I know the best way to find great roads for riding is to just get out there but... anyone got any suggestions for southwestern Missouri?

Gibby  

I've got an off the wall suggestion (assuming you don't have a GPS(my Garmin allows me to download routes to ride in an area for a couple bucks... haven't tried it yet, but it should work).

Have used this one
Pull up google.earth (load it if necessary). you can pull up fairly detailed maps and pics of an area. If you want an example, pull up Sneedville, Tn (been there, seen the road, got  the pics to prove it). Find Rt 63, and follow it west. Make sure you turn on roads for display. Play around with the altitude, higher lets you see more of the area, lower lets you see detail.

My new GPS actually lets me play rides on Google Earth (no haven't tried it).  

Yeah, GoogleEarth is great. I use it to find launching ramps for my boat :-)

It'll let you see which roads are paved, but not let you see how smooth the pavement is. A while back, on another forum with a chat room, I asked around hoping to find someone who knew of a site that maintained a database of road surface conditions, expressly geared toward motorcycle riders. No one ever knew of such a site and I've never found one despite frequent attempts with search engines.

I was just reminded of that again, last wednesday, when I made the mistake of taking Ohio 22 from Lancaster to Deerfield, on my way back to Florida. It may be a fine road for cars, it's even got brand new pavement in places, but it truly sucks to ride a bike on it. The pavement is wavy and the waves are close enough together to be a constant pounding on a motorcycle. The car skid marks *all* show the tires bouncing while skidding. GoogleEarth isn't good enough to show skid marks yet :-)

regards,
Joe