These photos are actually from two rides in Miami County, Kansas on September 2nd and 3rd, 2009. For the first one, I parked at the Louisburg Cider Mill and rode south and then east, through Somerset and New Lancaster.
The next day, I parked at the Wal-Mart in Paola, and [...]
With a northerly wind, I mapped out a route into an area that was almost totally new to me. I parked in Pomona, KS and road north on gravel, finding some MMRs along the way. Tried to hook up with the Landon Nature Trail, but never did manage to find [...]
I enjoyed my previous Franklin/Anderson County ride so much that I went back again the next weekend to explore some more. This time out wasn’t quite as enjoyable. The wind was tougher, the temperature was higher, and the terrain was flatter and predominantly row crops. Kind of boring in places, [...]
This ride was an opportunity to explore some country largely new to me. I parked in Ottawa and rode south through Greeley and Garnett. I really enjoyed this terrain, especially the section between Ottawa and Greeley, which was very rugged, with many dirt roads.
I drove a short distance to Stilwell, KS which is just a few miles from the Missouri border, and headed east and then south, mostly on gravel. I passed through Peculiar, Harrisonville, Freeman, and Cleveland before heading back north and across the state line to Stilwell. Totaled a little over [...]
This was actually my first self-supported bike camping experience. I’ve done bike-camping trips before (Katy Trail & Biking Across Kansas), but never carrying my own gear.
I own both a trailer (the Nashbar knockoff of the famous BOB trailer) and panniers (Nashbar again), but I went with the trailer [...]
The inaugural Farmhouse Classic Gravel Century took place on July 18th 2009 starting at a farm near Lathrop, Missouri. This was the first gravel century I completed, and it was quite a day.
Lets start off with the weather, which was amazing for mid-July — low 60°s to start, and [...]
Today I took a short trip to La Cygne, KS to explore the area by bike. I’ve had this on my “to-do” list since last October when I rode a bit of the area (Rutlader / LaCygne Lake Loop).
I had a great little route map all printed up and [...]
It’s not every day that I get to ride new roads, and the more I ride, the farther afield I have to go to find what I call “virgin roads”, but these are the rides that I love — that sense of exploration, of venturing into the unknown, the promise [...]
I’m way behind in posting these pictures, but this ride out of Cottonwood Falls, KS on April 11th turned out to be a great little ride. We’d originally mapped this out as a 55-mile route (following roughly the same route as the third stage of last year’s Dirty Kanza), [...]
Not a lot to write about recently. Weather’s been spotty, but I’ve gotten out for a few rides. Here are some pictures:
This was taken at the lake at Kill Creek Park on a cool but sunny day.
With lousy weather predominating in recent weeks, riding opportunities have been limited. I did get out on a few rides to test out my new fenders, with mixed results.
A late-season snow gave me an opportunity to ride the Long Haul Trucker in a few inches of the white stuff, and [...]
On the last day of Winter, I got out for a nice long ramble — about 35 miles of Miami County gravel southeast of Hillsdale. At long last, you can really see that Spring has almost arrived. The grass is starting to green up, trees are beginning to bud, and [...]
My Surly Long Haul Trucker had its first taste of singletrack, and found it rather tasty.
The LHT is not exactly a mountain bike, but it performed admirably on the trails at Dornwood Park and MacLennan Park in Topeka. These trails are more fast-and-flowy than technical, but there [...]
The Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant is a huge facility located in northwestern Johnson County, KS near the town of De Soto. The plant manufactured smokeless powder and propellants, starting in 1942, providing support for World War 2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. It was the largest such [...]
I loaded up my new wheelset — Mavic XC717 rims, Shimano Deore XT hubs (thanks, 9Toes!) — with a pair of Nashbar Multi-Purpose MTB Tires I’d picked up cheap last year, and headed off on a gravel ramble.
This was the first time I’d ridden dual mountain [...]
I wrecked my mountain bike two months ago, began riding again about 3 weeks after the accident, and have been riding it regularly ever since.
In all that time, I never once took a good look at the helmet I’d been wearing the day of the wreck. It appeared intact, [...]
I’ve now ridden just over 200 miles on my Surly Long Haul Trucker. It’s still too early to render a full verdict, but I can lay down some initial impressions:
Though I’d read some poor reviews of the WTB Slickasaurus tires, they haven’t been a problem so far. No [...]
I love exploring the back roads of Miami County, KS. To some degree, that’s because most of the roads are unfamiliar to me, but mostly it’s because there’s a lot of natural beauty there, even on a mid-winter day when all the trees are barren, all the fields are fallow, [...]
There are two hills on 135th Street in Olathe, that are known locally as the “Twisted Sisters”. It’s hard to say exactly how they stack up in comparison to other hills in the region, but as my friend Reed says, “They’re all there.” Here’s a picture looking east towards the [...]
The new Surly Long Haul Trucker is basically stock, except for a few little additions I’ve made:
Rear Rack: The rear rack is a Planet Bike Eco Rack, a basic but functional rack that came with my EZ-Sport. There are fancier and more rugged racks, but this should do [...]
Welcome, if you would, a new member of the DirtBum bicycle family, a Surly Long Haul Trucker (follow the link for detailed specifications):
I got this on January 3rd, and have had it out for two rides so [...]
When I hurt my shoulder on December 7th, I figured my year was done for, and I’d finish up just short of 6000 miles for the year. Not so fast there.
The shoulder’s getting better. I have good range of movement, and it doesn’t hurt much at all, except for [...]
Looks like my cycling season has reached a premature end.
Sunday afternoon I drove to Lawrence, KS to ride the Clinton Lake Trails with 9Toes. Neither of us had ridden these trails, so we didn’t really know our way around. I lead out, and right away we hit some [...]
Awoke to snow in the ground for the first time this season, and decided to go out and play in it a bit.
I stayed close to home, heading up the road a couple miles to Lone Elm Park, where I hit the gravel and grass trails for a few loops. [...]
Earlier in the year, many of my rides seemed to be of the “long and slow” variety, as I built up the base miles. Later, there were a good number of “short and fast”, and even a few, rare, “long and fast” rides.
But now, as the year winds down and [...]
On Thursday I did some further southward explorations, this time starting at the Rutlader Outpost near Louisburg, KS.
My route took me east to Cold Creek Road, then south to Drexel, then south some more on State Line Road. I originally mapped out my route to totally encircle LaCygne [...]
Wednesday I did a gravel ride from the Louisburg Cider Mill south through New Lancaster, nearly to La Cygne, and back through Somerset, for a total of a bit over 37 miles. I would have gone further, but I got a late start, and needed to get back to [...]
Did a fun night ride last night with some local folk I’ve been wanting to ride with for ages. For a night-time ride in late October, there was actually quite a crowd — ten riders, including myself, 9Toes, commuterDude, Noah, so other fellows I’d met but never [...]
I’m more than a little late in posting this, but geez, this sounded like fun. Wish I could have gone.
The Good Life Gravel Adventure was a 135-mile gravel grinder on the gravel and dirt roads surrounding Lincoln, Nebraska. It was put on by the Pirate Cycling League, a [...]
With rain in the forecast for the next several days, and a sunny (though cool and windy) day on tap, I took off for a short afternoon gravel ride, heading to Baldwin City and back.
The route followed 183rd Street due west, following the same path I rode in September ([...]
After a weekend of wind, followed by two days of rain, a sunny day with mild wind was too much to pass up, so Reed and I took a little field trip to lovely Miami County, Kansas (with a side trip across the state line to Missouri).
We parked in Louisburg [...]
I came across another offroad motorcycle touring web site of interest, this one dedicated the Trans-America Trail, a (nearly) coast-to-coast, off-pavement route using dirt roads, gravel roads, jeep roads, forest roads and farm roads. Dropping down into dried-up [...]
Took the bike along for a short trip to visit my folks, and got a chance to take it out for a short gravel ride late one afternoon.
My parents live on a farm in Lafayette County, MO, just south of the Missouri River in the west-central part of the [...]
Last year, about this time, a friend and I did a little private, self-supported century I called the Loop Le Loup Century. This year, we decided to open the ride up to a select group of friends and acquaintances.
We picked a route, picked the date — September 13th — [...]
Here’s a link to a great little site that’s rather similar to the idea behind DirtBum, except they’re focused on motorcycle touring on the backroads of Kansas, rather than bicycle touring.
The name of the site is Backroads Touring - Kansas, and the [...]
With the weekend century plans kaput due to relentless rain (hoping to reschedule for next weekend), I took off for an afternoon ride in the rain, if for nothing else than to test some new gear.
First, I wanted to check out the new rain jacket I [...]
With the weather forecast calling for rain the next two days, I headed out for a gravel ride, heading due west to Douglas State Fishing Lake, north a bit, then back pretty much straight east.
It was an rather warm and humid day, but overcast with a wind form the east [...]
Although I live only a few miles from Olathe’s Lone Elm Park, I’d never ridden there. I’d driven through the park, and new about the softball and soccer fields, as well as the handsome picnic shelter. I also knew there were some walking trails there. But I didn’t realize [...]
With only a couple hours to ride before the wife had other plans for me, I took a quick 21-mile gravel spin.
I’ve been on a bit of an eBay kick lately (a dangerous thing!), and most of the items alluded to in the title relate directly to that:
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In what has already become a tradition, members of the Mid-Day/Mid-Week BikeSource Ride took their annual trip to Parkville to pre-ride the Kansas City Tour of Missouri route, and since the Tour Of Champions is the official pre-ride, that makes this, I guess, the pre-pre-ride.
Anyway … six [...]
The ride invitation from a local bike club was too much to resist:
Awesome Gravel Road Ride — some pavement, lots of gravel, really great scenery, one abandoned road and a few hills. The route is about 40 miles, I expect to ride it at a moderate to easy pace in [...]
I had planned to take today off in preparation for a weekend gravel tour, but with the trip aborted due to my riding partner having unexpected work conflicts, I decided to ride some gravel before I took the knobby tires off the bike.
I selected a route I’d been thinking about [...]
After the recent night ride fiasco, I resolved to get myself some better lighting. And with an upcoming weekend tour planned, in which there was a good chance of some nighttime riding, the need was rather urgent.
Still, I couldn’t quite persuade myself to drop $100+ on a bike-specific lighting [...]
I’ve heard and read about nighttime trail rides, but never experienced one for myself, so when I got a call from 9Toes asking if I wanted to ride the Kill Creek trails, I said “Hell, yeah,” even though I’d just ridden a rather past-paced 55-mile road ride in [...]
After a few days off the bike, and a fairly fast-paced Wednesday group ride, I was surprised to find myself a bit of soreness in the quads prior to yesterday’s Lawrence River Trail ride.
Though that trail’s is fast and flowing, and not particularly tough on the body, I [...]
Went for a short ride on the Lawrence River Trail in Lawrence, Kansas. This was my second time on the trail, and it was an even better experience than my first run.
On my first trip, one section of the trail was underwater. This time, the water had receded and [...]
I rode the Cider Mill Century on Sunday, and with oppressive heat and a bit of wind, it was a long, hot day.
After doing this same ride last yeat on the recumbent, I decided that this year I wanted to try it on the mountain bike, just [...]
My bike’s handlebar is an Easton EA50 Monkeybar, which has a 1.5 inch rise and 9 degrees of sweep.
Coming from a recumbent, and with a history of Repetitive Strain Injury, hand comfort was a major concern with an upright bike. Going into this little experiment, I didn’t [...]
On a day that promised firecracker-hot temperatures, but instead delivered a slightly soggy and overcast sky, Reed and I did a gravel road ride south to the town of Somerset in central Miami County, Kansas.
For the first part of the ride, we followed the same route that 9Toes and I [...]
After not having a chance to ride at all over the weekend, I had some errands to run in Kansas City, so I took the opportunity to visit a trail system I’d never ridden before, even though it’s only about 25 miles from my house.
The trail system is known as [...]
After poking along on the Rantoul Ride, I felt like opening it up a bit, and rode a short loop on some local roads, southwest towards Hillsdale Lake.
It turned out to be about 21 miles, probably 95% gravel, mostly flattish, but a few short and steep hills, and one [...]
This is the DirtBum blog. I’m the bum, I ride dirt — gravel roads and trails. If you’re interested in a little background info on the site and on me read About DirtBum.
This site is primarily a personal blog, telling the stories of my bicycle rides on the back [...]
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