riding to vinland

met up with travis s - http://tinyurl.com/38gn78b - at south park in lawrenc at 7:30 this morning. we headed out as quickly as i could get my bike out and my stuff put together.

we left the park and snaked our way through town headed south. we passed broken arrow park where i've met up with the lawrence bicycle club on a number of saturdays in the past. we kept going south to county road 458 and turned west. i hadn't ever climbed up to the wells overlook, so he thought we should do that. the road to the tower is just a quarter mile long, but it has two switchbacks to get you up it. pretty fun.

riding back down, we turned east and then south again on a country road. i don't know the road's name. we turned east again when the road turned to gravel and encountered a couple of nasty short hills.

eventually, our route turned on to a main road that took us south and then east into the little town of vinland. vinland can't have more than a couple hundred residents, but it has three churches and a grass airstrip. we stopped in the shade for some shotbloks there before continuine on east to 1900 road.

at 1900 we turned north to head back to lawrence. the southeast wind we'd been fighting the whole way out suddenly became our friend. we pushed it hard up and over hills making it to the old highway between eudora and lawrence fairly quickly.

from there we rode on into lawrence. my chain popped off just as we were starting the climb into lawrence on 15th street. i told travis to keep going and i'd catch him. i made contact at the top of the second hill and we rode back to south park.

a great ride! travis and i will reconnect the next time i'm at my parents. maybe next time a few more DMers will be able to join us. (27.77 miles @ 17.1mph)