Here's your invitation to a day of local mtb'ing this Saturday, Apr 25.
Goal: Ride at least one lap at all 5 THOR metro trails, riding from one trail to the next. Approximately 80 miles, around 30 of which being singletrack.
Ride to Tranquility. Start singletrack at Fort St. parking lot at 8 am. (If you're driving to Tranquility, I suggest parking in Bike Masters parking lot.) Then we'll ride to Swanson, Jewell, stop for fast food and cross S. Omaha bridge to Manawa, then on to L&C, returning across ped bridge for a drink/food downtown before riding home.
There will be different speed groups. I'm in the one speed group, a casual, non anaerobic group. 8-) For myself, I'm estimating 8 am to start TP, 10 SP, 11 JP, 1 pm MSP, 3 L&C, 4 downtown, 6 back at TP.
This is a non supported ride. Each rider is responsible for getting him/herself back.
15 comments:
great idea! wish i was going to be in town, but i'll be bombing porc rim!
Here's my interpretation as to the route we might take?
I didn't include the trails themselves, but it looks like 70 miles on the road is probable. I guess shortcuts could be had to drop it a little, but you can't take out the DQ stop! We shall visit the Queen!!!
Excellent map, Mike! I suggest one change. Leaving Tranquility, we go south on 120th past Maple and take the first left (not shown but opposite the first right), ride through Mulhals and south to Blondo, east 3 blocks to the Big Papio trail.
Thanks for the routes from Swanson to Jewell and Manawa to L&C. I hadn't figured them out yet.
Oh yeah! Your reroute at the beginning makes way more sense. Let's do that.
There will be some roads that are kinda busy. Cornhusker has a shoulder. I chose a weird, longer routing to get to Jewell that will have less traffic(compared to staying on Cornhusker), although more hills.
13th Street will be sorta busy, but with 2 lanes, they can deal with us.
East of the South Omaha bridge (hwy 92/275), they've been working on side paths for that road. If anything, there'll be solid dirt to ride on.
The road NorthWest from the Wabash trailhead/Iowa School for the Deaf has a bike lane on it. So that will be nice.
I've never been in North East CB, so I don't know what 8th St will be like, but my guess is not bad.
After LnC, I think we'll be pretty pooped, so I chose the route that I know of that has the mellowest hills/traffic. If there's a more direct Northern route to take out of Downtown, then we can change en-route.
I'm in but would like to be done WAY before 6pm. More like done around 3pm would be stellar. Anyone planning to make a more aggressive group?
Not to throw a wrench in someone else's plan, but physically it might be worth considering hit L&C 2nd, while legs are fresh, then rolling to MSP, then over So O bridge to Jewell & Swanson.
I guess maybe on a ride this long the notion of "fresh legs" is kind of moot.
Mike 8th St is fine. You'll ride the bike lane on Harry Langdon into town onto 3rd and then just cut over to 8th anywhere before Broadway.
I did this last year and it was near 100 miles and I did ride L&C first. You guys will have a blast......while I'm working.
Ryan, I see your point. Plus, that would put us along the busiest roads earlier in the day when they may not be so busy? Then we'd have the nice flat Keystone/Big Papio to finish off the ride at the end?
I'm up for either direction.
Oh, and thanks Flanders for the 8th street info. Wish you could join us.
Having 15 miles of flat keystone/big papio for finish does sound nice. I may want to eat on the CB side going that way. Maybe visit the Queen between Jewell and Swanson?
Ryan,
I think your way of hitting L&C second while the legs are still fresh (relatively) is a good idea. Just a cruise back north after Swanson. Makes sense to me.
Oh, and being done around 3 would be great, but if you believe Mr. Munson's mileage on the road that puts the day closer to 100 miles (70 on road and ~30 off road for a total of 100 miles) that'll put us averaging 14.28 mph including stops. Not ridiculously fast but it'll be a nice clip.
Ok, here's a revised route that has us going to LnC first, and includes Dale's reroute at the end. I lopped off a bit to bring it down to 63 miles of road. I figured at 8:30 in the morning we could head straight down Fort/Military/NW Radial into downtown without much problems as a group. Power in numbers.
I am still iffy about the junction between Jewell and Swanson. The only arteries over hwy 75 are Chandler (North, hilly, add to distance, but less traveled), Cornhusker (no shoulder, way too busy, not really an option), and hwy 370 (busy fast traffic, but with decent shoulder and a fairly direct route between Jewell and Swanson. That is unless we eat earlier and don't head into Old Towne Bellevue. Then we could hit up Chandler a little easier. We should decide as a group which route would be best.
Food right after Manawa might be a good idea. By then it'll be 11am or so and we'll have quite a bit a travel done by then. So I know I'll be hungry. Plus, near Manawa, there's a lot more in the way of restaurant choices compared to Bellevue.
You guys do know that Dale was just kidding, right? Aw, hell, what time are we leaving?
Munsoned, will you be rockin your bike with a rack? Or carrying a really big messenger bag? I'm looking for places to stash arm warmers and vest after 9am. I plan to do it on one bottle & a wad of cash!
Nope, I'm actually going full mtb with gears this time. Only thing missing from a traditional hardtale design is a front shock. After a few laps of riding at Swanson last night with riding there and home, I'm going to need all the help I can get to make it through the whole day.
If it happens. The forecast is looking not so good. Someone who has posting privs probably needs to make the call Friday night as to whether we all need to show up on Saturday or not. Cause they're talking about overnight showers on Friday. My guess is that would be a singletrack killer right?
Looks like we have a dry window today. Cool in the 50's, no sunburn and no hot 90.
Time to apply the assos and ride.
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