Bicycle riding

[JVShocker]

33 for me this morning. Checked out the new bike path connecting Derby and Mulvane. That stretch of path is kind of hilly for these parts if that’s your thing.

And what pray tell is the best (read that as SAFEST way get to Derby from Wichita. Rode from Wichita to Derby once many years ago, just straight out on Rock Road. I would never recommend any ever do that. Is there a safe route or just drive out bike and drive home?

[MadDog]

It’s been a while since you’ve tried to get to Derby, JV. You can ride from Sedgwick County Park to Mulvane and you are on bike paths all the way with the exception of a couple blocks of side streets around K15 and MacArthur.

Since you’re an east sider, you can start from Chisholm Creek Park and take the K96 path to about 1/2 mile east of Woodlawn. There you pick up the Armour Bike Blvd and take it to Towne East. From there you pick up the path on the west side of Towne East that runs south to Geo Washington Blvd and on south along the west side of Spirit.

Derby has a surprisingly extensive network of bike paths. Most of the major streets have a parallel bike path. The new section of path we rode today that connects Derby and Mulvane parallels Rock Road.

And I totally agree, totally insane to ride from North Rock Rd to Derby on a bike. I would never do it. BTW, to get to 33 miles we launched from Mt Vernon and Hillside.

[MadDog]

https://www.ksdot.org/bureaus/burRail/bike/ksbicyclemap.asp

this is the link to the KS DOT Kansas bike maps. Also includes blowup maps of the larger cities. And if you ask them, they will send you a nice hard copy map. Map is updated for 2020.

[MoValley John]

Screenshot_20200825-212919_MapMyRide.jpg20200825_192048.jpg This is what happens when your mouth writes checks your body really doesn't want to cash. I had a 7 AM session with my personal trainer today, it was a somewhat vigorous back and shoulder workout. Last night, one of my riding partners called to see if I wanted to ride today. I eagerly accepted, noting that I couldn't ride in the AM, as I was meeting my trainer. We settled on around Noon.

I get done with the trainer, get home, slap some work together, make some calls and call it a day. I meet my buddy at his house for the ride. Moments before we set off, my wife called in a great mood, asking what I was doing. I explained that I was about to go for a ride. Her mood shifted, quickly.

Apparently, she thought that we were riding tonight. Oh No! I remembered that on Saturday I asked her if she wanted to ride to Mineola, Iowa on Tuesday for $,50 wings. I improvised a quick response and said I planned on both rides. Crap.

So, keeping my wife happy, I did a 28 mile ride, followed by a 22 mile ride, all after an hour at the gym! At least the wings were cheap!!
Screenshot_20200825-213006_MapMyRide.jpg

[JVShocker]

24 miles tonight. Almost 2 hours but I stopped for a boatload of photos. More trail riding. Lots of pics. Going in order on the photos, you can see how quickly it starts to get dark, especially as you travel to the east side of Wichita. Good thing I took two lights, one of them died 3/4 through the ride and needs to be recharged.

Woodlawn and Redbud (corridor) almost 8pm



5-10 minutes later looking back west (below):



10 minutes later on K96 bike path, it got dark and moon was out (below):



Looking back towards Warren theater (below)




Bridge over 96 near Central (below)




Illuminated sign showing beginning of K96 bike path at Central (below)




somewhere on the redbud trail and it is DARK:



Fountains at Waterfront:



Hope everyone is well and enjoyed their rides.

[revenge_of_shocka_khan]

Nice pictures, JV Shocker!

22 last night in a little less than 90 minutes yesterday. Still riding in circles, still waiting for the construction nearby to complete. Days are definitely shorter, I'm needing my light more and more during the week. Still warm down here...upper 90's and low 100's, but cooling off quicker and a little lower at night. Cooler weather is coming.

[revenge_of_shocka_khan]

Screenshot_20200825-212919_MapMyRide.jpg20200825_192048.jpg This is what happens when your mouth writes checks your body really doesn't want to cash. I had a 7 AM session with my personal trainer today, it was a somewhat vigorous back and shoulder workout. Last night, one of my riding partners called to see if I wanted to ride today. I eagerly accepted, noting that I couldn't ride in the AM, as I was meeting my trainer. We settled on around Noon.

I get done with the trainer, get home, slap some work together, make some calls and call it a day. I meet my buddy at his house for the ride. Moments before we set off, my wife called in a great mood, asking what I was doing. I explained that I was about to go for a ride. Her mood shifted, quickly.

Apparently, she thought that we were riding tonight. Oh No! I remembered that on Saturday I asked her if she wanted to ride to Mineola, Iowa on Tuesday for $,50 wings. I improvised a quick response and said I planned on both rides. Crap.

So, keeping my wife happy, I did a 28 mile ride, followed by a 22 mile ride, all after an hour at the gym! At least the wings were cheap!!
Screenshot_20200825-213006_MapMyRide.jpg

She's keeping a pretty fair pace if she rode 22 miles in 1:42.

[revenge_of_shocka_khan]

https://www.ksdot.org/bureaus/burRai...bicyclemap.asp

this is the link to the KS DOT Kansas bike maps. Also includes blowup maps of the larger cities. And if you ask them, they will send you a nice hard copy map. Map is updated for 2020.

The area west of the river in Wichita reminds me of Irving, Texas. Population of 242,000 with ZERO LBS's.

Oh, and only one puny bike lane on O'Connor.

The only saving grace about living there was that there were roads out to DFW (Walnut Hill Lane to get out there) that were close to where I lived and I was able to do 18-20 mile rides out to the airport and back. The west side of Irving had some nice hills.....I could get my old folder (that weighed 40 pounds) up to 35 going down the steepest one.

Downside is that they don't have bike lanes, the area around the airport is getting more heavily developed and I would bet in 10 years or so you would not be able to ride Walnut Hill Lane out there.

[JVShocker]

https://www.ksdot.org/bureaus/burRai...bicyclemap.asp

this is the link to the KS DOT Kansas bike maps. Also includes blowup maps of the larger cities. And if you ask them, they will send you a nice hard copy map. Map is updated for 2020.

Thanks for the link. With all those colors, all I could think of was...



That or a box of fruit loops....



Or Skittles.....(did I just break a fourth wall)

[MadDog]

Shaka, they’re doing some interesting things with some of the roads in Wichita to help out cyclists. The city is converting some of the more lightly travelled four lane streets to three lanes (one lane each way with a center turn lane) and bike lanes on each side. I noticed they just made that conversion very recently on Mt Vernon between Woodlawn and Oliver.

I personally don’t mind the bike lanes. I ride the 2nd street bike lane through downtown fairly frequently. I much prefer that to riding on the right side of a four lane road.

[MadDog]

So MVJ, you must have some incredible bike paths in Omaha to get the kind of speeds you’re getting. Our bike paths in Wichita are such that you have to stop every mile or two to cross a busy street. I get the impression you have a lot of long stretches without having to stop for street crossings?

[MoValley John]

So MVJ, you must have some incredible bike paths in Omaha to get the kind of speeds you’re getting. Our bike paths in Wichita are such that you have to stop every mile or two to cross a busy street. I get the impression you have a lot of long stretches without having to stop for street crossings?

The bike paths are dedicated bike and pedestrian trails. They either follow creeks and pass underneath roads at bridges with no intersections or are abandoned rail lines with very few intersections.

The Field Club Trail and South Omaha Trail are abandoned rail lines with a handful of intersections total, maybe six. That is the route to my wife's work.

The Keystone Trail, which I rode yesterday at Noon, is 36 miles from Fort Street in the North to Haworth Park in Bellevue to the South with no intersections. Three miles south of where we turnaround, it is closed due to floods of two years ago. The Corps of Engineers, Air Force and local Natural Resource District are rebuilding it. It is part of our local flood control system, the floods two years ago inundated Offutt Air Force Base and that just can't happen.

The Wabash Trace, which I rode with my wife, is a high quality crushed limestone rails to trails line. It runs from Council Bluffs, IA. to the Missouri border. Being a rail line, they maintain the original bridges and underpass for all of the highways, there are gravel intersections about every three miles, but not bad.

[JVShocker]

The bike paths are dedicated bike and pedestrian trails. They either follow creeks and pass underneath roads at bridges with no intersections or are abandoned rail lines with very few intersections.

The Field Club Trail and South Omaha Trail are abandoned rail lines with a handful of intersections total, maybe six. That is the route to my wife's work.

The Keystone Trail, which I rode yesterday at Noon, is 36 miles from Fort Street in the North to Haworth Park in Bellevue to the South with no intersections. Three miles south of where we turnaround, it is closed due to floods of two years ago. The Corps of Engineers, Air Force and local Natural Resource District are rebuilding it. It is part of our local flood control system, the floods two years ago inundated Offutt Air Force Base and that just can't happen.

The Wabash Trace, which I rode with my wife, is a high quality crushed limestone rails to trails line. It runs from Council Bluffs, IA. to the Missouri border. Being a rail line, they maintain the original bridges and underpass for all of the highways, there are gravel intersections about every three miles, but not bad.

Here in Wichita, unless you're downtown, there are stops every mile (usually). I would probably not venture out to the downtown path late evenings though.

[MoValley John]

Here is a brief history of how this happened up here. Omaha has three tributaries surrounding the city, the Missouri River to the North and East, Elkhorn River to the North and West and the Platte River to the West and South. This created a very flood prone area. The flooding has been mitigated by containment dams and lakes that surround the city. While Council Bluffs still floods, as does Bellevue, the system has spared Omaha from any major flooding since probably the 50's. Des Moines had a similar flood mitigation plan, but never completed it because of political pressure from farmers that controlled the land intended to be converted to flood control lakes. Des Moines. continues to have flooding about every five years.

Each containment lake surrounding Omaha flows into creeks that collect storm water and empty into the Platte and Missouri Rivers south of the city. This system created opportunities to build bike and pedestrian paths, without intersections, around the lakes and along the flood control creeks.

I'm not sure when the city had the vision to build bike paths along the creeks and around the lakes; ideas like this in the Midwest generally flounder, but the city, county, state and NRD continue to add to more paths to the system each year. When I came to Omaha years ago, these paths didn't exist. In fact, Omaha was considered one of the least bike friendly cities in America. It's nowhere in the same league as cities like San Fran, Denver, Minneapolis or Madison, WI, but Omaha is now considered a top 50 bike friendly city.

On a side note, for years I opposed the crazy idea of constructing walking and biking paths, I saw it as such a waste of money. When I started riding a few years back, I used them and enjoyed them, but still saw them as government waste. The more I ride, the more I see them being actively used, not only for recreation, but by people commuting around town. These dedicated paths are low maintenence, add to the quality of life of residents, and benefit even those that don't use them. People grow gardens along them, they provide useful green space and more. I've been converted and am a big proponent.

[MoValley John]

No miles today (yet) I might ride later. I spent an hour cleaning the limestone dust off of the bike, yup, I put tire dressing on the wheels! I also swapped out my chain with a freshly waxed chain. I would highly recommend paraffin lubricant on the chain over oil.