Hill Ride from Mom's

Far from the longest route I could have picked, this was a workout. The original plan was Switzer to County Line Road to Shawnee Drive, but County Line Road is torn up, so I continued up 55th into KCK. 55th has it's moments, hill wise, as does Oak Grove Road, see also Shawnee Drive.

Not to mention going downhill on 18th. I topped out at 36.3 mph but that was because I had to be careful not to build up more speed than I could stop from at the bottom, where it intersects with Merriam Lane. It's a little rough in the transition and crossing the tracks, but 18th Street turns into Foxridge on the JoCo side and that offers it's own punishing hills. It wasn't until the second of these that I finally had to move the chain by hand to get into that Ultimate Granny Gear of mine.



14.5 miles, averaged a lousy 10.1 mph, but that's due to a lot of climbing at 3 and 4 mph.

It's funny, growing up in Johnson County, you heard things about KCK, especially about the Turner school district. But riding up through Turner, if I didn't know I'd crossed the boundary, it was indistinguishable from Johnson County. Nice houses, clean neighborhoods, well maintained streets.



Then, coming down 47th I saw a discarded hypodermic syringe in the gutter and I thought, well that's one difference between here and Johnson County. Not that Johnson Countians don't do drugs, I've smelled plenty of reefer wafting from car windows and over privacy fences on rides through affluent parts of Shawnee and Lenexa.

No, the big difference is our IV drug addicts pick up after themselves.

Or maybe it was just the detritus of a diabetic slob. Maybe.