SE KS Geocaching Ride

[ajayhawkfan]

The weather looked good enough this weekend to go on a geocaching ride in SE KS so I packed my bike and left around 1:00 Friday. I headed south picking of a few caches on my way to Blue Mound for the night. I had to make it to the cabin in time to watch KU BB!!

Saturday the weather was gray and about 45 when I got started. I had no route but I had all of available caches in my GPSr. I picked one about 30 miles away and headed towards it, exploring new roads all the way. Once that cache is found I did it again and again. Choosing caches about 30 to 60 miles apart and exploring all the way. I tried to stay off the tarmac as much as possible. I picked my way almost to the OK border. I then headed back towards Blue Mound doing the same thing. Someone placed a cache along an abandoned RR tracks. Maybe I should not have ridden to the cache but I did and continued for miles. I also came across a few "road closed" signs. They did not stop me. Even when they parked the backhoe across the road to stop traffic.

On Sunday the I woke to a gentle rain and about 40 degrees. I decided to take a direct gravel route home. About halfway home it stopped raining. I checked my GPSr for a cache and headed that way. I found a few caches and ended up in Lawrence.

I have found riding between caches is a great way to see the country side without planning a route in advance. If I hit hard top I exit as quickly as possible. Most no maintenance roads are explored and I try to find as many low water crossing as possible. The crossing were running high so did not attempt many being alone but I marked them for future trips. I road a little over 500 miles and found about 20 cache. I was in 15 KS counties. It was a blast!

Here are picture from the trip. Troy, there is a picture of an old bridge. Is that the one you found? http://picasaweb.google.com/ajayhawkfan ... 8To3302008

I do have a couple of products I would highly recommend:
The first is the AERO VeeWipe Squeegee. They are a small squeegee that wraps around your thumb. They are great for wiping your visor in the rain or when muddy truck spray hits you in the face. http://www.aerostich.com/catalog/US/Aer ... 16506.html
The other are Duluth Trading Company's Force Nine Gloves. They are warm and waterproof and comfortable. They seem to run big so order a size smaller then normal. I was able to use them and still punch the small buttons on my GPSr. http://www.duluthtrading.com/store/depa ... =Product_6

[troy]

I second the Duluth products. I use a pair of the Duluth "Firehose" carpenter pants for backroad riding. They have knee pad inserts for doing carpentry work. They are not good knee protection for a motorcycle crash, but offer me more than my jeans. Tough as nails.

[The Harm]

Awesome pics thanks for sharing!!! GO KU!!! I know my sunday riding plans changed so I could whatch the game and go see the crazies in downtown lawrence!!

[kchusky]

ajayhawkfan, Where or how do you find these geocaching to track to ?

Me and a Buddy are planning on riding Saturday 5/10 and this might be a fun thing to try? Or we might go down and see Troys bridge and head to Ottawa and check out a route I spotted on Google Earth.

[ajayhawkfan]

geocaching.com You will need to sign up (it is free). You can then search for caches and download then into your GPSr.

I would recommend downloading GSAK as well http://www.gsak.net/ it is free as well.

There are other ways to load caches but here are my steps.

geocaching emails me a list caches of the area I want to search.
I save the list in a file that i created on my desktop called "waypoints to be downloaded"
I download the caches in GSAK
From GSAK I send the caches to my GPSr.

If it sounds confusing and you would like to meet sometime, I would be happy to go over the steps with you.

There has been some interested in having a geocaching ride at the Flint Hills Stampede. If enough people are interested that morning I was asked to lead it. Join us. There is a list of the potential caches on the Stampede page. http://www.backroadstouring.org/kansas/stamp_08.mgi