Flint Hills Scavenger Hunt

The summer days get long, and a bit warm, this time of year. That certainly doesn’t keep us from riding here in the Gravel Capital. We simply find it is best to retreat into the cooler temps of the morning or night. This weekend brings the Garmin Lunar Ride, a 50 or 25 mile fun ride through the Flint Hills at night. Traditionally, the ride coincides with a full moon and the lunar light is ample to guide riders on a journey through the famed rocky roads. This year, however, the event will take place during a new moon, which is to say no moon. Glimpses of the milky way will be second to none this coming weekend. Currently, folks can still get registered for that ride here.

While the Garmin Lunar Ride provides a fantastic event experience against a stellar night backdrop, we felt there was still more riding to be had this coming weekend. Therefore, we created our second Ride Challenge of the year. The Flint Hills Scavenger Hunt will send riders hunting for three famed locations near(ish) to Emporia out on the infamous flint roads. The route one takes to get to each point is inconsequential. All that matters is that riders pass through each point, on separate rides, between Thursday, July 22nd and Sunday, July 25th. Each Lunar Rider that does the 50 mile course will already pass through one of the designated points. Participants must create a free Ridespot account in order to participate. We encourage you to download the free app to record your rides, but you can also use just about any other ride tracker and upload the routes to the Ride Spot web browser as well. All challenge completers can pick up a sticker from the Visit Emporia office and one lucky winner will be drawn to receive a golden ticket. This golden ticket will allow the holder to bypass the 2022 UNBOUND Gravel lottery, thus granting automatic entry. For more information you can read about the challenge here. You are always welcome to reach out to us directly with questions. Happy hunting graveleros!