2023 Washington Jefferson Ride

Last Saturday was the annual Washington Jefferson Ride out of Hanover Kansas. Going strong since 2019 and traversing some of the best gravel and dirt roads in Washington county Kansas and Jefferson county Nebraska... and some "roads" that qualify only by name.


One of the great traditions of the ride is that there is always pie afterwards, always. This year Pat brought cookies to the start of the ride, guess what Pat? You've now started a new tradition and shall from this day forward be required to bring cookies to the start of every subsequent Washington Jefferson Ride for as long as they continue. And that's how traditions are started, not everybody wants them, not everybody likes them but nobody forced you to bring cookies and as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. 




Being mostly an agricultural town of around 700 people, not much goes on in Hanover these days other than the day to day droll of farm life. That wasn't always the case however, Hanover (named after Hanover, Germany)was the site of the Hollenberg Station of the Pony Express. More accurately the Hollenberg Station was there first but because of a local farm and boarding house the stop rose in popularity and spawned Hanover. The station is one of the last, if not the last, standing buildings from the Pony Express Route which aligned itself mostly with the Oregon and Mormon Trails and ran from St. Joseph, Missouri all the way to Sacramento, California. Until the first transcontinental telegraph was established in 1861 the Pony Express was the fastest way to get word west from the east, shaving 10 days off the trip. Hanover also saw many Indian tribes call it a neighbor, once upon a time the Otoe, Kaw, Kansa and Pawnee tribes all resided nearby before being rounded up and placed on reservations.



None of that has much to do with a bicycle ride but if you stop on top of any of the many hills along the ride route and look around it's not all that hard to imagine the way things might have been when the West was still wild and fences didn't section off every inch of land.




Hills were plentiful on Saturday and came in gravel wave after gravel wave, we opted to try our luck on the newish Stormchasers, the legs weren't always happy with that choice. We opted for the 30ish mile route rather than the almost 70 mile route so at least we weren't fully crazy.


That one them 'lectric bicycles you got there?




We weren't in a super big hurry so it wasn't too surprising when we found ourselves near the back end of the pack before too long but we did manage to catch up to and ride with a fairly large group when they stopped to share a few barley pops in a traditional bridge beer fashion. I'm not saying I coined the phrase bridge beer but I don't remember hearing it much before and it's kind of become a thing now, so if nothing else I at least helped to popularize the term around these parts anyway.




A great thing about doing the shorter route and not being in a hurry, besides the bridge beer stops, is that you get to take in the sights a little more and folks complain less when you stop for the occasional picture.


The OG "wind turbine" stands alone in front of a more modern wind farm in the background.


Buffalo herds have long since vanished from the Great Plains but if you're really still, you're quiet and lucky you can still see the occasional herd of fat bikes rolling across the landscape.


Joe provides a full service event, even if he has to call you to tell you to hurry your ass up before he pulls chocks and rolls onto the next spot.





Remember when I said there were even a few roads that were by name only, I wasn't lying.




Rolled into Steele City and mile 20 a bit earlier than we hoped and had a bit of a wait for the kitchen to open but they did send out the town greeter to make sure we felt welcomed. The Salty Dog is always an anticipated oasis really out in the middle of nowhere, heck the village itself only boasts a population of 47 souls. Food is good and the beer is cold though and they obviously know what they're doing to draw the folks from the surrounding communities and farms.





Eight miles out of Steele City we came up on an Oregon Trail marker and our last SAG stop before rolling back into Hanover. Oddly there was a cooler of ice cold beverages near the foot of that maker, while I'm not saying that some Oregon Trail settler left it there in the 1800's for us to find, I'm also not saying they didn't. Either way it was a nice little treat on a dry, windy day.


Rumor has it that in some places you can still see wagon wheel ruts along the route, I personally have never seen any but that didn't keep Pat and Doug from venturing out to see if they could find any.


Found a downed tree a bit after leaving the marker, we made quick work of some of the branches in the middle of the blockade to create a bicycle sized hole where we passed bikes across one at a time until the entire group was safely on the other side. No bouts of dysentery or dead oxen from this Oregon Trail party... if you don't get the reference you obviously didn't grow up in the 80s and weren't subjected to that game in the school library. Your loss, not mine.



A few more miles down the road and we were back in civilization and the end of another great Washington Jefferson Ride.



Well ALMOST done, there was still the pie to be eaten and for the second year in a row huge smoked meatballs also courtesy of the Beikmann family. See, Pat, once you introduce something you gotta see it through because we will all be looking for those cookies again next year.