Lawrence West Route – Sunday 7/8

[MesaLC4]

I've been wanting to ride this route that I snagged from Troy's ride reports. Anyone interested?

It's about 350 miles and would be a long day in the saddle.

[safiri]

I have the desire but I don't have the time. Enjoy. This is a great ride. Take lots of water and stay hydrated.

Here is the Garmin MS route and tracks:
http://home.everestkc.net/malsin/Motorc ... 20Loop.gdb
I modified some of the eastward leg after Topeka to get off of pavement. Where the route crosses I-70 out west the route isn't open. The track shows a way around.

Long ride, 3 of us did the whole enchilada. Collapsed on the front porch of a friend's house in Lawrence for an hour to build up the energy to ride back to KC. Troy didn't argue with the hour long break.

IIRC, at N750RD (Rock Creek Cemetery) there is a stream crossing. Looked very deep but not so bad.

Here are Troy's pictures (stream crossing at the end):
http://home.troywolf.com/SiteAlbum/?a=. ... 2006-07-08

[kchusky]

What time? How much of that pavment?

[safiri]

What time? How much of that pavment?

Uhhh, "I don't have the time [to do this ride]."

In terms of how long / time ... Troy and I left KC around 630 am and got back home around 745 pm. 13 hours. Subtract an hour in Lawrence resting, an hour at lunch trying to herd everyone, 30 minutes for the breakdown, and an hour or two for the dynamics of a large group. That leaves 8.5 - 10 hours, perhaps less, with a small group on a mission leaving from KC.

Very little is pavement IIRC. Perhaps 15 - 20% ... on the way back to Lawrence we deviated from the route in order to avoid pavement.

[MesaLC4]

Safiri,

Thanks for the great info, updated route and photo link!

It looks like a great ride! I'll post pics and ride report.

[david h]

I will join you tomorrow if it works out. I helped plan the route for the first ride so I can help you get lost. I will meet you at Burger King In Lawrence which is located right next to I- 70 (turnpike) on 59 highway. Call me at 785---331 --5779 to let me know when you will be in the Lawrence area and where we can meet. If it does not work out in your plans, I will see you on a ride in the future.

David h

[MesaLC4]

David,

Glad you can join us! I'm meeting KCHusky in Olathe at 6:30 so that should put us at the Burger King around 7:30

Anyone else?

[kchusky]

I'm ready, going to gas on the way to Starbucks in the morning. 350 miles, think I'll be doing some standing up riding, might just be enough to get me to buy a tall soft EE seat.. Just have to wait and see.

[david h]

If both you boys are on the south side of KC you might want to consider riding the route backwards to save a little time. I could introduce you to a little single track here at my place which is located south of Lawrence about 2 miles and is right on the path to where you want to go. If interested call me for directions, otherwise I will see you at Burger king.

David h

[kchusky]

Don't be teasing about single track now, thats just one of those things one shouldn't tease about. I'm up for what ever....but I'm not the one with the GPS. Just looking forward to riding.

[david h]

Nice ride today,except for a few small details. I got my first flat in about the last 15,000 miles of riding. What the hell is a nail doing on a road? I got to meet and ride with 2 new to me riders, and had a fun time. We traveled mostly west from Olathe-Lawrence and ended up having lunch in Alma. Right after lunch I could hear this darn sound of metal clicking and assumed it was a chain or something cause the DR has a lot of chain noise anyway. Turned out to be my rear bearings . Ok here I am 80 or so miles from home and thinking what the hell am I gonna do. We head for home on back roads so I can go slow (40) and make it about 10 miles before we noticed our third rider was not with us. We talked for a second and decided I would crawl on and rider # 2 would go back to find our missing rider. I went for a ways and stopped so the other riders could catch up, After what seemed like forever I figured we were all lost or something mechanical had malfunctioned. I decided to go on to Eskridge to try and phone my wife for a ride home. Eskridge has no phone signal (at least not cingular) so I waited around some more for my missing friends, then took off for home with the hope my bearings would last. I rode asphalt at about 35-40 mph and would stop every few miles to try and hear what the bike was doing. Sometimes it would barely click and sometimes it was silent. I kept going and made it home without mishap. I have the worst luck with bearing! This set was less than 3000 miles old.

It will be interesting to find out what happened, David h

[safiri]

Nice ride today,except for a few small details.

Turned out to be my rear bearings

I have the worst luck with bearing!

This happened the last time this route was run ... by the leader, Chris!

Glad you made it home ok.

[troy]

The suspense is killing me! Where's MesaLC4 and kchusky?! Check in guys--hope you are OK.

I just yesterday replaced the rear wheel bearings in my 99 DR350SE. (Thanks, Safiri!) I have 14,500 miles, and they were quite shot. One of them had rust in it, and the wheel had a good deal of slop. Hopefully I'll get a lot of mileage out of my new bearings, too. I wonder why you only got 3,000 out of your bearings, Dave?

[MesaLC4]

What a ride! 295 total miles, a few flats and one get off. Fortunately the misery was spread out amongst the three of us. Thanks to David H. for showing us around. Okay, now the scoop:

I met up with KCHusky in Olathe and we hit the road at about 7:00 to meet up with David H. in Lawrence. We decided to do just the Southern half of the loop turning around in Alma. It wasn't long before we had our first hiccup:

David get's a rear flat.



David get's 'er fixed and we're back on the road. This is a great gravel ride with some good two-track and incredible views near Eskridge. This was probably my favorite part of the ride - wide open, rolling prairie.

KCHusky showed off his woodsrider expertise at a creek crossing:



Opting to skip the deep portion of the creek, he runs the creek wall that was off-camber and blocked by a tricky tree:



Back on the gravel, we made our way to Alma for lunch. Don't know if this was an omen or not, but during lunch the street out in front of the sub shop cracked open under KCHusky's bike and spewed a mini-creek down Main Street.



David H. and KCHusky:



The trip back was a little exciting. I get my turn at changing a flat and then have to change it again a few miles down the road (used a patched tube, big mistake). Then KCHusky gets crossed up in some ruts and tumbles into the ditch. He's okay, but will be sore tomorrow. We try to Locate David, who was having wheel bearing issue, but we must have just missed him. By now we're exhausted and ready to get home. We jump on 56 Hwy at Baldwin City and slab it home for a twelve hour day! Lot's of fun and would definitely do it again.

-Greg

[kchusky]

As you have seen it wasn't the smoothest ride for us. Seemed like one little thing after another. We did ride the allusive box turtle road, that was fun but kind of like one of those rides at Disneyland you just start having fun and the ride is already over. Oh ya, there was traffic on box turtle road also. Thanks to David and Greg for setting up the ride and leading at different times. My missfortune issue was miss reading how I should have ran through a rutted section. I know slowing down was a opption but I felt good up to that point. Ended up getting tossed about seven feet or so from the bike once the bars crossed and the tire dug in to stop . Broke my visor and my arm is ripped up from wrist to elbow. But all in all a fun LONG day on the bikes. There were so many fun places along the way that David knew about that it just made it a great day.

[troy]

Fantastic....except for the injuries. Yeah, you can't go wrong with David H along--he'll show you the good stuff! Thanks for the photos, MesaLC4. Glad to hear you guys all made it home OK.

[safiri]

As you have seen it wasn't the smoothest ride for us.

Oh ya, there was traffic on box turtle road also.

There were so many fun places along the way that David knew about that it just made it a great day.

Not smooth but you didn't need rescued. Wheel bearings and flats seem to be random failure items. I swapped out front bearings on my KTM early this summer and left the back alone b/c it didn't have any play. After a 200 miles of riding, the back had a wobble. Go figure.

Traffic: What type? Cows, tractors, 4x4s, mc???

David does lead / make a good ride / route. The route you attributed to Troy and that I posted was/is David's.

Glad you are all safe, albeit a little sore.

[troy]

Oh ya, there was traffic on box turtle road also.

I won't even ride Box Turtle anymore because of the traffic. I hear they are getting ready to widen it to a divided 4 lane with traffic lights. JUST KIDDING!

[MesaLC4]

Thanks again to David for putting together a great route and leading us around!

Box Turtle Rd: I think it was a quad and a utility cart stuck in a mudhole.

Looking forward to doing this ride again soon. This time making the whole loop North to Wamego and back to Lawrence.

[kchusky]

Box Turtle Rd: I think it was a quad and a utility cart stuck in a mudhole.

I think they where part of the survey crew.