Country Views: Investigating The Level B Road

The level of smell here was at 10.

Saturday was a day I had several things to do around the house, and it kept threatening rain, so I postponed my bike ride to Sunday. That turned out to be a good deal since it was clear, warm, and very dry out. In fact, it was so dry out we had fire warnings. 24% humidity is unheard of here in the month of May, so this felt like riding in the desert to me. I'm used to it being 'swampier' than that.

Anyway, I decided since I had 650B wheels on the Stormchaser that I should go try out the Level B Maintenance section of Petrie Road. I hadn't been down that way in quite some time, so I figured an exploration of its current condition was warranted. I also was wanting to see if there were signs it might be getting turned into a C Maintenance Road, which would mean it would be gated off and access to riding it would be pretty much gone. After having spoken to an adjacent landowner there during T.I.v12, I have had the distinct feeling that this could happen at anytime. So far, it has not.

So, I headed on down South via the Sergeant Road Trail and I noted that all the flowering shrubs were doing their thing now. It smelled like a refreshed bathroom which had been sprayed with some flowery air freshener. Only, you know......more natural, and beautiful. Not that sickly fake smell of man-made crap. Anyway, the odor was intense. I cannot remember it being that way before. Does less air pollution and traffic have anything to do with that? Perhaps.... Anyway, I was digging it.

This large glacial erratic is located South of Waterloo, but is often obscured by vegetation. This is a rare clear view of it.

Most fields I saw had been planted already.

Of course, the Level B Maintenance section of Petrie Road is pretty much straight South of Waterloo, and it doesn't take long to get there. I figured I would give myself an option to go there and come back, or to ride a bit further and perhaps catch a bit of Level B I am aware of in Northern Tama County. The roads were super dry, chunky, and rough with all the agricultural equipment passage for planting recently.

There was still some planting going on on Sunday.

I foumd Petrie Road and since I've been down that way we've had wetter weather, planting, and who knows what sort of traffic has been down that road. I was certain the ag equipment had been through there since almost everything I saw was planted now. What I found was a bit shocking.

I don't think I've ever seen the Level B part of Petrie Road so rutted out and torn up.

The Stormchaser with 650B wheels and tires.

First off, approaching from the East, that section where the road is almost always low and muddy has been filled in with white rock. This isn't any ordinary gravel, but it is fist-sized chunk that was tough to navigate with 47mm tires. Then the hill going up from that point is blown out sand, as usual, but at the top the road gets into a clay section and the ruts were so deep I had to be very careful to avoid running down into them. This pretty much stayed the case until I got out on the West end. Before I got there I was startled by a rooster pheasant. The tell-tale flapping sound and whistle of its wings were unmistakable.

Another planter putting seeds in the ground.

I decided that the chunk that was predominate on the roads combined with the Stormchaser's very unforgiving front end was making riding not so much fun, so I turned the bike back Northward and headed back to the shed. Probably a good thing considering how fatigued I was Saturday. Maybe I need to take a short break. Give myself some time to rest.

But this Spring going on Summer has been just too fantastic to pass up for riding.