Had a great mornings ride with Woody and the gang, I'm sure he'll post a ride report; but not wanting to get too far West before heading home, I split off at Cedar Vale and wandered back home. Having forgotten my phone, and not having a map, I thought to myself "Well, this
is an
adventure bike after all" and pointed the front tire generally north east.
Heading north on Road 5 from Highway 166, I figured I'd find something interesting, and boy did I! Rd 6 & Nation (
37.185967,-96.435526), you can go west for a little ways (Thought I'd explore, but it dead ends at a beautiful abandoned creek crossing about 50 yards past the crest of the hill where the "road" turns into something resembling a deer trail, to the east, it is a wonderful low to minimum maintenance ride that I'd avoid if it was any wetter than today running to a T intersection at Road 9, which dead ends to the north and is posted private property (though I thought the sign was for the field entrance, it does appear to be an abandoned and now private road). Turning south on Road 9, there's some more wonderful minimum maintenance for a mile south to Marshal (
37.171143,-96.380866). Road 9 looked interesting further to the South, but I needed to go East instead!
Continuing on the more commonly well maintained gravel, I did pass a road at
37.344231,-96.213412 which looked fun to the West, but continued on north east; and managed to go right past Elk Falls without even realizing, and turned East at
37.369353,-96.109693 on to Explorer road, since it looked ill-maintained. It was fairly muddy, but fun. I'd recommend dryer conditions than today for that road, as I spun out once and fish tailed quite a bit (didn't have to "inspect" the mud by falling in to it though!), and continued north on that road after it turned into 9th, on past 183rd following 5th street in to town.
Being too far north, I let the tarmac carry me back south through Oak falls, turning east on Blackbird (
37.328396,-95.976286) according to the sign, and 18rd According to the map. Turns into 5800rd a quarter mile later in Montgomery county, which became VERY interesting at 1775rd (
37.328034, -95.896805) continuing east past the farm house, I was immediately confronted with some SERIOUS mud, though it had a bottom to it, it was quite slimy. Soldiering on I found a fairly shallow water crossing at
37.327728, -95.889934, though the steep banks and thick slimy mud caused a trivial crossing to appear challenging from the top of the slope. However, I squirmed it on through and up the other side, ripping loose a "YEEHHAWWW!" on the way!
However, squirming through another half mile of mud, I found myself confronted with a sharp right hand corner obscured by trees, with what appeared to be a SERIOUS mud pit at the bottom. I knew I didn't want to ride in to that blind and alone. It's a good thing too, stopping to inspect, I found what I can only describe as a RIVER bisecting the road (
37.328363,-95.883445)! It looks like tractors and maybe 4wd trucks still use the crossing when the water is low, but I had no idea how deep it was, and wasn't even going to think about trying to cross. This section of 5800 runs from
37.328034, -95.896805 to
37.327830,-95.855749. Best approached in DRY weather, but a fun spin if you dare!
The rest of the way from there was fairly standard issue gravel. I didn't go down there today, assuming it'd be flooded, but there's a fun little zero-maintenance creek crossing at
37.294898,-95.837440 in this area.
Looking forward to next time! Ride safe out there.