Original plans were for a weekend in Missouri, attending the Blue Oval Rally car show in Hermann on Saturday, and then on Sunday riding more of the Katy Trail on a portion we haven't yet ridden. However, when we received 7 inches of rain where we live on Thursday evening, we figured that same storm front would be hitting central Missouri by the weekend, making the weather not conducive to either a car show or bike riding.
Therefore, we decided to just find a paved trail to ride so he could try out his new-to-him Cannondale bike with 29-inch wheels that fits him much, much better. We decided on the Little Mill Creek Trail in the Lenexa suburb of Kansas City. We parked in Little Mill Creek North Park, through which part of the bike trail travels.
There's the new man-sized bike, and he is very happy to have it.
(Yes the new bike is Great! Its a Cannondale SL5 29er! A lucky find at my Dad's pawn shop! ~~S)
No pictures of the trail were taken on this ride, as the photographer (her) has been battling a head cold/sore throat/fatigue this week and, well, I just didn't feel like messing with it. I had a hard enough time just keeping up with the speed demon on his super-fast big-wheeled new bike. :)
It was a pretty nice trail, partially concrete/partially asphalt. The seams in the concrete seemed pretty deep or something, so riding across them provided a constant and annoying buh-bump, buh-bump, buh-bump, buh-bump. I was happy when it finally changed to asphalt so we could lose the concrete seams and the buh-bumps, but that just got replaced by a pretty uneven asphalt surface that seemed likely caused by age and tree roots. It was pretty rough in a lot of places.
With all the aforementioned rain we had received, there were many, many unavoidable puddles on the trail, so we ended up pretty muddy. But, I will give Shout stain remover props: It got them all out.
Our goal was to get a 10-mile ride in. The Little Mill Creek Trail by itself was not going to give us that many miles, but it connected to the Blackfish Parkway Trail and we were able to get closer to our mileage goal by taking the connection.
The Blackfish part of the trail was by far the best surface of all that we rode today. This, too, was concrete, but without the annoying buh-bumpy deep seams. It was a very smooth, nice ride.
When we arrived back at the park where we had parked our vehicle, we still needed about a mile and a half yet to achieve our 10-mile goal, so we finished it up just by riding the trail circling around the park, where she almost ate it when she was too busy looking at a sign and didn't realize a yellow balustrade was in the middle of the trail. Off the trail she went and behind some trash cans, but managed to stay on the bike and keep it upright. "I"m okay!" But maybe a little foggy-headed and tired. The 10-mile ride did wear me out, as I was nowhere near 100% health on this ride.
The park had nice restroom facilities for us to change out of our muddy clothes. For lunch we had Zarda BBQ in Lenexa, (had the Average Joe Sandwich! Yum! ~~S) then headed back home where a nap was strongly calling her name.
Our drive there and back took us through Ottawa where we got to see the flood gates on the Marais des Cygnes River closed, shutting off their main road to their downtown. Most of the farm ground along 68 Hwy between Ottawa and Pomona was completely submerged in flood waters.
