Got some sunburn today. I’ve been wearing a tank top about half the time riding, but with clouds it hasn’t been too bad. This was the first ride in the full sun with the summer heat. I left the house around 8 AM, but it still got pretty warm before I returned. This first shot shows the dirt work just before laying the asphalt. I’ll tell you this isn’t high enough; it needs another foot or two of elevation and lots of gravel to avoid being a weak spot.
All along the northern end of the loop they workers are completing the dirt work and it’s looking okay. They are piling a foot or two of red clay on top of the very loose sandy soil up this way. A couple of years ago I took a picture of a nice little prairie spot off the eastern side of the loop road. Then it was all carved out and I never knew why. Today I saw they were dumping the trees and grinding them up, with a huge off-road dump truck ferrying loads through a cut in the woods at the back of the photo. This part of the trail is progressing slowly and it’s virtually inaccessible from any of the existing old lake roads. I’m unable to track their progress visually.
Farther around on the western shore, most of the bikeway is already paved, but the section along the old lake road between Points 4 and 5 is still almost nothing but sand. It runs tightly along the shore and really needs a meter or so of elevation, but this is the only place where they did it right. At that, it’s still too sandy. When it rains, this is pure muck up to your knees or higher. Again, they were just entirely too cheap and thrifty with the gravel. By the way, the culvert is underwater here.
Just beyond that shore section you can see the concrete has been run on both sides of the path now. I’m convinced they are going to add one more thin topcoat of asphalt approximately level with these raised concrete curbs. It looks like this over half of the westerns side of the loop, from the dam up to the series of large gullies that still aren’t solid enough for my taste. Someone appeared to be spreading a paltry bit of gravel over one of those washout areas today. In this image you can see how the left side had been more or less graded neatly, but the right is still raw.
On my way back, I took the new bikeway along SE 29th toward the shopping malls across from Tinker AFB. This bridge is now in its third month and still very little progress. You get the impression a handful of guys are doing it in their spare time with borrowed equipment. It has looked just like this for more than a week now. This bridge crosses Kuhlman Creek, a major tributary that runs across Tinker AFB golf course and into Crutcho Creek.
