Quivira Park Bike Group Ride 10 - July 3, 2010 LifeTrek.Eroe.com

While the temperatures were only in the high 70's at the start and mid 80's at the end the humidity returned and we had a pretty heavy 15-20 MPH wind from the south for the Quivira Park Bike Group Ride today.  The route was the Stump Park with SMP Loop, which is one of our standard routes.

The route goes north on Quivira Road from Quivira Park,  then through the Johnson County Community College to College Road west.  From there we turn north on Renner Road up to the Shawnee Mission Park where we do an approximately 4 mile loop around the park back to the same entrance.  The loop is used by many cyclists since there are not many cars, it has some nice hills, and it is very scenic.

The map to the left is from the Johnson County Parks and Recreation website and shows where we enter the park at the Visitor Center and then around counter clockwise back.  A little background of the park from their website.  Shawnee Mission Park is a multi-use, 1,250-acre park that located at 79th and Renner Road in Shawnee, Kansas. The land was purchased through the District's initial bond issue in 1956 and officially dedicated on May 30, 1964. It is the largest park in the county and the most-visited park in the entire state of Kansas.

Shawnee Mission Park is home to developed facilities including a 120-acre lake popular for boating, fishing, sail boarding, twelve shelters, numerous picnic areas, horseback, nature trails, play areas, an archery range, a 53-acre dog off-leash area, the Shawnee Mission Park Beach, The Theatre in the Park and Shawnee Mission Park Marina, with canoe, pedal boats, and fishing boats rentals available.  So really nice place for all kinds of activities.  They also have a nice Frisbee Golf Course that I played with my son's homeschool group last year.

At the park we split into two groups with one group skipping the loop and heading directly to our SAG stop at the Charles J. Stump Park.  I went with the loop group.  The picture to the left was taken at Stump Park and includes left to right Annette, Joe, Ron, Steve, Wayne, Eric, Steve, Patrick, Garrett, Ed, and Jake.

From Stump Park we rode south on Woodland Drive to 127th Street where we turned back east to Quivira Park, using the detour around the construction on 127th Street onto Indian Creek Parkway.  We broke up into three groups according to speed and I rode with the medium paced group.

A map of the ride from my house can be uploaded from my Garmin.  Total distance was just under 73K and average speed was about 24 KPH.  Average speed for some of our routes can be lower since there is a lot of hill climbing.  On the other hand, my fastest speed was 62 KPH.  As I have said in previous posts, the temperatures are overstated as the Garmin Edge 500, will give false readings in direct sunlight.