Detour

Ag sprayer in the field. (Click to embiggen)

Wednesday morning I awoke to wet streets and dripping eaves. Bah! It had rained again during the evening, and it looked like it could again soon. It was cloudy and so I decided to rearrange my ride schedule to the afternoon instead. I needed to ride when it was warmer anyway to help myself acclimate for Odin's Revenge, which I am expecting will be very hot.

I cleaned and re-lubed the Twin Six Standard Rando with new lube for the Lube-Off, (more on that soon in a separate post), and then I did a podcast for RidingGravel.com with my partner, Ben Welnak. We got to interview Yuri Hauswald, the winner of the Dirty Kanza 200 this year. It was a fantastic, insightful, and fun conversation. I'll be posting up the link for it soon when it gets published. That took me into mid-afternoon, so by then it was good and hot out! I decided to kit up and ride for at least a couple of hours instead of mowing the lawn first.

The Standard Rando was the steed for the day. I am growing to really like this bike. Like anything, it isn't perfect, but it's darn close. That is one reason I am seemingly getting along with it so well. I'll not delve into this too much here, as I want to reserve my specifics for the review coming up on RidingGravel.com.

The clouds were really dramatic yesterday.

Some farmers are starting to mow their ditches, which leaves a bunch of grass clippings on the roads in spots.

Barns For Jason

I went out to do a 20-ish mile loop I have established for quickie rides. I didn't want to do a big ride initially because I figured I had better save some energy in the tank for that lawn mowing I was neglecting. (And it really needed done!) I was cruising along Eastward, expecting to pick up the tailwind on my way back into town, when I saw something. A road sign warning me that the road was closed ahead. So, instead of getting that turn out of the wind, I was obliged to turn right back into it to find myself a detour.

There's a barn quilt there for Chad.

These parts have a fair share of paved roads and I was obliged to finally take that a few miles to get back into town. Not my choice, and there was far too much traffic for my tastes, (a special nod to the inconsiderate fellow in the white Toyota Corolla, by the way), but I did manage to get back to town and gain some bonus miles along the way. By the time I got back to the house, showery weather had developed. So, I got even more of a work out while mowing as it ended up sprinkling on me rather heavily for a moment. It only ensured that the grass would be heavy, sticky, and that it would foul the mower at times. I did manage though, and the lawn should be tamed for a while, at any rate.

So, all in all a successful addition to the training for Odin's Revenge and while I won't be taking those detour miles again anytime soon, I did get to see some of the country I wouldn't ordinarily travel through.