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I have no problem with the gravel, let's do it. That's what I bought this thing for!

Guys, I still have high hopes that I won't run into technical problems at the office Sun morning so I'll be able to ride Sun afternoon. Weather still looks decent: 45 and sunny.

I've decided I'm going to do a geocache hunt ride. Anybody who wants to come along is welcome, but I know it's not for everyone. Geocache hunting involves stopping and doing a lot of walking at the cache sites, so this may not be something you want to do--I understand.

I plan to theme my hunt around the series of caches based on the KCCC & STJ Interurban Rail line. There are 7 caches to find in this series.

The Kansas City, Clay County and St. Joseph Interurban Electric Rail ran from 1913 to 1933. It started in Downtown Kansas City heading northwest to St. Joseph, and northeast to Excelsior Springs in North Kansas City. There are several old Luten style arch bridges still standing on the old routes. For more information about this rail line go to: http://www.interurbanroad.com/. Ed Gentry has done extensive research and has some wonderful details and photos of the cars, stations and bridges.

I don't have a route built for this hunt yet, but one of the Interurban caches is right in Liberty, so I may start there. The Interurban line used to run just West of where my house is near 68th & Hwy 169. I've ridden my motorcycle on the old railbed in the woods. There is still an old, rotted ticket station out there in the woods.

For more info on geocaching in general, check out:
http://www.geocaching.com/about/

FYI: This Sunday is also the first Cassoday Bike Day of 2007. (Cassoday, KS -- thousands of motorcycles, fun, and food first Sunday of every month.) Ajahawkfan, let us know if you end up riding to Cassoday--we need a report!

troy wrote:I've decided I'm going to do a geocache hunt ride. Anybody who wants to come along is welcome, but I know it's not for everyone. Geocache hunting involves stopping and doing a lot of walking at the cache sites, so this may not be something you want to do--I understand.

I plan to theme my hunt around the series of caches based on the KCCC & STJ Interurban Rail line. There are 7 caches to find in this series.

I don't have a route built for this hunt yet, but one of the Interurban caches is right in Liberty, so I may start there.

FYI: This Sunday is also the first Cassoday Bike Day of 2007. (Cassoday, KS -- thousands of motorcycles, fun, and food first Sunday of every month.) Ajahawkfan, let us know if you end up riding to Cassoday--we need a report!

I did not make it to Cassoday. I was thinking of going if today was nice enough to ride to Council Grove, stay the night and ride there in the morning however it was too cold today for me.

If I can get away, I'll join you tomorrow. I believe the the Liberty cache is missing. There is a cache right below your office. Maybe meet there?

Ajayhawkfan, if I had your bike, I'd love to ride down to Cassoday tomorrow with you, and I'd do mostly gravel all the way...it's a blast.

BUT...if you opt to stick it out in the big city tomorrow, let's go geocaching. You've found ALL of these caches before, right? You have interest to find them again? Cool!

The Interurban ran in two lines. One line ran NW out of downtown KC to St. Joe. The other ran NE to Excelsior Springs. The "KCCC Interurban" series of geocaches are located at the various small bridges the line used to cross the creeks along the way. The old bridges are one of the only remnants showing the Interurban existed. Sunday, I plan to find all the caches along the Excelsior Springs line plus the first one in the St. Joe line just south of my office near downtown KC.

Again, I'm not trying to hijack this thread---if you guys want to do this, then see the details below. If you'd rather do another kind of ride, then by all means, post your ride details here.

Here are the details for anyone who wants to join the hunt. Depending on interest and what time people can make it, these details could change.

Ride Type
Geocache Hunt

Route & Description
Download the route GPX file: http://www.rideforum.net/gps/Interurban ... prings.gpx
NOTE: Right-click and choose to save to your harddrive.
Approximately 50 miles from just N of downtown KC heading E and N to Liberty then continuing E and N to Mosby (just before Excelsior Springs). Then we head back W and then S into Liberty. Route "ends" in Liberty.

Unfortunately, this will be a mostly pavement ride--most of these caches are not far enough out of town to hit any gravel. We'll hit some roads I'm not familiar with so no guarantees. A few miles of the route back from Mosby to Liberty will be gravel.

There are 6 official "KCCC Interurban" geocaches we will hunt, but the Liberty cache is apparently missing so we may not even try to find it. The route GPX file includes about 55 geocaches--I included all caches within 2 miles of the route so we have the option of hunting a lot of other caches if we want.

WHERE: Latte Land at Briarcliff Village.

TIME: 1:00 PM

I know this meeting place is not as convenient for the Liberty crowd as the Liberty Square, but I want to hunt these in order from the beginning of the line to the end. This will also make it an easy trip back home at the end of the route for you Liberty riders. I'd rather start earlier, but I have commitments in the morning that could take some time and I know some of you can't be free until afternoon. Plus it will be warmer by 1PM.

Another option IF you tell me you want this -- we could attempt to meet people in the Liberty Square around 2:15 - 2:30. I'm making the assumption that we can ride and find the 2 caches and reach Liberty within 1.5 hours---which seems plausible. If we are early, we can just go hunt other local Liberty caches to "kill" time. So TELL ME if you want this option. Feel free to call and leave a msg on my moblie phone even if it's already after 1PM on Sun. I'll check my messages when we hit Liberty.

Also, I know many of you do not have GPS units. Once we reach a cache site, I like to share the GPS to let people see what it's like and get the thrill of the hunt in their blood. So come along for the hunt regardless.

Troy
troy at troywolf dot com
816.739.9653

If you want to study up on the KCCC Interurban caches, you can go to http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx and search By Keyword for "KCCC".

Troy, are you going to hit only the KCCC caches or are you going after a lot more then just those? Your route had lots of caches on it. If you are sticking to the KCCC I may join you however my plans are a little up in the air so don't wait on me.

Eddie

I plan to stick to the KCCC. I included a lot of caches "along the route" just in case we hit an area and decide to find an extra cache or 2.

Anybody who does plan to meet me, you need to post here by 10AM Sunday or CALL me after that. If I'm not expecting anyone, I may skip the meeting time and place and just head out when I'm ready.

Doesn't look like I'll be able to make either one. My parents decided they want to check out Zona Rosa. So, since my wife is a professional shopper, I'll probably be there awhile.

I will be on the square at 1:00 with the KLR. If nobody shows, that's OK.

I didn't make this ride because other things came up, but I did get out this morning for about 2 hours and put a good test on my bike. This winter I bit off a little more than I could chew with mods and it was nice to get to trust the bike again after surgery. Next time I need to remember to do one thing at a time with a good road test in between. It's good to go for whenever the next ride is!

troy wrote:

tp_cracker wrote:Anybody else expect to ride without heated grips, jacket, etc.? I don't want to slow anybody up by trying to warm up every now and then.

FYI: Heated grips are cheap to buy and easy to install. I paid about $26 at Letko cycle for my heated grip kit and spent about 1 hour installing it...and that was taking my time with the install. Nice thing about a KLR is you probably have lots of room in the dash panel to add the switch. On my DR350, space is a bit limited.

Another quick option is to get "Hippo Hands". These are simply insulted covers that go on your handlebars and have a sleeve for your lower arms to go into and grab the handlebars.

Safiri provided this link in a previous topic:
http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/naviga ... pCatg=6359

The real Hippohands (much better than the Sam's club version) can be found at http://hippohands.com/. They are much more expensive than the Sam's version as well. I have not tried the Sam's version. For the price, it might be good though. Seems from the picture that getting hands in and out while moving might be rather difficult.

I agree with the Hippo-Hands nod. I bought a pair of those ATV ones at Cabela's (Pretty sure their the same ones) and tried them in the parking lot. They wouldn't even go on over my Tusk D-Flex barkbusters. I also felt that you wouldn't be able to get in and out easily. I took them back 10 minutes after I bought them.

JaySoy, glad your mods went well and the KLR is running and ready.

How was your ride, Carl?

Mine ride was not much of a ride. First, since nobody told me they would be meeting me, I opted (as I said I would) to skip the meeting place and time. The computer updates I needed to do in the morning could not be done because I had to wait on other people to do their part. I'm still waiting and it's 6:59. Since I did not want to be too far away when the computers were ready, I did some local geocache hunting.

First I found the first Interurban bridge. This was a 2 part "multi-cache". I found stage 1 which contained coords for stage 2, but I was unable to locate stage 2 even though I could tell I was in a spot other people had been searching.

From there, I rode into N. KC and found a "microcache" located on an old train engine in a park.

Lastly, I found the "Avondale" Interurban cache. This was a traditional ammo box with log book and trinkets. While rummaging through the woods off the side of the road (my motorcycle was parked 250 yards away in a park), 3 police officers stopped their vehicles to ask me what I was doing. Turns out they were looking for a suspect on foot whom they suspected had run into the woods. I guess I did not fit the perp's description because they were content to leave me be---after I briefly explained what "geocaching" was as they had never heard of it.

Also while at the Avondale geocache, I got a vmail from Ajayhawkfan whom apparently I stood up at the Latte Land. I was not aware he planned to meet me. SORRY!

So now I'm sitting at my office waiting for the other guys to wrap it up so I can do my part. Sure was nice riding weather--I hope some of you guys got to enjoy it.

As Troy said I did go to meet and waited for a little bit. At 1:20 I figured something must have come up so I went caching as well.

I went to the Interurban near were we were to meet and found the first part quickly and after a little searching I found the second part. The cache is about the size of a wallet so easy to overlook. I then went to Liberty, picked up H highway and went north to grab two more Interurban caches near Excelsior Springs. I then headed east, picked up a cache on the east of Smithville lake. I continued east to Dearborn for a couple more Interurban caches. After those I jumped on the interstate and header to Wyandotte Co. Lake for 2 more cache and then home. I ended up grabbing 8 caches and riding 135 miles.

I didn't want to commit to anything, my main mission for today was get my rear brake working as well as it should and play with my gps.
I got a late start waiting for it to warm up, got out around 3 and got 75 miles in. I wanted to get used to riding with the gps mounted and make sure I wasn't a danger to myself or others. I learned a couple things, make sure your track log is turned on and I'm going to need some new rx sunglasses with bifocal.
I dressed in layers, some old bulky gloves kept my hands warm but make it difficult to press the right buttons. I was comfortable until around 5 when my hands started getting cold.