Bike Week 2008: Day 1

4:45 am comes early when you have crazy cats fighting all night long. I swear I am going to kill those things one day....

I was out the door a little past 5:00 a.m. this morning. Soon after I got the call from Dave Wathen that he was just now leaving his house. I usually meet him at 68th Street and Green Hills Road in the Northland, but now we were to meet over at 210 Hwy and Chouteau. I had a lot longer distance to cover than Dave so he was already waiting when I got there.

After a quick photo, we continued on and took Gladstone Blvd to Kessler Park. For anyone else riding this route, be aware of all the construction that is going on. Several sections of the road along Cliff Drive are all torn up. I sure hope they are done by the time the Tour of KC arrives. The Cliff Drive Classic is what makes that event. With the road in their present condition you need to have a cyclo-cross bike. Poor Dave looked kind of worried on his Seven road bike riding across one of the many gravel sections, but my Kona Snake and 700 x 32 Ritchey tires handled it with ease. Even rode a couple of the dirt mounts along the way.

Got in 31 miles for the morning commute. Plan to return via the same route on the way home tonight. I will try and remember to take some pics of all the construction that is taking place on Cliff Drive.

I was suppose to meet Dave at Paseso and 7th street at 4:20pm. When I left my work at 4:05 I knew I had to hammer some to make it on time. Thankfully there was a nice South wind to aid me. I arrived at our meeting place at 4:21pm only to find no Dave. After 10 min he showed up. Darn work thing got in the way again.

We again took the safest route for us home. Cliff Drive offers traffic free roads and are usually in good condition. Currently Cliff Drive is in horrible condition with branches and debris all over the place. Even with the conditions the ride was good. With the tail wind we made quick time and before we knew it we were crossing the Missouri river heading into the Northland. We cut through Cerner instead of taking Hwy 210 because we thought there we be less traffic has we headed West. We would be wrong. I don't know what it was about today, but it was just crazy out there with just tons of cars. We only saw two other cyclist, everyone else was burning the fuel.