doctor j

We've had a run of three whole days of weather suitable for riding. Lately, that's noteworthy in northwest Arkansas.

Our group, the Ozark Roadies, rode today. Given that I'm still recovering from this year's annual Spring sinus infection, I debated whether or not to ride but went anyway.

We rode one of our normal routes, from Savoy, AR to Prairie Grove Battlefield and then looped around some back roads back to the vehicles.

About two thirds of the way through the ride, we saw some hay bales and caution tape far up ahead in the road. Hmmm. As we closed with the hay bales, we discovered that they were concrete blocks!

About a hundred yards down from the blocks, we encountered this, a product of recent foul weather.


Hmmmm.

As we were standing in awe of the power of Mother Nature, one of the younger members of the group grabbed his bike and started across the chasm. We ranged in age from mid 20s to 70 on today's ride. Another followed, then another, then yours truly.

Here's Arkansas Gal gingerly making her way across.


The first riders helped everyone else across, and we passed bikes across the gap.


We got 20 bikes and 20 riders across without anyone taking a dive or scratching a bike!

This isn't what one normally expects on a road ride, even in the wilds of the Arkansas hills.

From that point on, the most excitement was a few light showers.

I'm glad I rode even though I'm not 100% and not completely done with the crud, yet. This will be a ride for the history books.

BikeWNC

Nice teamwork! We've all had some wild, crazy, horrific weather here in the Southeast this Spring.

kr32

Now that is what I call "bridging a gap" , well done!

ftwelder

Ha, I was complaining to my wife about the 2" wide cracks we have in the spring pave after the frost heaves, Ill keep that rant to myself.

tsl

Excellent! Thanks for sharing that.

Our ride today encountered a Road Closed sign. When we got there, all we had to do was ride around the Jersey barriers.

JanMM

Thanks for the photo documentation.

Shifty

Nice work getting past the crossing. The highway department really should place some barriers across that road!

hikeandbike

Great work, great shots and a great group. Well done.

B. Carfree

Back in '83 we had quite a bit of road-busting flooding where I was living. One morning I came across an unmarked, as in brand new, missing section of road. It was truly missing as it had fallen into the creek and washed away. rather than swim the creek (with its unknown agricultural run-off) I turned around to find another route only to find a live skunk blocking the road. Since we had just had reports of rabid skunks in that part of the county, I just stayed put until the skunk had moved along.

stapfam

Now how far into the ride was this--Early on and I think I would have been tempted to do another ride but late on and I would have swum across and not do another 50 to get home. I think you should have had a few Mountain bikers with you. Young ones preferably as they have no fear- and they would have ridden across with just a few dabs. They would have found a ridable route across.

Hope the rest of the ride was uneventfull but pics of this should be framed and put on the wall to show how difficult cycling can be.

JohnDThompson 

The ride must go on!

bikegeek57

what an adventure.