Country Views: Test Session With The Wind

A little handle bar 'attitude adjustment' stop.

Wednesday I got out on the gravel for a 2.5hr test session on the set up for the Single Speed Century attempt. It was supposed to have been partly cloudy and warmer, but not so much. Sheesh! The weather people are sure not scoring high on the accuracy around here of late, I'll tell ya that much! In fact, it wasn't supposed to rain, but it sure looked like it could have at any minute during my entire ride.

And then there is the wind. It was listed at 13mph from the East on the weather app. I call B.S. on that! More like a 15-20 mph wind out of the Southeast, from where I was sat for a while, which was pretty much directly into it for several miles. Okay.....okay! It maybe was a little heavier wind, and not 20mph, but I'm not buying this measly 13mph figure. I worked hard into that wind.

And yes, I went east, but down a road I typically only do in early Spring, or sometimes during Winter. Not sure why I have done it that way, but Newell Street is a pretty cool Eastward road and I should do rides off of it more often than I do. There are a few roads I need to 'bag' out that way anyway to get all the Black Hawk County gravel roads under my belt this year.

So, I ended up turning on a road I have done on this 'route' I do many times before, North Pilot Grove Road. Then I ended up turning onto Airline Highway, because, well, ya gotta go by St. Francis Catholic Church! I had to get another image at the cemetery gate, as the last time I rode gravel on the Pofahl was a on route that went by this church on a late Fall ride.

St. Francis Catholic Church

Bonus: Now going West I had a big push from the wind. Actually I did going North as well. This is why I felt the wind was a lot stronger than the app said, because I was literally outrunning my gear most of the way back going North or West. Had I been on a geared bike I could have been flying.

It really looked like it could rain at any minute.

An interesting erratic alongside Crane Creek Road. It's engraved with a name and date!

I've gone down Crane Creek Road several times and this big glacial erratic sits in the west ditch at one point on that road. I've seen it before, but this time the growing vegetation was dead, and underneath it could be seen that the big rock had been engraved with a name and year. It looked vaguely something like "THILTGES 187?", I couldn't make out the last digit in the year as I rolled by. Maybe I will stop next time and investigate that further. Whatever it says, it is unusual, and I would like to find out the story on that someday.

I ended up coming to some conclusions after this test session. I found out that the saddle on the Pofahl can likely stay. It is no more or less comfortable than my WTB saddle, so I see no need to swap it out. I tweaked the bar position, and now I am really happy with that. I still haven't decided on whether or not I'll take a Chaff Bag. I probably will. They are just so handy. I may go against the cue sheet holder. The route has only three small-ish pages. I can manage if I stuff them into a Chaff Bag. It's not like I am racing or anything. A little slower solution to read the cues by is no big deal for this ride. Besides, I'm riding a single speed. "Fast" will not be part of the vocabulary for this ride, that is, unless I get a mighty tail wind like I did yesterday.

More Soon........