Route Library
A collection of curated, constantly evolving mixed terrain cycling routes designed to support local area cyclists and visitors alike, in your pursuit of exploring new scenery, challenges and adventures throughout Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. Below, you’ll find the few main categories broken up into regions or specific route sharing projects. Within those categories, most of the routes are filed under “Ride Hubs” scattered across that area. This aims to support both consistent user experiences, as well as support the local communities within these regions that directly support these route experiences – like the grocers, pubs, and other community resources within them.
Each Hub houses its own collection of routes where you can view, download, and navigate routes offline for free by joining our Mixed Soil Club Account on Ride With GPS.
These libraries include routes of all distances and difficulties – whether it’s a new 1-2 hour route you’re looking to squeeze in after work, a 5-10 hour weekend epic, an overnight bikepacking trip, or a multi-week bike touring expedition, there’s plenty to go ’round, y’all.
The routes listed within this library are not necessarily the only notable riding opportunities in the area, rather they’re designed to serve as a balanced guideline for both riders that are new to gravel cycling, as well as experienced riders looking to branch out into new territory or bigger adventures. That being said, this community-led library casts a wide net, highlighting many iconic routes, destination-rides, and adventure worthy link-ups from years of exploring by bike.
Each individual route that is shared has been ridden in full by area cyclists, is entirely legally accessible for bicycles, and contains regularly updated “Points of Interest” (POI’s) to further support the ride experience. Of course, if you come across any necessary route adjustments, missing vial information, or road closures while out, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line and we’ll be sure to make any necessary updates. It takes a village!
The Shawnee Expedition Library
This route library houses the core, regional Shawnee National Forest /Southern Illinois Bikepacking Route. Our OG route, if you will – this fully immersive SoIL route is the fuel behind the greater local route sharing project at hand. Here you will also find the Shawnee Expedition’s sibling routes, broken up into sub-regions for approachability. All other SoIL Bikepacking routes can be found in the SoIL Route Library.
SoIL Route Library:
This route library houses a vast collection of mixed terrain routes in all corners of the Shawnee National Forest & Southern Illinois Region. The majority of these routes are categorized into Ride Hubs that are filtered across each regional corridor, ranging from short day outings and all-day epics, to overnight bikepacking routes and week-long expeditions.
Southeast Missouri Ozarks Library
In conjunction with the Ozark Gravel Cyclists, we’ve shifted all pre-existing Southeast Missouri mixed terrain routes to the greater Ozark Regional route library. The Ozarks as a geographical region, stretch as far Southwest as Northeast Oklahoma, as far North as Central Missouri, and as far East as the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau (and some say Illinois?). We’re delighted to contribute to this growing, two-state, regional route project and are eager to share the Southeast Missouri corridor of the greater Ozarks Region – it’s overflowing with some of the most rugged and rewarding mixed terrain cycling experiences in the Midwest. Explore the SEMO hubs now!
Multi-Sport Packafting Library
This route library houses our entire collection of packrafting routes. While there is an innate focus on Bikerafting the MO/AR Ozark Riverways , we’ve curated a few of our favorite foot & paddle link-ups as well. Routes range from day outings to week-long expeditions. More movement equals more fun, right?!
Stay tuned to our socials for annoucements on the updated release of these route collections as Phase 2 of our Mixed Soil Journey continues. As always, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. If you’d like to submit a route to share with the community, please email aaron@mixedsoil.com for a list of simple criteria we have for our community routes – we’d love to see what you’re up to and share it across our platforms.
Mixed Soil 