Lane, KS.

This was a really strange collection of old cars I found near Greeley, KS. The vintage (probably 1950s) Detroit steel was situated between a railroad and a creek, half-buried by rocks, with a long steel cable running through the frames. I’m guessing that there was a junkyard located nearby, and they were using the rusted-out old vehicles as part of a sort of levy. Very odd.

This is Spencer’s Crossing Bridge near Greeley, KS. It was built in 1885 over Pottawatomie Creek, and closed in 2001. The new bridge is located right next to the old one (you can see it to the left). This is a rare instance when a beautiful old bridge was spared, but to what end? The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The landmark behind my bike is a huge natural mound near Greeley, KS, rising 150 feet from the Pottawatomie Creek floodplain. I believe it’s called “Wadsworth Mound”, and was used a lookout by Indians, and later by soldiers during the Civil War struggles between Missouri and Kansas.

The architecture on the Ruhamah Baptist Church near Rantoul, KS is very interesting, with a long, sloping roof extending nearly to the ground.

This is a railroad underpass just east of state line on 215th Street.

An old bridge near Harrisonville. The sign on the road had said “Road Closed”, but I’ve learned that signs can’t always be trusted. In this case, it was correct. The bridge was largely intact, but impassable due to being overgrown with vines and weeds.

I liked this flower, a Compassplant, I think.

I own both a trailer (the Nashbar knockoff of the famous BOB trailer) and panniers (Nashbar again), but I went with the trailer for this trip. I rode with a group that met up in Olathe, then rode together to Hillsdale Lake State Park, where we camped overnight in tents, then packed ‘em up and rode back the next day. A nice little overnighter:

More info: KC Bike Commuting, commuterDude, Jason Brown

Thanks Noah for putting this ride together!

Lets start off with the weather, which was amazing for mid-July — low 60°s to start, and mid-70°s by the end. There was a bit of wind, but it was light to start the day, as we were heading into it, and by the time it picked up strength, it provided a nice tailwind.

The route was at least 90% gravel (see map), heading northwest from Lathrop to Easton, then northeast past Stewartsville, then back south to the start.

The website for the ride showed big, chunky gravel, more like railroad ballast than the gravel I’m used to. I figured there was just a short isolated section of that stuff, but no, there was at least 20 miles of this — huge, freshly-laid, loose, walnut-sized hunks of rock across the entire width of the road, with no smooth parts to choose from. All you could do was hold on tight and grind through the stuff.

Once, as I was bouncing through a particularly rough section, I looked down at my arms as they held the handlebars, and the flesh on my arms was flying every which way — and I don’t have fat arms!

The sections with rough gravel were just brutal. There may have been nice scenery there, but if so I didn’t notice much of it. Keeping the bike upright and moving forward took all my concentration.

And interspersed with the chunky gravel were several miles of minimum-maintenance dirt roads. Mostly, these were a relief from the relentless pounding of the gravel, but there were some rough parts here, too. One mile-long piece had ruts that were at least two feet deep. I was able to ride between the ruts, but one little slip and I’ll have crashed hard.

I did manage to crash once on these dirt roads. Silly me, trying to ride one-handed as I took pictures with my right hand. Hit a little rut across the road, and off-kilter I went. I tried to hang on and righten it, but ended up veering off into the ditch. A few bruises and abrasions, but otherwise no damage.

The first SAG was at the city park in Easton, with a nice spread of energy bars and gels and such. The next SAG was at a convenience store in Stewartsville where I refueled with beef jerky & Coke.

The next section of road was paved for awhile, then smooth gravel, then paved again. After so much rough rock (and with a tailwind to boot), it was just incredibly sweet to be rolling on smooth roads. My average speed, which was 14.4 MPH at the first SAG, and 13.2 at the next SAG, gradually started to climb.

We got lost a few times along the route, but nothing serious. But with the extra miles, we decided to short-cut the last leg of the route, and I rolled into the end with 101.3 miles, at an average speed of 13.7 MPH. A welcoming party at the end, with an awesome spread of food, was a great way to end the ride.

I especially appreciated the applause and congratulations from the previous finishers as I rolled in. The ends of previous centuries have been kind of anti-climactic, with hardly anyone left to share my sense of accomplishment. Having folk stick around to welcome the stragglers back home was a really classy touch.

The other cool thing about this ride was that I actually felt great at the end, better than I’d felt at any of my previous paved centuries. No saddle pain, no knee pain, no shoulder pain. I felt really strong at the end, and still had plenty of kick in the legs.

Considering the terrain — which, in addition to the rough roads, featured some tough little hills — that’s pretty amazing.

Given the difficulty of the ride, and the distance, it wasn’t a great day for pictures, but I managed a few:

Preparing to launch: Micah Bicker, Randy Gregorcyk, Mark Moerner

An old country church and cemetery

Cyclists getting buzzed by a crop-duster. Thankfully we didn’t get sprayed with chemicals.

Our first section of dirt road – nice and smooth and dusty.

Pleasant Grove School, 1910 to 1941

Taking a break before our next section of gravel (Randy R & Mark).

Taking a picture of Mark & Randy G. over my shoulder, seconds before I crashed.

Randy G, his Litespeed, and my Long Haul Trucker, on one of the only old bridges we crossed on the route.

Walking a particularly rough piece before hitting the dirt again.

Climbing some chunky gravel on a hill just north of Stewartsville.

The c-store in Stewartsville. It was called the “Finish Line”, but we had another 40+ miles to go after this.

Thanks for Joe Fox and family for organizing this great event, and thanks to Mark and Randy and Micah for riding along with me.

I had a great little route map all printed up and ready to go, but when I went off and left it setting on my desk at home. So I winged it. I though I had a half-way decent map in my head, and that turned out to be about right. I did fine for the first 20 miles or so, then got off track as I began to see road names that didn’t sound familiar.

At one point I stopped at the Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge office to ask for directions, but they weren’t too helpful. The only routes they knew were on paved roads, and I was looking for back roads.

Oh well, I bumbled through. I got onto US-69 Highway for a few miles until I hit gravel again. This is a 4-lane semi-limited-access highway, but it had wide shoulders. It wasn’t too bad.

I ended up going too far west on the gravel roads, until I hit a north-south paved road, but I eventually found my way back to La Cygne. The total ride was about 53 miles.

Friends have been bugging me for awhile to get a GPS, but I’ve been reluctant to spend the dough (I’m a Frugal Cyclist), but perhaps this is the ride that’ll push me over the edge. It certainly would have been handy today…

Some pictures from the ride:

La Cygne City Park. La Cygne is the "City of the Swans". It’s located along the Marais des Cygnes River (French for "Marsh of the Swans").

The is the Church of the Angels in rural Linn County, KS.

A roadside sunflower in Linn County, KS.

This is the La Cygne Lake Bridge. Beautiful old bridge, but unfortunately it seems to be popular with graffiti vandals.

I heart my Long Haul Trucker.

A view of the La Cygne Powerplant from the La Cygne Lake dam. The plant appeared to be idle today.

Trading Post Cemetery. The monument in the background is a memorial to the victims of the Marais Du Cygne Massacre of 1858, when 11 Free State men were killed by border ruffians.

Brooklyn Cemetery west of La Cygne, KS.

I’ll need to go back sometime, as I was unable to find several of the attractions I’d picked out on my map. Oh well, I don’t mind — this is a nice area to ride and explore!

A few days ago I took a short trip into Leavenworth County, KS. This is actually not that far from my house — only 20 miles or so — but I’d never explored the county, even by car.

I drove to De Soto and parked there before heading over the Kansas River to Leavenworth County, then riding northwest to Tonganoxie and back.

By my calculations, about 75% of the 51 miles of this route were entirely new to me, a most excellent and highly satisfying percentage.

Here are a few pictures from the ride:

Flags and fountain at Miller Memorial Park in De Soto, KS. As you can see, the wind was blowing pretty good. I had a moderate cross/head wind on the way out, and a nice tailwind on the way back. (Not sure what the purpose of the lime-green water in the fountain is…)

This is on the bridge of the Kansas River at De Soto. The dots in the sky are birds wheeling and diving over the water.

A hilltop meadow. Leavenworth County is rather hilly, and there were a number of good climbs, with nice views at the top.

Here’s a shady and rocky little creek where I stopped to take a break.

Stranger Creek Bridge, an old narrow, wood-decked bridge on a seldom-used road in Leavenworth County, KS.

Another view of Stranger Creek Bridge.

Me looking down at the muddy waters of Stranger Creek.

The wheat harvest is in progress in Leavenworth County.

An old schoolhouse at 189th & Hollingsworth Road in Leavenworth County, KS.

I love stuff like this. This piece of folk art is wheat stalks made of old baling tines.

Lunch was at Mr. Goodcents in Tonganoxie, KS. $2.89 for a sandwich – what a deal!

A tank on display at the fine Reusch VFW Memorial Park in Tonganoxie, KS.

Finding a bit of shade on a hot summer day along a gravel road in Leavenworth County, KS.

I really enjoyed my ride in Leavenworth County, and can’t wait to go back and explore some more of their amazing back roads.

This is the Chase County Courthouse in Cottonwood Falls, built in 1873 our of native limestone and the oldest operating courthouse in Kansas

This is me at the entrance to the Chase State Fishing Lake

The view from the top of a hill just west of Cottonwood Falls

Elmdale City Hall, built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration (WAP), Elmdale, KS

A twisted tree, rocky hill, and recently-burned grass make for a stark, but somehow compelling scene

An abandoned one-room schoolhouse in Chase County, KS

Me inside the schoolhouse: “Step away form the light…”

A sample of Flint Hills gravel road: steep, rough, rugged scenery

After the ride we stopped for lunch at the Emma Chase Cafe in Cottonwood Falls

I find the landscape here to be both stark and beautiful. I can’t wait to go back and explore this area in more detail, get even further off into the country, and see it during other seasons.

This was taken at the lake at Kill Creek Park on a cool but sunny day.

This is from Lone Elm Park (which I’ve written about before). The “Lone Elm” lamppost signs are new. There are three different designs: a wagon train, an Indian, and this soldier. Impressive.

This is me on a bridge in Miami County. You can’t really see it from that image, but the trees are starting to bud and the land is starting to green up. And it’s warm enough for shorts!

I’m not sure what these tiny purple flowers are called, but they entirely cover some fields. Very pretty.

Like my “kickstand”? That’s just the bike leaning against a stick stuck in the ground. The Long Haul Trucker’s back triangle has a nice place to prop a stick against. Works great (as long as there are surdy sticks to be found nearby).

Somehow, when taking the bike-in-the-field shot, I managed to walk through a patch of cuckleburrs…

Hopefully, I’ll have some rides coming up that’ll be more post-worthy!

A late-season snow gave me an opportunity to ride the Long Haul Trucker in a few inches of the white stuff, and the bike (and fenders) worked great.

The same wasn’t the case a week later, on a Miami County gravel ride. The ride started off nice enough, despite stiff wind and relentless hills. This picture was taken just west of Paola, on a hill with Osawatomie in the distance:

East of Paola, I led us to the abandoned bridge across Victory Road. Once we’d dodged the barricades and picked out way across the old structure, which was missing a few too many deck boards for comfort, but otherwise sound, we took to the old road leading north.

It was solid enough for about a quarter mile, then it turned into a mud pit, an absolute quagmire. The center of the road was covered with water and gooey mud, and only the shoulders were solid. I took the left shoulder while my riding partners took the right shoulder.

After a hundred yards or so, my shoulder all but disappeared, while theirs was still solid. Oh well, soldier on.

Ultimately, I ended up walking on a soggy shoulder and pushing the bike through the mud. The knobby tires proved adept at catching and holding mud, and the fenders were soon jammed full, and the wheels would no longer turn. I had to stop at least twice to clear out the fenders as best I could, but I eventually made it to the end of the mud.

The picture below doesn’t begin to do it justice. That was after cleaning off everything I could…

The rest of the ride was a slog. I just couldn’t get all the mud off, and my bike felt about ten pounds heavier than normal.

The picture below is from the next day, just before I gave the dirty mudder trucker a bath:

So in this case, the fenders, although they kept the rest of the bike reasonably clean, didn’t really work out. They’ve worked well otherwise, and I don’t plan to take them off, but I’ll try to stay out of mudholes in the future.

The first picture shows a bit of that: the grass more green than brown, cows grazing, but the tree still naked. Just a few more days, now …

This picture was taken on the North Wea Creek Bridge on 263rd Street. This is a sweet old bridge, spanning 80 feet with a nice wooden deck.

This is a similar bridge, though smaller (only 60 feet). It spans the South Wea Creek at about 299th and Oak Grove Road.

The final picture was from a section of “minimum maintenance” road near Paola. The road seems to be popular with mudders — it’s tore up in several places, and quite rocky in others. It’s very rough, but passable. The only places I had to walk were where the ruts were too deep, and my pedals were hitting the sides. But this was a fun little mile-and-a-half of road.

The sharp-eyed among you will notice a couple changes to the Long Haul Trucker — new fenders, and a new saddle. More on these at a later time. For now, suffice it to say that the LHT performed perfectly, and the new additions seem to fit right in.

The LHT is not exactly a mountain bike, but it performed admirably on the trails at Dornwood Park and MacLennan Park in Topeka. These trails are more fast-and-flowy than technical, but there were still plenty of rocks and roots to challenge my limited mountain biking skills.

The main thing was that I didn’t fall. This was my first return to singletrack since my crash last December, and I definitely played it safe, keeping the speed in check and walking the bike whenever it got too sketchy. I still ended up riding a number of sections that were pretty scary, but I made it through unscathed.

I had the LHT set up with knobby mountain bike tires (which is the same thing I’ve been using on recent gravel road rides), and they gave me really secure traction on downhills, uphills, and corners.

The LHT’s drop bars actually worked quite well. I found them comfortable, and they provided great control under all conditions.

Shifting was something of a problem, though. The bar-end shifters were just too difficult to reach on short notice. On terrain with lots of ups and downs, a good deal of shifting is required, and the bar-ends are pretty obviously not the right choice for this type of riding.

The brakes, which I’ve been somewhat unhappy with on road rides, actually worked just fine on singletrack. They’re a little wearying for long descents, but I found them adequate.

All in all, the Long Haul Trucker was a pleasant surprise — it worked better than I expected, and as well as I could have hoped. It’s obviously no match for a real mountain bike — the lack of suspension is especially missed — but it did work.

I wouldn’t want to use this bike on a purely singletrack tour, but it could certainly handle a tour that includes short sections of singletrack or rough roads.

The LHT at Dornwood Park in Topeka, KS, within the crumbling ruins of an old dairy barn.

The facility, which was last active in 1992, was declared “excess” by the U.S. Army in 1998, and the General Services Administration began the process of trying to sell the site. Since then, various proposals have been floated, from a Wizard of Oz-themed amusement park, to a planned “community in a park” concept, but nothing’s been done. Today, the plant sits largely empty, with only a few areas leased out to private firms. The remainder of the site is derelict, with buildings decomposing and nature reclaiming what it can.

The plant covers about 14 square miles, and the entire perimeter of the site is surrounded by a fence. You can see some of the buildings from the road, and they’re an impressive site.

I’ve ridden by the place numerous times, but never stopped to explore. Yesterday I did so, or tried to do so.

Turns out there’s not much to be seen, even on closer inspection. What can be seen is just sad, and kind of spooky — old buildings, overgrown roads and railways, concrete structures with no roofs, mysterious places half-hidden by trees and brush.

This is the locked gate to the Administrative Buildings in the background — huge structures with glass shot out of windows, just rotting away, falling into ruin.

This is the most iconic view of the plant, a row of water towers near the main gate.

I love this old sign: “Follow the Road to Safety” Was this part of the original plant? Erected for the Oz theme park idea?

Clearview City is a private community located just across the road to the north of the Sunflower Plant. It was originally built to house plant workers. Today it’s also a rather sad and forlorn place. There are a few hundred houses here, but no stores. There is a remnant of a post office and bus stop.

The community is split into two, divided by Sunflower Road. The western half is populated, the eastern half is abandoned, with the streets overgrown with grass and brush, much of it having become a dumping ground for construction materials. It feels like a ghost town, with no houses, but streets, sidewalks, and utility meters. It’s a very strange place to ride through.

Clearview City Bus Stop

Sunflower Nature Park is a small park situated on the northwest corner of the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant property. It contains a small pond, and about 1.5 miles of paved multi-use trails. It wasn’t too impressive at this time of year, but I’d like to go back when the scenery is lush and green, and the flowers are blooming.

Sunflower Nature Park entrance

The beavers have been active in the pond.

On the pedestrian bridge at Sunflower Nature Park

This was the first time I’d ridden dual mountain bike tires on the Long Haul Trucker (previous rides had used an old worn-down Specialized MTB tire on the front, and the stock WTB Slickasaurus on the back).

With the new tread and more aggressive knobs, the ride was rather buzzy on hardpack and asphalt — I could both feel and hear the tires on a smooth surface — but felt great on normal gravel roads. At one point I even took the bike a bit off-road, venturing down a state park access road that was muddy in places, and soft in others, and the tires worked very well there (as you’d expect).

They also worked well for out-of-the-saddle climbing on gravel — a situation where the Slickasaurus would tend to spin out, but where the MTB tires dug in and just kept climbing.

Some pictures from the ride, a 40-mile, mostly-gravel route down to Hillsdale Lake, on a pleasant February day with temperatures into the mid-60’s:

In all that time, I never once took a good look at the helmet I’d been wearing the day of the wreck. It appeared intact, and felt solid.

But yesterday, as I was preparing for a ride, I noticed something wasn’t right.

The helmet was misshapen on the right side. On closer inspection, I found that the helmet was cracked. And embedded within the crack was a small stick, a half-inch-long chunk of wood about the diameter of a #2 pencil.

Thinking back on the accident, I don’t even remember wanging my head, and there were no abrasions, no bruising, and no pain.

Yet I’d hit my head hard enough to lodge this twig into the helmet — and keep it stuck in there through sometime like 27 hours of riding since then.

So for all who prefer to ride without a helmet, take a look at this. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet during this relatively minor and low-speed accident, that stick could have been lodged in my head. And instead of a cracked helmet, I could have had a cracked skull.

A broken head is a lot more hassle to deal with than a broken helmet.

The helmet: A fairly low-end Bell Aquila. Nothing fancy, but it certainly worked.

I still can’t believe it took me so long to notice the crack. Jeez, that was dumb…

• Though I’d read some poor reviews of the WTB Slickasaurus tires, they haven’t been a problem so far. No flats, and they seem to roll reasonably fast with no handling problems. I’ve ridden them on both pavement and gravel (though I had to let some air out of the tires on gravel to soften the ride a bit).

• The WTB SST saddle has likewise been trouble-free. Reasonably comfortable, no saddle sores, no numb bits. Granted, my longest ride is still only 30 miles, but so far so good.

• I’m not terribly happy with the Tektro Oryx cantilever brakes. Yes, they work, but I really have to squeeze the levers hard to get much braking power. I was going down a steep, curvy, and muddy gravel road the other day, and had to ride the brakes all the way down, and if I’d had to really stop — and not just slow down — I’m not sure if I could have. I was squeezing the brakes really firmly as it was, and it was rather wearying. Not sure what the answer here is — get used to it?

• No mechanical issues at all, other than some normal stretching in the rear derailleur cable, which I’ve been able to fix with the barrel adjusters.

• The drop handlebars have taken some getting used to. Coming from a flat bar, they just felt weird at first. That feeling has faded as I’ve become acclimated to them, and they’re starting to feel more natural.

• I may want to add some extra padding to a few key points on the handlebars, though. Even with padded gloves (plus another layer of fleece gloves over the top) I’ve felt the need for some extra cush. Mostly this occurs in two locations — when my hands are in the drops, with my weight near the shifters, and on the hoods, when my weight is on my palms right at the curve of the bars. The problem has improved a bit over time, so this may just be another incidence of acclimation…

• The bar-end shifters have also taken some getting used to, but I think I’m going to be happy with them. They shift cleanly smoothly, and are easy to access. I like the friction shift on the front derailleur, which lets me tweak out chain rub at the extremes of the cassette.

• Frame sizing seems good. I rode with a guy who’s very knowledgeable about these things, and he said the bike fit me well, that I appeared comfortable, with good form, and good power. That’s encouraging.

• I swapped the frame bag for a rack trunk. Since I had the rear rack installed anyway, the trunk was only 5 oz. heavier than the frame bag, and it can hold a lot more, plus allows me to get rid of the fanny pack I was using for my phone and camera. I mounted my safety triangle reflector on the rear of the trunk, which worked out great — it’s in an optimal position, and doesn’t interfere too much with opening and closing the bag. The bag is an older REI Basic Rack Trunk that I picked up last year off eBay.

• I still want to add fenders. I hate getting snow melt and gravel road mud splattered all over the frame and my legs. Still not sure which fenders I want yet. 60mm width or 45mm? Planet Bike or SKS? Silver or black?

• Speed — I don’t feel particularly fast on this bike. It rolls well on the flats, but I don’t think it climbs particularly well. How much of that is the bike, and how much of that is my still recovering fitness from having ridden very little for a month? Still too early to really say for sure…

I’m looking forward to riding more, and giving another report, perhaps at 500 miles or so.

As in the ride from last November (South From The Cider Mill), I started at the Louisburg Cider Mill. But this time, instead of heading due south, I headed southwest towards Paola. In all, I ended up with right at 26 miles of mostly gravel roads, along with a bit of pavement and a bit of dirt road.

Since I knew I was riding gravel, I swapped the front tire out, from the stock 1.25″ WTB Slickasaurus to the 1.95″ Specialized S-Works Control from the mountain bike. I left the stock tire on the back (though I let a bit of air out to soften the ride). Though the mismatched wheels look a bit odd, it actually worked reasonably well. The fat knobby tire on the front gave me good control and a bit of air suspension, and the slick on the rear worked OK as well, other than a bit of slippage when standing on uphills.

However, once I get another wheel set up with a 9-speed cassette, I’ll likely switch over to a larger rear tire with some degree of knobbiness.

Some pictures from the ride:

Horse Crossing on 299th Street

Victory Road north of the North Wea Creek Bridge

According to some maps, this road is supposed to lead to an old abandoned bridge. I followed this road back as far as I could, until the road crossed a small stream. In drier weather this would probably be passable, but for now it was too wide to jump across, and I didn’t want to wade.

This was my first time riding the Long Haul Trucker on a true dirt road, and it did rather well. There were a couple sketchy sections as I bounced between deep ruts, but it was manageable.

On the Lake Miola dam

From Victory Road, it was just a short hop to Lake Miola, which was still frozen. I stopped for one picture on the dam road, and one more at the western end of the dam. I like this shot of the water tower framed by the bike:

Paola Water Tower

I stopped in Paola at the Miami County Veterans Memorial. The memorial is located at a busy intersection, so it’s not exactly a peaceful setting, but it is a beautiful and stirring tribute to the men and women from Miami County who have lost their lives serving their country.

Miami County Veterans Memorial

Heading back east on 311th Street, I turned off onto Victory Road to take another stab at the bridge, this time from the south. After about half a mile of gravel, the road turned to dirt, then the bridge came into view.

The North Wea Creek Bridge is an elegant structure, even now, over 100 years after it was built, and 6 years after being closed to traffic. The deck is deteriorating, and the steel is rusting, but it’s still a beautiful bridge.

North Wea Creek Bridge

This turned out to be a very enjoyable ride. This seemed to be the first ride where the LHT really seemed to come into its own, feeling natural and smooth beneath me. Back roads, with fat tires, an easy pace, and lots of stopping for exploration, are a good fit for this bike.

The first time I climbed this hill last year on the mountain bike was a revelation — it was so much easier than climbing this hill on a recumbent. On a ‘bent, the hill is doable, but just barely. On the mountain bike, I could just shift down and spin right up it, as slow as I wanted, standing if I needed to. Part of that was the lower gearing, no doubt, but a bigger part was just the upright-vs-recumbent bike geometry. This was one place where the upright bike was clearly superior to the bent.

So naturally, with the new Long Haul Trucker, I wanted to see how it handled this hill. It’s a pretty important test to see how well this bike was going to suit me.

Results: No problem. Just spun right up, no big deal. Sweet relief.

Testing the LHT on the Twisted Sisters was my Thursday ride. With warm (nearly 60°F) temperatures and mild wind, Friday was a good day for a ramble.

I stayed close to home and kept the mileage modest (still under 30 miles), heading south to Hillsdale Lake. The route ended up being about 50% gravel. It was a nice, relaxing ride with very little traffic, and just a gorgeous January day. But by the time I got home the sky had clouded up, the temperature had dropped significantly, and I was surprisingly tired. Guess I’m still working my way back into fitness.

Some pictures from the ride:

I always like to stop at this little bridge and watch the creek below. Also, I love the big old Oak tree in the background.

This is just sad. In case you can’t read it, it says: “Killed: Lincoln [check], Kennedy [check], Obama [half-check]“. Way to perpetuate the reputation of rural Kansas, youth of Spring Hill.

The Long Haul Trucker in some wild grass near Hillsdale Lake. Not sure what this grass is called, but I love the color.

Sitting on the bridge railing at Hillsdale Lake. Often there’s too much traffic to do this, but today I nearly had the road to myself.

It turned out to be a great day for a bike ride! The forecast is calling for cold weather for the next few weeks, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to take advantage of this nice day.

• Rear Rack: The rear rack is a Planet Bike Eco Rack, a basic but functional rack that came with my EZ-Sport. There are fancier and more rugged racks, but this should do for now. In fact, I’m not even sure I’ll be keeping it on the bike. For local rides, it’s not really needed, and it just adds weight (about 1.25 pounds).

• Pedals: I swiped the Shimano PD-M520 pedals off the mountain bike (and prior to that they’d been on the recumbents). At some point I’ll probably have to break down and get a new pair, but these still seem to work perfectly, so why change?

• Cyclocomputer: The E3 F11c Cycle Computer w/Cadence is something I picked up on super-special at Nashbar. It seems pretty decent, though it’s bigger and less elegant than the Cateye Strada I have on the Django. Getting it installed on the bike however, took an embarrassingly long time. I had no trouble setting up the cadence sensor, but the hangup was the speed sensor. Being able to fit fat tires, the distance between the chainstay and the spokes on the rear wheel is quite large, and I had a tough time finding a way to shim the speed sensor out far enough to reach the spoke magnet. Eventually, I cannibalized part of an old handlebar mirror mount, and figured out a way to mount the sensor on the end of that. It’s not particularly elegant, but it works, and seems solid. I’m still not entirely happy with the wire routing, but the computer is at least working reliably now.

• Frame Bag: The Frame Pack bag is another Nashbar special, but I’m rather happy with the way this worked out. In a nice little bit of serendipity, my Blackburn Mountain Air pump from the mountain bike fit perfectly in the long side of the frame bag, with ample room for a tube, multi-tool, and various other small items.

  However, the frame bag does have two significant problems. One, it covers up one of the bottle cage mounts, and two, it’s in the way if I ever try to load the bike onto a car rack. I don’t plan on doing that for awhile, so it’s no big deal, but eventually this will become an issue. At that time, I can either just take the bag on and off each time I put it on the rack, or just switch back to a seat bag. The bottle mount may ultimately be the bigger issue, as the third bottle may be needed for long remote rides.

• Bottle Cages: These are just a couple cages I had lying around. Nothing special.

The only other additions I’m planning to make at some point are a pair of fenders and possibly a front rack. Still looking at options for those items.

Here’s a picture from today’s ride, a short jaunt to Gardner Lake and back. This picture was taken at one of the picnic shelters.

I’m still getting a feel for the bike, and haven’t really put any serious miles on it yet, but so far so good. I’ll report more as I figure things out.

I got this on January 3rd, and have had it out for two rides so far, a 9-mile gravel grind on its maiden voyage, and a 17-mile paved ride today. On the ride today, I intended to get a good picture, but the sun disappeared as soon as I hit the road, and this was the best I could come up with. If it wasn’t for the guardrail, the bike would almost disappear into the brown grass and leafless trees.

I’ve been thinking about this bike for quite a while, at least since late summer. Here were my selection parameters:

• A bike I could ride on both paved roads and gravel roads
• A bike I could ride on weekly club rides
• A bike I could ride on longer events of 100+ miles
• A bike I could ride with on cross-state tours
• A bike I could ride on self-supported tours
• I didn’t want to spend more than about $1000 (hopefully less)

The mountain bike I’ve been riding hard for the last six months handled all of that, to greater or lesser extents, but it really wasn’t the right tool for the job, and for some of the tasks, such as the cross-state tours and long single-day events, it was particularly ill-suited.

Looking at different types of bikes, I could dismiss some immediately. Recumbents were out because they didn’t handle gravel roads well. Pure road bikes were out because they didn’t handle gravel or loaded touring.

I seriously considered a cyclocross bike. It would be light and fast, well-suited for club rides. It could handle gravel with ease. It could handle light touring. I could get a basic model for just under $1K. I could even use ir for racing, if I wanted. But it wasn’t really the right bike for extended tours or loaded tours.

One bike that piqued my interest was the Salsa Fargo. It could handle the loaded touring, it could handle gravel and even some pretty rough singletrack, it would be great for long single-day events. It had disc brakes.

However, it wasn’t available (as a complete bike) until February. It used 29″ wheels (which meant having to stock another size of wheels, tires, and tubes). It was a brand new design (i.e. not heavily field-tested). It was $2000.

So I ended up with the Surly Long Haul Trucker, a touring bike that could take skinny tires for reasonably fast local rides and supported touring, or could take fat tires for gravel and dirt roads. It could handle a heavy load for self-supported touring. It has been field-tested for at least a half-dozen years, with nearly unanimous positive reviews. It used 26″ wheels (in my frame size). It listed for $1100.

On the downside, it used cantilever brakes — OK, but not as solid as disc or V-brakes. It was heavy — about 26-27 pounds stock. And while it could take fat tires and handle gravel and perhaps even some easy singletrack, it is primarily a road bike.

On the balance, the positives far outweighed the negatives, and the decision was made.

At that point, the main issue was frame sizing. Not having ridden a road bike since I was a teenager (and that just a department store 10-speed), I had no clue what size I needed. People of similar height rode everything from 50cm to 56cm frames, and every brand of bike seemed to measure their frames differently, so that a 54cm from one company wasn’t the same as a 54cm from another company. And even worse, I no longer knew what felt right.

In the end, I was fortunate to find two Long Haul Truckers in stock locally — a 50cm in Kansas City, and a 54cm in Lawrence, and both shops were kind enough to let me test-ride them and ask a few questions. Both sizes felt foreign to one degree or another. But I got the impression that the 50cm was too small, and the 54cm too big, so that gave me the answer right there: 52cm frame.

I placed the order with my most local of shops, Bike America in Olathe, on my birthday, just before the end of the year. Thanks to Kevin and, especially, Mark, for getting me a great deal.

Not having any particular preferences on specific components, I went with the Long Haul Trucker “complete”. My understanding is that most of Surly’s component choices are pretty decent, and should serve me well until I learn more about my road bike likes and dislikes.

That’s enough for now. I’ll discuss the particulars of the bike, and what I’ve added so far, in the next post…

January 2008

A January 6th ride with Ron and Jerry of the Wednesday ride group. 36 miles of warm temps, light wind, and good company.

February 2008

On February 4th, an unseasonably warm day had me riding 50 miles, hitting both Gardner Lake and Hillsdale Lake. There were a few minutes there, taking a break along the shores of Hillsdale, where time seemed to stand still. It was as close as I can imagine getting to a perfect moment. [ ride report ]

March 2008

On March 1st I met up with Dave and his friend Chris for a warm, hilly, and terribly windy ride through northern Johnson County. [ ride report from Dave ]

On the 12th, the first Mid-Week BikeSource ride of the year. On this day it was just Ron and I on a run to Brookside, with the ride back turning into a slog against a strong and gusty wind.

On the 28th I headed over to Lawrence, where I purchased my mountain bike. It was a short test ride, but the bike felt pretty natural almost immediately.

April 2008

A ride with Reed from home up to the Kansas River on the 14th was my first metric century of the year. [ ride report ]

The annual Spring Classic ride took place on the 19th, and it was a frigid start to a somewhat grey day. But I finished up 72 miles later, tired but happy to have ridden the “long” route for the first time.

On the 29th I did my first gravel grind, a 32-mile ride through Miami County with Reed — just a beautiful day, hitting Osawatomie, Rantoul, and the Flint Hills Nature Trail.

May 2008

On the 4th I did a 73-mile Sunday ride with Dave and Reed through southern Johnson County, into Missouri, through northern Miami County, finishing up with the Twisted Sisters hills in Olathe.

On the 24th, 9Toes and I did a 50-mile gravel grind south to Louisburg on the mountain bike. Muddy roads, threats of rain, and a strong pace left me exhausted, but the ride yielded one of of my favorite photos of the year.

June 2008

June 1st was the Lone Star Century. I’d planned to do the full 100 miles, but family obligations called, so I only did 66 miles.

Biking Across Kansas ran June 6-14. I’d attempted this in 2006, but had to abort due to illness. No problems this time. Great rides throughout the week. Most memorable: The longest day of the tour — 85 miles of a brutal crosswind. It was glorious.

After BAK, I pretty much put the recumbent out to pasture, and rode the mountain bike for the rest of the year. I did two really cool rides in June: An 80-mile solo ride on the 25th and the Mullet Ride in Baldwin City on the 28th.

I ended with over 1000 miles for the month. Amazing.

July 2008

July featured a lot of local rides with Reed, most in the 30-40 mile range. My favorites were the Ride ‘Round Rantoul gravel grind on the 17th, and a re-ride of part of the Mullet route on the 24th.

August 2008

August 3rd I did my first century on the mountain bike, accompanied by Reed and Dave. It was a hot, hot day, and everyone said I was crazy to attempt it on a mountain bike, but I accomplished it, and at quite a good pace, even though I faded significantly at the end. [ ride report ]

September 2008

September opened but a hard-and-fast gravel grind with some folk from Lawrence. This ride showed me that I could almost keep up with cyclocross bikes on gravel, but not quite. This ride cooked 9Toes’ goose, and I didn’t see him back on the bike for another month-and-a-half. [ ride report ]

That ride was followed with the Tour of Missouri Pre-Pre-Ride with the fellows from the Wednesday ride group. It was nearly the same route as the previous year, with lotsa hills. But this time I was riding the mountain bike rather than the recumbent, and it was far easier (and faster). [ ride report ]

The highlight of the month, though, was a re-running of the private century Reed and I rode last year. This year, however, we opened it up to more friends, and ended up riding with a nice little group. I dubbed it the Tour de Detour do to the number of re-scheduling and re-routing required.

October 2008

The high point of October was the Steep Hills and Old Bridges ride I did with 9Toes, a gravel grind, trail ride, and bridge tour of western Miami County.

Also of note was the Dark Side Ride I did with a bunch of local riders I’ve admired for years, but never had a chance to ride with. Riding in the dark on one of the last, best nights of the year made it even more special. [ ride report ]

November 2008

November featured a bunch of solo rides, most of the gravel grind adventuring sort. I love to ride and explore new roads and trails, and I got to do a lot of that this month, particularly in Miami and Linn Counties. I want to go back there again in 2009 for sure.

The other highlight of the month was the KanBikeWalk urban ride through Topeka on the 22nd, exploring city streets and neighborhoods, as well as the Shunga Trail. [ ride report ]

December 2008

December was a lost month. I was hurt on the 7th [ see Dirt Bumbler ], and didn’t get back on the bike until the 26th. But I did make 6000 miles for the year!

Jeez, that’s a lot of “favorite” rides, isn’t it? And believe me, there are many more great rides that didn’t make the list, but are still fond memories.

Hoping for more great riding in 2009!

The shoulder’s getting better. I have good range of movement, and it doesn’t hurt much at all, except for a few isolated movements. I still have a big old bump on the top of the shoulder, but that’s probably permanent.

Although I set up the recumbent on the trainer, I never actually convinced myself to ride it (I really hate riding a stationary bike).

Then, the day after Christmas, with the temperature topping out at about 65°F, I ventured out onto the road for the first time in 18 days.

I won’t say it was worth the wait, because I would’ve just as soon skipped this episode entirely, but dang, it felt good to be back on the bike again.

Never mind that I took it very easy. Never mind that I rode very slowly. Never mind that the wind was blowing 20 MPH. It was still a grinfest.

I ended up going about 20 miles, and the shoulder felt fine. Not good-as-new fine, but good enough. Leaning over the handlebars wasn’t a problem. Putting weight on the shoulder wasn’t a problem. Hitting bumps was a bit of a problem, but that was manageable.

On the 29th I did another 20 miles. On the 30th I did another 10.

Bingo, bango, that’s 6000 miles for the year. 6000.7 to be exact — about 2575 on the recumbent and 3425 on the mountain bike.

Considering my goal was only 4500 miles, I think that turned out rather well.

I haven’t decided on a goal for 2009. I may not even set one. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up with fewer than 6000. That’s an awful lot of riding.

One last picture from 2008, this one taken on the last ride, on the trail at Lone Elm Park:

And finally, a picture that sums up my mountain biking accident:

Image courtesy of Sir Bikes-a-lot, Professional Dirt Bum

Ineptitude. Yup.

Sunday afternoon I drove to Lawrence, KS to ride the Clinton Lake Trails with 9Toes. Neither of us had ridden these trails, so we didn’t really know our way around. I lead out, and right away we hit some rather rocky sections, followed by a twisty section with freshly-worked dirt.

I was riding somewhat faster than my normal pace, and after bouncing through some dirt-covered rocks, there was a sharp left, then a sharp right. I made the first turn, but on the second turn my front wheel got a little too close to the loose dirt on the edge of the trail. The wheel slipped downhill off the trail, and I went over hard onto my right shoulder.

As I sat there taking stock. 9Toes asked if I was all right.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, “unless I broke my shoulder.”

I stood up and examined the shoulder, and felt a sharp bump on top. Showed it to 9Toes, and he confirmed. “I can see it from here,” he said.

Having broken my left clavicle 9 years ago playing softball, I figured that’s what this was as well — a broken clavicle (collarbone).

Pain wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely there.

We walked the bikes back to the truck — luckily we were only about 0.4 miles into a 13-mile trail, so the trip back was short. He drove me home to my wife, and off to the hospital we went. A few hours later I was back home with an arm sling and pain meds.

The diagnosis: A grade 2 A-C joint sprain (separated shoulder). Here’s the details from an online medical site:

Next day was a trip to see an orthopedic doctor. He confirmed the diagnosis, and said that there’s nothing to be done except to let it heal. Keep the arm in the sling for a few days, then gradually lose the sling. Do some exercises to rebuild the strength and range of motion of the shoulder. Stay off the bike.

The obvious follow-up to the last question: How long?

4-to-6 weeks was his best guess.

Bummer. Not unexpected, but discouraging nonetheless.

So my cycling season’s done with. I ended up with 5950 miles (only 50 miles short of 6000!). 2575 of those on the recumbent, and 3375 on the mountain bike.

My goal for the year was 4500 miles, so I’m hardly dissatisfied with the total, though obviously I would’ve like to hit that next big round number.

I’ve kept track of my miles on BikeJournal, which lets you compare your mileage with other riders. It currently shows me as #1 in the city of Olathe, and #4 in the state of Kansas, with a pretty secure hold on those positions, unless someone adds 300 miles in next few weeks.

Sitewide, I’m at #514. I had hoped to stay in the top 500 for the year, but that’s not going to happen. Not sure how far I’ll slip, but I’ll probably end up in the 600-700 range. Not bad.

So for now I’ll take it relatively easy. I can still work on the computer, using my left hand for mousing and hunt-and-peck typing. It’s slow going, but it works. I’ll probably take up walking to get a bit of exercise, and maybe set up the recumbent on the trainer to do some easy spins. I’ll also likely hit the road on the recumbent to begin with, since that’ll keep any pressure off my shoulder. The only issue there will be whether I can hold my arm outstretched for long periods, and have the hand strength to turn the grip-shifter.

Next year: Back on the bike!

I stayed close to home, heading up the road a couple miles to Lone Elm Park, where I hit the gravel and grass trails for a few loops. With the temperature just under freezing, the roads were clear but wet, and the gravel trails were mostly clear, though the wooden bridges were snow-covered, and there were a few water puddles on the trail. The grass trails, however, were pretty well snowed in, and it was slow riding breaking trail through the fresh snow and 3-inch tall grass.

In all, I did 2.5 loops — two complete loops including both gravel and grass, each about 1.4 miles long, and one gravel-only loop of about 0.7 miles.

That and riding roads there-and-back got me about 8.5 miles. That was enough.

Clothing-wise, I’m still trying to work it out. Today, the problem was my feet. With a base layer cotton sock, a Seirus stormsock, and wool sock, in my Shimano MTB shoes, I ended up with cold toes. I’m thinking the stormsock (a windproof, water resistant layer) should have gone on the outer layer, providing more airspace within. The other problem is that my shoes are really too tight with all the sock layers, further limiting the insulating airspace.

Other than that, the Amfib tights were great on the legs, wool + polypro + rain jacket was actually too warm on the torso, and liner glove + fleece glove was great on the hands.

The other problem was glasses — I was using a fleece neck gaitor, which works fine keeping the neck and face comfy, but warm air rises and fogs the glasses. Never did really work that out, other than the lower the gaiter below my mouth.

Finally, my camera crapped out on me, or I’d have some nice photos. That thing is eating batteries like candy. Time for a new one, I suppose.

But now, as the year winds down and the weather becomes a bigger factor, I’ve been reduced to mostly “short and slow” rides.

In November so far, I’ve only logged 267 miles, at an anemic 12.4 MPH average pace. And that’s even including a wind-aided 36-mile, 16.5 MPH ride.

Yesterday was more of the same: 23.6 miles, 10.6 MPH average.

It didn’t help that I took a detour and rode a bit of singletrack that required — for me at least — a good amount of hike-a-bike. Pushing a bike up a steep and rocky trail at 2 MPH can pull your average down in a hurry.

But despite the death-slog average speed, I count it as a great ride.

In late November, getting out on a 50°F day with light wind and brilliant sunshine can’t help but being a great ride.

I drove down to Hillsdale, KS and parked at the Lake-and-Dale c-store before heading east for a few miles, then making my first-ever visit to the village of Wagstaff, followed by 15 miles or so of gravel, including a short-but-very-steep little climb that I went out of my way to try.

This thing was crazy, just insanely steep, but I put the bike in the little ring, shifted down, and climbed right to the top. I figured my back wheel would slip out on the gravel, but it hung in there.

Getting down the hill, though, was something else. With a tight little corner at the bottom of the hill, I couldn’t just turn it loose and coast, so I had to ride the brakes all the way down.

After a few more miles of gravel, I found myself on the edges of Hillsdale Lake park, and turned onto the singletrack there.

Actually, calling some of these trails “singletrack” is being generous. They’re primarily equestrian trails, and the horses make a hell of a mess, gouging deep, rough cuts in the trail, and leaving behind lots of organic material. Thankfully, the trail didn’t appear to have seen much use recently, and most of that stuff was dry.

Still, bouncing from hoofprint to hoofprint can make for a rough ride, and I was glad to finally reach a side-trail that received less traffic. This was a trail I’d never ridden before, and I was rolling along on mostly-smooth dirt when I came to this:

That’s a nasty little rock-infested uphill. When I first caught sight of it, I rolled up to the base, stopped, and said “no way.” I pushed the bike up through the minefield, then turned around and road it downhill. Hell yeah! That’s more like it — bumpedy-bump and bouncedy-bounce, but it was a hell of a ride.

Back at the bottom, I looked up at that rocky climb, and thought that if I could get enough speed, and picked just the right line, maybe, just maybe I could clear it.

And damned if it didn’t work. Spun right up it. No prob. Wow.

A little later, further down the trail, I scared up a deer, and it went bounding off into the brush, white tail blazing. That was cool.

When I reached the horse-trailer parking area, I found it completely deserted, where as usually it’s crawling with people and beasts. I took my time and explored the area a bit before connecting to a trail and the western end of the site, and quickly found myself on a wide, smooth trail that clearly saw a lot of use — a veritable horse superhighway.

Eventually the trail split off in several directions, and I took the spur headed off into the woods.

This was some of the sweetest trail I’ve ever ridden, no kidding. Just gorgeous in the late afternoon, crunching through leaves, winding among the trees, bouncing off rocks hidden by the leaf cover. Just a sweet, sweet bit of trail.

After a bit of off-the-bike action, as I had to dismount to negotiate an especially steep and rocky downhill, I found myself along the shore of Hillsdale Lake. After picking my way through the trees, I arrived on a small beach, and leaned the bike against some driftwood. Nice shot:

One more shot from the same beach, a self-protrait from a different angle:

By that time, as you can tell from that last shot, it was getting along toward dark, so I got moving. On the way back, I hit one final bit of trail, and managed to crash. All that twisty, rocky, muddy trail I’d ridden, and I wipe out on a straight and open section of trail.

I was rolling along on a horse-track, and it just cut deeper and deeper into the ground the farther it went. The walls along the foot-wide track got to be about a foot high, and there was no way to get out. Eventually, my pedal snagged on the sidewall, and over I went, thankfully into soft grass. No harm, no foul.

I pulled back into Hillsdale town a few minutes after five, cutting it close as I didn’t have a headlight on the bike.

Great ride.

My route took me east to Cold Creek Road, then south to Drexel, then south some more on State Line Road. I originally mapped out my route to totally encircle LaCygne Lake, but I ended up cutting the ride short, and just clipped the upper end of the lake.

The ride southward turned into a slog. A combination of a stiff headwind, freshly-graveled roads, more traffic than I expected, and some saddle issues caused me to me to not particularly enjoy this part of the ride. That doesn’t happen to me very often, but it did on this day, and I was happy to take the shortcut on 399th Street.

399th wasn’t much better for a mile or so, then the road dropped into a nice long curvy downhill to the lake, and suddenly, it was fun again!

I messed around a little at a neat old bridge crossing the lake, then headed north. Within a mile or so I took another detour, heading off-road onto what was apparently a backwoods road that quickly turned from doubletrack into barely-visible track, but it was fun and scenic as the trail wrapped around a hill and passed between a heavily-wooded bluff and a creek.

On the way back up the trail, I flatted — my first one in several months! I never did find the cause of the flat, but patched the tube and was on my way.

The trip back north to Rutlader was nicer than the trip south, due primarily to the tailwind, but also to smoother roads and very light traffic. I pulled into Rutlader after only about 26 miles, but I was glad to be finished.

I definitely want to go back and explore the LaCygne Lake area some more. What I saw of it looked very promising!

Some photos from the ride:

A fancy gate on a farm on Cold Water Road near Drexel, MO.

This is a nice old bridge crossing LaCygne Lake. Too bad about all the graffiti.

DirtBum on LaCygne Lake Bridge

This was just too much to resist…

The following are a few pictures from the ride:

There are a lot of these just south of the cider mill — I think this is pretty big horse country.

A strange object on the horizon — turned out to be a water tower under construction. Workers were welding on the bottom section, and when it’s done a crane will lift it to the top of the tower.

Yes, it’s good old 311 Kickyerbutt Road

Taking a break on a bridge near New Lancaster, KS

A feisty little milk snake

The (minimum maintenance) road not taken…

A low-water creek crossing in lieu of a bridge; you don’t see that too often around here

Wow, that’s a big Sunflower head!

Indian Grass Prairie Restoration near Somerset, KS

Late afternoon at the Louisburg Cider Mill