Dog park with K

Delivering cookies

Post Christmas quiet-ish roads

Family Christmas plus Ross Bridge plus Hwy 31

Short commute route lots of traffic on Christmas Eve

658 cars, 2.4/mi, 0.6/min, 43.2mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/50453

Here's a little bit more about this ride from a blog I'm writing: My most recent adventure was primarily training for PbP, but it also had a secondary goal of moving me closer to finishing riding in all the counties in Arkansas. I had a little bit of time in my busy summer to get away, but between meetings and other obligations, I had a narrow window which happened to match exactly with the heat wave currently blasting a good chunk of the country.

I went to sleep at 7:30pm, but was up by 10:30pm and out the door by 11pm to drive 4 hours to Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. I was parked and riding by 3:3AM and was flying on a very flat Hwy 49 averaging 19mph and thinking “no problem, I’m going to knock out 380 miles in well under 24 hours”.

Five miles into my ride, I saw on my Garmin that I was supposed to turn and remembered that I had routed myself on a google maps “solid green” bike trail, which used to mean that it was a paved trail. Well, after turning too early and heading way down quite a ways down a driveway (when I should have been down in the old railroad bed), I had to turn around and make my way back and across the railroad bridge and then down the gravel parking lot to a most definitely not paved (gravel with large rocks) trail. Still, I knew it wasn’t long so I went ahead and rode it anyway.

After a couple miles, I was happy to leave the trail (and gravel) behind. Or at least that’s what I thought. I left the trail and headed across a major highway onto the next road which turned to gravel almost immediately (oh no!). I’m not afraid of gravel, but with nearly 700 miles left to ride, I had to ride it very carefully to avoid getting a flat so early in the ride. So my average speed went from 19mph down to a whopping 13mph by the time I finally made it out of the gravel almost 10 miles later.

The gravel road went through a lot of farm fields and crossed a few creeks and alongside others. But it was at night so I was focused mainly on picking a line in the dark with the glow of my headlight on its lowest setting to avoid the sharpest and largest rocks. Eventually I popped out onto AR-1, the first of many state highways that I would ride. I started making good time again, and had my average speed back up again in no time.

But within a few hours after the sun came up, I would find myself entering “Texarkana, Texas” into google maps to find the straightest route to where I had already booked a hotel to spend the night. This ended up cutting off 110 miles of the route that I had planned, which would have taken me farther northwest into the Ouachita Mountains.

People at the gas stations were friendly and absolutely amazed that I was out riding in that heat. I thanked them and assured them I was just riding from gas station to gas station to take a lot of breaks. My route deviation had me on a lot of nice state highways. Arkansas does their state highways very well (or at least the several hundred miles of them I was on were all perfect) with great pavement, broken rumble strips (with gaps for cyclists), and wide shoulders. AR-46 between Sheridan and Leola was a great example. There was so little traffic on a perfectly paved and quite hilly (for the area) road.

The afternoon heat did not relent at all and even after the sun set, it was still hovering around 90 degF for a long time. Shortly before midnight I made it to my hotel on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, but I still had to go another quarter mile to officially cross the state line into Texas. No problem, except the hotel was on a one-way frontage road, which meant I had to ride extra to be sure to cross the state line, and then ride backwards on the one-way. Thankfully since it was almost midnight there wasn’t any traffic.

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Brian Toone

2023/07/18 Helena, Arkansas riding to Texas in a heat wave, not recommmended, cut 110 miles off intended route

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Dog park with K

Delivering cookies

Post Christmas quiet-ish roads

Family Christmas plus Ross Bridge plus Hwy 31

Short commute route lots of traffic on Christmas Eve

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