backroads warning

[26667]

as you guys and gals are making your way around the Chicago traffic, remember the hazards out there on the two-lanes that are used by farmers here in the middle-west. It's not uncommon for grain and what-not to be spread in a trail along the roadway. Or for them to track mud, manure and other slippery goodies as they cross from field to field. The roads are often quiet and not heavily travelled the other 364 days of the year and they may not be looking out for you, or their equipment may not handle quite as sprightly as yours. Sometimes kids are driving the farm machinery.
Check out: http://www.crbmw.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=702.

Sombody from the Chi Reg' forum posted these pics, and tho' it was fall, and harvest time, you get the idea.

[gsmetal]

I've lived in Wisconsin for 43....I've never seen or heard of this before.

[JCabranes]

as you guys and gals are making your way around the Chicago traffic, remember the hazards out there on the two-lanes that are used by farmers here in the middle-west. It's not uncommon for grain and what-not to be spread in a trail along the roadway. Or for them to track mud, manure and other slippery goodies as they cross from field to field. The roads are often quiet and not heavily travelled the other 364 days of the year and they may not be looking out for you, or their equipment may not handle quite as sprightly as yours. Sometimes kids are driving the farm machinery.
Check out: http://www.crbmw.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=702.

Sombody from the Chi Reg' forum posted these pics, and tho' it was fall, and harvest time, you get the idea.

More common in the fall... shouldn't be that much of an issue around rally time.

[Rich]

Some of our roads tend to have some left-over sand still laying in the curves from the road sanding done during the winter. It doesn't take long for traffic to get rid of it, but it pays to watch for it in the early spring months.

[KGT1200]

When farmers work thier fields in the spring, then pull out on roads connecting their fields, they bring along unwanted mud and stuff. In the summer, when a farmer pulls his weed sprayer/insect sprayers in and out, the same thing can occur HOWEVER the biggest hazard is the mostly unseen hazard of spillage of grain onto the roads when a farmer has a load of corn or other grain on a haul truck, and its so full, when turning slightly on a road, it pours out of the open top.

My back route to work in MN has several "s turns" on one section that every week, like clock work has corn splliiage as the farmer, making use of every inch of his truck bed, fills it to capacity, and looses just a bit on thse turns. He probably doen't even know he is loosing it. The birds flock there every week to clean it up, so it does not last more than a day.

He is hauling the corn out of a silo to the mill to be cracked "processed" so his dairy cattle can eat it. If it was fed without processing, it would come out of the backend of his holstein still intact! This goes on 52 weeks a year, and you can count on finding the spillage there every week. If you don't know it's there from experience, it could send you on a skid like an elephant on a skateboard!

However, I personally think squished chipmunks or dead cats and their guts spread out on the roads, or chunks of retreads from semis on the interstate, or grit after a heavy rain represent as much or more of a hazard.

Or in the "Haulroad" article, might watch out for the feared "wisconsin grey wolf" who has been known to chase down, then consume GS, RS scooters. If you believe that BS, you really are a city slicker, and should watch close on those backroads in wisconsin for this feared preditor and chunks of caca put thier by uncaring farmers!:laugh