When I head southwest out of the city, such as a ride to Red Ledge and the Beartooths, the usual route is to take Grand Avenue out to its western end, jog over to Lipp Road, and then take Buffalo Trail to Laurel. While I had done this ride many times, it wasn't until I was coming back from Laurel in a car that I noticed a road across from the Laurel Transfer Station (the dump), Clapper Flats Road. I guess I knew it was there but since I wasn't driving, I had a chance to look at it. It is paved and seems to head west for a ways.
Later, I brought it up on the mapping software and saw that it went out quite a distance and was paved for about 5-6 miles. It had some curves, some trees, and the promise of some great scenery. That was today's ride.
The weather is cool, about 58 degrees, so I had both my wind and thermal liners in my jacket and, as usual, my riding pants over my jeans. There was a bit of a wind but I was more than comfortable. It was about 1:55pm when I got going and there was meeting that I wanted to attend at 3pm so it was going to be a short, quick ride.
I did the route and turned on Clapper Flats heading west. The road has a few patches in it and there were a few other vehicles, surprising for a less-than secondary road. It had a long and straight stretches with a few curves, and climbed to the top rather quickly. A bit over 5 miles into it, the pavement ended and continued on a washboard gravel. It was time to turnaround.
Here is a video, fairly long, of my ride so far.
Once I got headed east, I pulled over for a few photos.
Now it was the ride back. Here's a video clip of part of it.
It was getting close to 3pm and I turned toward Laurel and rode to the freeway onramp and made a speedy run back to Billings.
It was a short ride overall but fun to be out in the good weather that is supposed to change later in the week.
It was a 58 mile day.
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