| Author | Message | ||
     Kreinke |
Here's an essay assignment for any members but especially aimed at us snowbound members. Let's take a virtual group ride. Write a short description of your favorite piece of road. It can be on your commute or anywhere. Describe it and what you like about it. try to make the rest of us feel like we're riding with you. I'll start first. My favorite piece of road actually takes me about 3 miles out of my way on mt daily 25 mile commute to work. Adams and Marquette counties are as different as can be topographically. I live in Adams county and work in Marquette. Adams has very few twistie roads except for those that directly follow the Wisconsin River Petenwell and Castlerock resovoir shores. A majority of the county is either pine scrub brush or potato fields with irrigation pivots. There are also occasional sandstone cliffs which were islands in the great sea left after the glaciers melted. Obviously all of the sand that was left was the sea bottom. County "z" which runs the entire north/south length of Adams County on the shores of the Wisconsin River has a really cool peg-dragger set of curves the locals call "Devil's Elbow." I leave home and head out on County Highway 'J' (we use letters) which is a potholled washboard slightly twistie dash from Adams to the county line of about 11 miles. There isn't a straight of more than 3/4 mile or so so its fun. My CS likes to stretch her legs here. The last curve before the county line is something I call the "rock chicane" It's literally a chicane that winds around a sandstone cliff the size of a 3 story building. Very fun. I now have about 1 mile of straightaway to prepare myself for almost 5 miles of solid challenging twisties as I enter Marquette. Marquette county is the stereotypical Wisconsin dairy farm county with rolling hills, lakes, and patches of oak and pine. There are some pretty big farms having several hundred dairy cattle. Somewhere in between these two counties theres a higher area of rolling hills and really twistie roads and lakes (filled with bluegills and crappies) that forms Wisconsin's own little "continental divide". All of the rain that falls to the west of these twisties ends up in the Wisconsin River and eventually down to the Gulf of Mexico. Everything to the east of these lakes ends up in the Fox River and eventually to the St. Lawrence Seaway. I like to cross the county line (county J has ended and turned into Dakota Avenue) at a good clip but see the first series of curves starting between a big Frito Lay potato field and a gravel pit.. Open road immediately transforms into a flat, narrow right hander into a tunnel of oak trees. Dakota will offer up 14 curves in the next three miles. The first three are the tightest and quickest in succession. Dakota ends and I turn right onto 4th drive. 4th drive skirts Pleasant Lake (a very fitting name) and the road not only changes direction a lot but also changes elevation. There are at least 4 curves that have their apexes at the crest of hills and are thus blind. Some of these curves give you the sensation that you're flying an F-16 soaring up and down. I really don't think that these roads would be as much fun on any other bike but mine! As I finish off 4th drive I reach Marquette County CH for the rest of my trip into Westfield. In all since reaching Marquette county we've eaten 29 curves in about 6 miles. These roads are almost certainly worthy of a spot in a Buell commercial. The CS is saying "Can we go back and do it again?" | ||
| Charlieboy6649 |
My favorite ride here in Yuma, Arizona is the Hwy 95/S-24 Loop. There are really no twisties out here, I live in the friggin Sonoran Desert. But it has got it's own beauty and by taking the right roads, enjoyable rides can be had. One such road is S-24 which parallels the Colorado River. Definately not twisty, just a series of right of way 90 deg angle banks that contour the river bank. Why they didn't pave the road straight, I'll never know. But I'm glad they didn't because otherwise Yuma would have absolutely no curvy attributes to speak of. My ride starts on 16th street headed out of town on Hwy 95 to Yuma Proving Ground (YPG -Army-). (See Southern Marines post in the thumper area.) You'd be surprised how fertile the desert is if you just add water! Hwy 95 takes you through rows of farmers crops. Really beautiful with the Brown and Purple Gila Mountains as a back drop. This road unceremoniously splits through the Gila range to YPG. There you take a left at the Big Guns (Literally! Two huge howitzers flank the road!) Here the fun begins. I've had 15 min of poking along enjoying the rural scenery and now I hit S-24 through the date gardens. Beautiful! It's a series of right of way 90 deg turns; really are a hoot as they are also gently banked. Thus, considerable speed can be carried through these bananas! Got to watch out though. Tractors from the date farms frequently leave surprises in the form of clumps of mud from their tires all over this stretch. The ride ends back in Yuma, a total of I'd guess about 30 mi or so, and as a bonus you can take what we call the Giss loop. A long sweeper called Giss Parkway directly onto the cloverleaf freeway on-ramp to the next overpass and back down to Giss. I could do that one all day. To bad the total distance is only about 1.5 mi.  |
