Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Preparing Before I (Was Supposed To) Go

The Bubblegum Princess as it should look for the Prairie Burn 100
So, as I have stated in earlier posts, I was bound for Emporia, Kansas this week and was to be gone through Saturday. That all changed yesterday when MG and I discussed plans. It seems we are both betwixt rocks and hard places with regard to our domestic/family/home maintenance issues. Some of it exacerbated by the recent heavy rains, some by circumstances. So, the bottom line is I'm not going to Kansas afterall.

But I didn't know that until yesterday. That meant that I had to get the Bubblegum Princess ready for the Prairie Burn 100 this past weekend for June 8th. I didn't need to do much. But one major thing I wanted to do was to get some tubeless tires set up on it.

I had been running the Tioga Binary tires which I reviewed for RidingGravel.com recently. Since that review was over, I was free to swap to this set of WTB Resolutes which are my favorite gravel tires these days. They ride super smoothly and have really decent traction when things get iffy on Level B Roads and the like. I have been super impressed with how fast they roll, compared to a WTB Riddler 45, for example, or many other gravel tires. So, a fresh injection of home brew sealant and these went on well. This makes the Bubblegum Princess about as smooth a rig as I could ask for to tackle the big hills of gravel around Grinnell.

 Since I had expected to be gone the rest of the week I had scheduled some preliminary "Trans Iowa Stories" to run Thursday and Friday. I'll still let that stand, I think. Plus, I wasn't going to do a "Friday News And Views", but since I will be around after all, I am back on that.

2 comments:

teamdarb said...

There is a saying from with my family: "Tea and mustard seed". It cannot be used in a sentence. It is just something you would say to yourself really. What it meant was that if the pantry were bare-you would be drinking water and eating saw dust. When I got older I asked my great great...errrr I dont know how great but great grandmother who never learned or cared to read, never trusted the word of a woman, and beat the hell outta lazy men. She was a child of slavery. She said they always kept a leaf of tobacco and seed. Whether time was hard or not, one could drop the seed or tobacco sprig into the cheek and be thankful they aint dead.

Guitar Ted said...

@teamdarb: "But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren't alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promised joy."

Robert Burns