tate65

I am trying to put together a route from Dallas to Lansing (well near each) that utalizes as much off road, or rail to trail as I can, for example the Chaparral Rail Trail

https://www.traillink.com/trail-photo...ail-trail.aspx

that will go from Farmerville to Texarkana, the Katy trail in Missouri. Even if the trail isn't finished but ridable I'd be intrested. I ant to find Any others that might be along the general direction, and I don't mind some single track along the way. Hopefully late next year or 2013...is my plan. I'd love to see how much I can do without roads.

gorshkov

I'm afraid that you won't get very far without roads in Oklahoma (unless you use power line right-of-ways). There are only a few inter-city bike trails in the state, and most of them are in the Tulsa area. There are good trail connections between Tulsa, Broken Arrow, Jenks, Sand Springs, and Skiatook, and Tulsa itself has a pretty good trail network, as long as you don't want to go to the east side of the city. Oklahoma City has some trails, but as of last summer they were pretty useless for actual transportation.

I've heard that there is a rail-trail running between Poteau and Wiste, but I've never been to either town, so I can't confirm that.

Since you will apparently be off-road capable, I would recommend using unpaved back roads through Oklahoma - I have found the DeLorme state atlas to be pretty accurate (more than Google for rural areas) regarding which roads go through.

Cyclebum

Interesting challenge you've taken on. Closest you're likely to get for 90% of the route is rural gravel. That's fine if you've got the time for doubling your mileage to Michigan. A plus should be easy wild camping, and wild dogs to enhance the experience. Should make for good stories.

Scooby214

No significant improvements to Oklahoma City's trails. You have to use roads to do almost any travel here. Tulsa is much better off in this regard. I know of cyclists using US 77 to get from southern OK to Okla. City, then using old US 66 to get to Tulsa. I wouldn't recommend it, though, as you will have many miles of 2-lane roads with little or no shoulders.

tate65

probably going a little more east from Dallas, maybe lower east side of OK, up through AR to MO, but was wonders how much of the old MKT railway would be rideable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missour...Texas_Railroad I know the one in Texas follows it for close to 100 miles but the actual conversion to bike trail is years off.

Gus Riley

Maybe "Ride with GPS" will assist a little. www.ridewithgps.com Bring it up, register free, then start looking. There is an option called "Bike Paths" select it and zoom in on an area to see all available bike paths in that area. I looked along your possible path...there isn't much there. Of course the Katy is the longest unbroken trail available to you I think. Good luck!

Scooby214

If I recall correctly, parts of the MKT line through eastern OK are still in use by Union Pacific, or at least still have tracks in place. The line passes about 1/2 mile away from my grandmother's house. It's been a while since I paid attention, and I haven't been in that part of the state since last spring.