RecumBum

Google Maps is a great online mapping site, providing road maps of the entire US (and much of the rest of the world), as well as satellite views and the innovative “Street View” for selected cities.

But you can’t always trust what it tells you.

I’ve noticed this a few times just recently. I’d map out a route, go to ride it, then midway through the route, come upon a missing road. In most cases, it’s looked like the road has been gone for years, yet Google still shows it as an active road. How old is Google’s data, anyway?

In the latest example, I mapped a route starting in the town of Hillsdale, taking gravel roads south of the lake, and wrapping around back to the starting point. On gravel routes, I often try to find “crooked” roads, as these often indicate especially interesting terrain, as the roads have to detour from their normal north-south grid to accommodate lakes, rivers, creeks, hills, or whatever.

This time, there was an intriguing ripple just 5 miles or so into the ride (see the map on the right, between Harmony Road and 271st Street).

My first hint that something was wrong was this sign at the junction of 265th and Harmony Road. (And yes, that’s a broken concrete bridge in the background, with some missing rails.) The sign directs me to the right, so naturally, I turned left.

After a few hundred yards, the gravel starts to thin out, and I see this sign, knocked off kilter and partially hidden by trees. It says “Minimum Maintenance Travel At Your Own Risk”. OK, fine. I have a mountain bike, I can handle a rough road. At least it doesn’t say “Road Closed” or “Dead End”.

Another few hundred yards down the road, I come to a muddy section, muddy but passable. I continue, and pretty soon bare dirt gives way to grass and weeds, I start to wonder if this is still a road, or if I’m now trespassing in a farmer’s field. But I press on, with the two wheel-tracks visible off and on through the weeds.

Eventually I come to this. The road goes off over an embankment and across a creek. I stop on the shoreline. The creek is perhaps 50 feet across, but it appears shallow, all rock, no mud. The road continues on the other side, and disappears around a corner. OK, I think, I’ve come this far. It doesn’t look that bad. I decide to give it a go. Before I take off, I put my cell phone and camera in a plastic baggie, as a precaution. I mount up and slowly begin pedaling into the water. All’s well for a few feet, then the wheels slide out from under me and I go down, kind of half-falling, one foot and one hand in the water, the other foot still on the pedal, the other hand holding the bike. Only a few inches of handlebar get wet. I stand up, try to push forward and mount up again, but soon give up on that and dismount, both feet in the water up to my ankles. I consider turning back, but begin to push the bike across the remainder of the ford. The creek bottom is covered in green algae, slick as snot. But I struggle across. Except for a short bit where the water runs faster, the creek never gets deeper, and I maintain my footing.

I’m across. Here’s the view looking back the way I came. I continue on up the road a bit, but it dead-ends at a closed gate. I could have opened it, I suppose. This was supposed to be a public road. But at this point it wasn’t much of a road any more. Beyond the gate, all I could see was grass — no road.

So I decided to turn back. I waded across the creek and made it back to the other side without incident. Of course, now I have seriously soggy socks. Good thing they’re not cotton. And the sandals, aside from retaining a bit of water in the footbed, are no worse for wear. I return the way I came.

Of course now, with my planned route obstructed, I have to figure out another way around. Rather than doing that, I decided to take some time to explore the area around the Hillsdale Lake dam and state park. Which I did, for quite some time.

By the time I made it back to the truck, I’d covered over 23 miles, at the blistering pace of 9.35 MPH. Oh well, it wasn’t about the speed on this day, it was just about the joy of riding, exploring, getting wet, and learning the limits of Google Maps. To be fair, Yahoo Maps, which seems to have newer data, and better satellite images, shows the road as connecting as well. Later, I checked with the State Park maps, and they show it as a “seasonal road”. Even that, it seems, is stretching the truth…