Riding Waltons Land - White Oak

The story around Walmart and the Walton family behind is a special one. So was the gravel ride i did with Brian around the Bentonville Bikefest and the combined NBDA Retailer Summit.

It was the last stopp of my triple event trip Idaho, Arizona and Arkansas. Brian, our sales manager in the US, and i arrived to do the NBDA Retailer Summit, an important industry get together. But being as well in a state that has its focus strong on bicycle trails, we also did use the opportunity to do a gravel ride out there.
We could manage to rent the latest S-Works Diverge bikes from the Specialized Experience Center in Bentonville. We started from our hotel and pretty soon we reached, using some bike paths, a tricky trail for gravel bikes. Pretty soon we hit nice gravel roads in the woods. We choosed a Loop suggested by locals and called White Oak – and as the name says we rode through incredible woods combined touching open land with big farms.
The weather was on the edge to rain but we could manage to always be in the sunny window but once or while feeling some drops coming down. Nothing that disturbed our freedom out in the wide land.
The tour brought us to rivers, seeing herds of cows but also snakes on the road crossing our way. But we also could feel a few times that some oft he people in their big trucks are not fans of bicycle riders at all when we needed to ride some parts on tarmac. Highlight here sure that we got haunted by dogs not easy to keep them away from us.
I would say one of the best gravel rides i did, surley connected to the Diverge bikes which worked great, and sure a good start into the business part of our visit. Btw next to Arkansa we also road Missouri as we crossed boarder.

bike: Specialized Diverge S-Works
starring: Gerry Samer, Brian Valverde