Three Hour Route

This is a nice relaxing ride that won't stress your passenger too much. If you only have a half day, you can have breakfast, ride this route and be home in time to make lunch for the family.

It starts at SR-288 and FM-1462, just like the ride to Bellville and Fayetteville. And whenever I get near CR-42, I have to take it. It was an easy run today as I only scraped my pegs once on each side. On the way back you get to run it the other direction.

When CR-42 hits FM 1462, turn right and take those gentle sweepers until you get to SR-6. Run that straight piece until you see FM-442 on the left.

Now here is where it got interesting. Our intent was to take MackHawk Rd where you see the yellow highlight on the map above. BUT - it turns out that MackHawk would be much more fun on a dirt bike. Yup, the old paving machines haven't visited here yet. So we turned our big touring rigs around at that point, not willing to risk skint arms and legs, and even less willing to ride at the 10 mph that this road would require. Too bad though. MachHawk Rd is going to be awsome if they ever pave it. Grab your map and see for yourself. It is nothing if not twisty.

When we backed out of MackHawk, we dediced to run on down to Boling, and pick up FM-1301. That took us on into Pledger where we hit the 1301 hair pin back to the North and East into West Columbia. Just past West Columbia, we began looking for CR-25 to the left which took us into what looked like the South Louisiana marsh with all the houses built on stilts. Here near Mann Lake, we are 22 miles inland, but only 6 ft above sea level here, well inside the storm surge area for Rita and Katrina's cousins that we might expect to see this Fall. But for now, there are lakes-o-plenty here. Too bad you'll only see a couple because of the trees and dikes.

We found a few good turns on the way back to FM-1462 and ran CR-42 backwards (North and East) when we got there. When we found ourselves at FM-521 again, we turned North to CR-56 which is such a small road that one of our group ran right past it before realizing that he passed it. Cr-56 took us back to SR-288 and home.

This is a pleasant half day route that you can take your tilt meter on without fear of getting slapped in the helmet. When you have a day as nice as today is, it's hard not to enjoy whatever road you are on.