Cleveland Route Mapping Ride - August 19, 2010

195th Street View in Missouri

With the help of my Kansas Cyclist Podcast Partner, Randy Rasa, I mapped out a new route for the Quivira Park Bike Group down to Cleveland, Missouri.  Cleveland is a small town of just under 600 people located in Cass County.  The county was organized in 1835 and was first named Van Buren County but was later changed to Cass after Lewis Cass, a U.S. Senator from Michigan in 1849.  I could not find out much history of Cleveland from the official Cass County Website and even when checking their website and calling the Case County Historical Society.  They had some books but nothing on-line.  Randy and I did have the opportunity to speak to the town police officer at our SAG stop at a convenience store in Cleveland and he turns out to be a cyclist too!  Randy provided him his card from the Kansas Cyclist as the officer was interested in bicycle trails in the area.

Randy & Ed - Cleveland SAG Stop

We had a beautiful late afternoon for a ride with temperatures in the low 90's, humidity in the 50 percent range, and about a 8-10 MPH wind from the south.  I ran both my Garmin devices so that I could capture the entire ride from my house and the new Cleveland Route on the other.  The route goes from Quivira Park south on Quivira Street to 175th Street then over to Antioch south to 191st Street.  Below 179th Street Antioch has a nice 14 degree hill that has just been paved.  It is only as third as long as Ogg Hill on the Lake Lenexa Route, but the same degree of angle.  I have named the hill the "Antiache Hill" and it was actually much harder before being re-paved!

Randy - Corner of 195th & Prospect

The route covers some scenic rural Kansas and Missouri country side and is 55.05 miles long.  There are some nice rolling hills on State Highway Y in Missouri but for the most part is fairly flat.  From Cleveland the route works across 247th Street to Metcalf Road to 199th Street where there is another convenience store if needed in Stillwell.  The route gets back to Quivira Park by eventually getting to Pflumm from 191st via Antioch.  From Pflumm the route follows some of the other Quivira Park Bike Group routes by using 137th to Rosehill, to 133rd back to Quivira.

A map of my total ride from my house can be viewed from my Garmin.  Total distance was just under 93K and the average speed was just under 24 KPH.  As noted above, the new route from Quivira Park is at this link - Cleveland Route.