Trail Ramblings: A Guest Post By Touring Cyclist Rob Landauer

This week I’m featuring a guest post by Rob Landauer, a touring cyclist we happened to host through Warm Showers. He was kind enough to send me his impressions of his time in Nebraska on his bike “Teeder.” The reason he diverged from the Great Plains Gravel Route is that he rode the Pony Express Gravel Route last year and didn’t want to duplicate that part. Now sit back and enjoy a little armchair touring:

This summer, I rode the newly-published Great Plains Gravel Route from Mexico to Canada, mostly on gravel roads. At times, particularly in Nebraska, I went off the official route and cut my own path.

Nebraska began with a streak of great hosts, in Wymore, Lincoln, and Norfolk. Two from WarmShowers, one of them a friend of a friend of my hosts in Lincoln. The hospitality in the middle of the country was something to behold.

On the way into Wymore, I was on two different rail-trails, one of them only briefly, as it ran east-west. Rail-trails are some of the very best riding you’ll ever do. Rare is the day which manages to simultaneously be easy, fun, and memorable. Most commonly, the easy days aren’t memorable, and the memorable days aren’t easy, but rail-trails are the magic bullet.

Including the Cowboy Trail in Nebraska and the Katy Trail in Missouri, there are lots of rail-trails in this part of the country, but none of them touch each other. Can you imagine a road or highway system in which none of the roadways connected to any other ones? How useless that would be. That’s how bad our bicycling network is, and the crumbs we have are still so appealing, people will fly across the country just to ride it.

The long-term plan in the area is to connect the existing rail-trails, but that’s already been the plan for decades, and little progress has been made. Nearly everyone is in favor of it, from the politicians down to the locals, the path is already cut (by the inactive railroad bed), and the per-mile cost is less than 10% of a highway. So build it already!!!

The biggest problem is lack of urgency. Bikes are seen as non-critical, unimportant, mere recreation. When a road is to be built, it’s done ASAP, because we “need” it; the millions of miles we already have aren’t enough. But a bike path, when we don’t have any, or the few we have don’t connect? Eh, we’ll take care of that later.

What’s not understood is that bike paths aren’t mere recreation; they’re transportation which is so good people will use it even when they don’t have to. This is rarely, if ever, the case for roads. People don’t set aside time in order to drive around in traffic for personal enjoyment. Nor has any motorist ever said, “It’s so nice to see so many people out on the road on a day like this!”

Small towns, even really small towns, all seem to have water parks in this part of the country.

Somewhat unexpectedly, I LOVED Lincoln. Good vibe, good weather, nice people, good bike paths which actually touch each other! Being a college town and a capitol are also a plus.

The Nebraska University campus’s buildings didn’t impress me, but the trees and landscaping did. It wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected; maybe something like OKST.

After visiting NU, I went to the nearby capitol building, which was also not what I expected. Aside from the massive tower, the outside is somewhat plain and rather standard.

Inside, it’s an agriculture-inspired art deco, difficult to describe. The best comparison I could make is some of the buildings in Dallas’s Fair Park, but that doesn’t do it justice. It’s probably the most unique state capitol I’ve visited, and definitely worth a visit if you’re in town.

I should look and see if Lincoln needs an alternative transportation planner. But maybe I should visit in winter before I apply.

Nebraska describes the Cowboy Trail as the longest rail-trail in the country, but that includes claiming over 100 miles which haven’t been built. Again, build the freakin’ thing!! You obviously like the idea and want it to exist. What’s the holdup??

The Cowboy Trail is mostly well-maintained, though the gravel is more likely to get a bit too deep and loose as you get farther west. Most of the towns along the way have some kind of arrangement for cyclists, usually not for free, but not expensive.

In every other gas station in Nebraska, you’ll find 2-3 video poker or video slots machines. Is gambling legal in Nebraska or what? If it is, why don’t you see casinos? Why don’t people from Chicago road trip to Omaha for their bachelor party? The existence of Las Vegas would have you believe that Nevada is the only state which allows gambling (aside from state lotteries), but evidently that isn’t the case. Maybe Nevada and Vegas are simply good at marketing.

At the end of day 1 on the Cowboy Trail, I arrived in Newport and found the pool hall. It was one room, smaller than most people’s bedrooms. The pool table took up half of it.

There were a few people outside, re-stocking a vending machine. When they saw me, they broke out into wide grins and waved.

The pool hall is still “in business” as a pool hall, though as far as I can tell, no one owns it and there’s no charge to use it. Cyclists are welcome to sleep on the floor or camp out back. There’s no running water, but there’s air conditioning!

Inside, there was a shelf and a mini-fridge, stocked with snacks and ice cream. You pay on the honor system and leave cash in the drawer. Three times while I was there, including once after midnight, a local walked in to buy chips or ice cream. I couldn’t resist a Klondike Bar, and in exchange for free lodging, a small purchase was the least I could do.

After driving to a store (or anywhere else), people in the middle of the country like to sit in the car for 3-4 minutes before going in, and then do the same thing again instead of simply leaving. Sometimes with the car running, sometimes not. Why don’t you just get out and go in?

They also like to drive a full lap around the whole parking lot or campground when they arrive and when they leave, instead of taking the shortest path to a parking space or back out to the road. If I asked a local, would they even know what I’m talking about? Maybe it’s something they do without noticing.

I managed to complete the 190-mile Cowboy Trail in two days, ending in Valentine, NE. “Heart City” has a city-owned campground just north of town (on the side opposite the highway and railroad), complete with shade trees, multiple pavilions, multiple playgrounds, bathrooms, showers, and creek access. It was a little noisy during the day (playgrounds and all), but made for great camping by night. Well worth the $10.

Every town should have a city-owned campground in a park, with showers. Do that and you’ll get a ton of visitors. Put it somewhere away from the highway and railroad tracks.

As you go farther northwest in Nebraska, the trees get farther apart, but more of them are pines. I kept hoping it was a sign I’d be in pine forests soon. The elevation was a bit higher and the air a bit dryer. The daytime temperature was about the same, but the nights cooled off a bit more.

The eventual plan is to continue extending the Cowboy Trail west from Valentine, all the way to Chadron, NE, another 140 miles. People like me, who use the Cowboy Trail as part of a larger tour, generally cover that stretch on US 20, a mostly quiet road with a huge shoulder.

There’s only one problem with US 20. The shoulder has enormous cracks running all the way across it, every 20 meters or so. Only in the shoulder; they fixed the problem in the roadway.

THA-THUMP! THA-THUMP! THA-THUMP!

Riding a bike over that was like receiving a swift kick in the pants every three seconds. They can’t finish the Cowboy Trail fast enough.

Before I even tried to find a place in Gordon, I spied an interesting-looking shop called Joe’s Games. Their sign included an image of an NES controller and the mana symbols from Magic: The Gathering. I had to check it out.

The place turned out to be an interesting combo of a trading card store and a retro arcade. Kids can show up, pay a couple bucks, and play all the games they want, including arcades, pool, board games, and retro consoles. Friday nights, they have Magic tournaments. The guy at the counter lamented they were all out of Pokemon cards this week.

The guys working there saw Teeder, asked what I was doing, and pretty soon, I was staying in a church basement. Turned out one of them was an associate minister. It was only a basement floor, but that meant I was out of the wind, the temperature was comfortable, and there was even a shower and WiFi! Turns out rural America has geeky communities too, and they’re just as strong and welcoming as anywhere.

While in Nebraska, I made a point of having a Runza (not bad!), but never found a place which served chili and cinnamon rolls. I suppose I’ll have to try it myself at home.