JT to Vegas. I checked out the road closures near Amboy

[K T Huber]

Yesterday we were made aware that a section of the JT to Vegas route had been recently closed.  Since Willie (the ride leader) was too busy at work to scout this, I drove out to Amboy early this morning and checked out the closed section of the route.  Long story short- I had no trouble riding my bike through, and the road is in good condition for cycling.

[There are pictures in this report.  You may not see them if you are reading this as an email.  You can always go to the Google Group site]

Details:  Here's what it looked like a few hundred yards east of Roy's Diner on the National Trails Hwy (Route 66):

There are K-rails behind the barricades, but I had no trouble getting my bike over them.  No support vehicles could pass here, so the support vehicles will have to drive up to I-40 and meet the riders where Kelbaker Rd meets the I-40.  This means there will be a 17 mile section without support, but it comes right after a control.  

 (Aside- I did see several cars on the closed section of National Trails Hwy.  The locals and people who work for BNSF Railroad clearly know how to take dirt roads around the barricades.  None of the cars I passed, including a Border Patrol agent, paid me any mind.)

I had to get over a similar barricade/K-rail set-up just before I made the left from National Trails Hwy onto Kelbaker Rd.

The whole closure of this portion of National Trails Hwy seems to be for one damaged bridge, which has some easy-to-pass barricades.  The road surface of the bridge is intact and it looks like they only have it closed because they are worried about heavy vehicles.  200 lb rider+bicycle will not be a problem.

I saw quite a few cars once I turned on Kelbaker Rd.  When I got to I-40 I could see why- the closure up there is a "soft closure" and there's a space in the barricades for cars to get through.  So this road only seems to be "closed" because they don't want folks driving 10 miles to a dead end at National Trails Hwy.  This road was in good shape.

It took me 2 hours to get from Roy's to I-40, but I'm on the slow side.  I went through about 1.5 bottles of water, so unless it's really hot the lack of support in this section should not be an issue. 

I didn't ride too far north of I-40 on Kelbaker, but it all looked good and there were no signs warning of road problems ahead.

Kerin

[Brook Henderson]

Thank you, Kerin, for checking on this for all of us. You're the best.

-Brook

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[K T Huber]

I'm having trouble getting the pictures to show up.  You can see them here.

[Michael Kim]

Okay game on! Thanks Kerin!!!!

Michael Kim

818-823-6582

On Feb 21, 2024, at 6:30 PM, Brook Henderson <bro...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Willie]

Thanks Kerin for checking this out!   The Jtree to Vegas 300K is still on!

We will do a bit of shifting for the SAG support, but all the stop locations remain (more or less) the same.  I will make sure no one is left behind on that stretch of "closed" road.

The weather forecast look awesome, but it's still too far away to be sure.  Winds we will not know really until a day or 2 out.

Willie