Brown Season: Half And Half

The day started out beautifully and along the Cedar River, it looked great.

Brown Season means that you never know when it will be more like Winter or more like Fall. Saturday, it was the "more like Fall" so I got out on the Noble Bikes GX5 with the GRX group and did a nice loop that was about half paved and half gravel.

There were other gravel rides going on Saturday. N.Y. Roll had one, but it left at 6:30am and I wasn't feeling like getting out of bed at 5:00am to get there since I wasn't feeling 100% Friday. I had been sneezing a lot and I had a headache all day. I assumed I would do well to get a really long, good night of sleep. There was another ride set to leave and do the New Hartford Hills later in the morning, but I wanted to just set out from my house and see what I was in for. So, it was a solo slog for myself.

This particular day was to be- maybe- the last 50+ degree day in 2019. So, I wore a wool base layer, a wool long sleeved jersey, my Riding Gravel vest, and a pair of thermal bib tights. I wore some glove liners, and my buff on my head underneath the Bell aero helmet. On the feet were a pair of wool socks and the Northwave boots I have. I felt fine for the entire three hour ride until I got home and then my feet were freezing. Weird.

The temperatures were in the low 50's for the entire ride and the winds were out of the Southwest at probably close to 20mph, but not over that. I had about seven miles right into it, but it wasn't too bad, really.

I saw a couple Bald Eagles frolicking over the Cedar River. Here I highlighted one. 

Gravel- finally- going South on Foulk Road.

I'm pretty fortunate in that I only have to travel about six or seven blocks to get to a bike trail that leads along the Cedar River which then takes me to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail and out of town. Getting through Evansdale can be a bit tricky for the uninitiated, but the "Nature Trail", as the locals call it, gets you out into the rural areas fast. Once out of town I veered off onto Foulk Road which goes straight South and turns to gravel after Washburn Road.

Barns For Jason- Another tiny barn!

Farmer are starting to work the ground in preparation for next Spring. Note how black the soil is here.

Foulk Road is pretty flat, really, and so I figured that if I was feeling bad, I could just turn around at some point and ride all the flat stuff back to my home. But actually, I felt pretty good, and I had never been on portions of Foulk and Quarry Road which I had intended on using. So, I forged ahead.

A beautiful draft horse and it's smaller companion, a normal sized quarter horse, on Quarry Road.

Going West on Quarry Road was double trouble this time since the wind was out of the Southwest. That and the fact that you climb up going West made for a tougher slog, but i was surprised that I felt strong and it didn't really bother me. Now I never would have guessed I would have felt good about head wind and climbing, and especially after not feeling my best, but there ya go. Who knows what the deal is? I just took what I had to work with and had a decent push up and into that wind.

I saw a bunch of these "woolly-bears", caterpillars they are, crossing roads Saturday. 

Now we've had some Winter already with snows and sub-freezing temperatures. So when I saw some Wooly Bears crossing the roads, I had to marvel. How do these caterpillars make it through the snow and bone chilling cold? I have no idea.

So, the turn North put the wind kind of at my back, but the roads were super, super gravelly. Like I almost was out of control many times due to the depth of fresh gravel. The rest of the route was fine, actually, but Aker Road, for whatever reason, had tons of fresh gravel. What a way to end the gravel part of the ride.

Then it was back down toward home on the Sergeant Road trail and when I got home I had 33 miles under my tires. That was just good enough to tucker me out and amazingly, I felt fine. No headache anymore!

Guess a good ride can cure what ills ya.