Fall Views: Harvest Season Wraps Up

Escape route: Duffy Road

 I knew it would be windy Saturday, but I had some business to do with Northeast Black Hawk County that wouldn't wait. "The Quest" rolls on, wind or no! (ha!) Anyway, I grabbed the Raleigh Tamland Two again, as it has those Vee Tire Rocketman tires I am reviewing, and because it has gears. I wanted to ride the Twin Six Standard Rando v2, but since that is a single speed, and riding in heavy winds is really hard, a geared bike made more sense. Besides, I like my knees. 

The temperatures weren't too bad. This will probably be the last time I get to ride in shirt sleeves for the year though. I did wear my Riding Gravel gillet and I wore some older bib shorts underneath the Stolen Goat Gravel Shorts. I also used these new Q 36.5 gloves. Yes......the brand name is "Q 36.5". That sounds like a radio station call sign. Weird. Anyway.... The gloves sure are nice. 

The plan for this ride was to knock off the roads up in the Northeast corner of Black Hawk County. I had finally settled on a way to do this in the most efficient manner I could come up with staring at the maps. Then I drove on up to Dunkerton, Iowa, where I was thinking I'd find a nice public parking place and be able to embark from there on my planned route. The only thing was, there isn't a good place to park there in that village. So, I came up with a better plan. Actually, it was far better than I had planned at home. 

Barns For Jason #1

Buck Creek Road. That's a dead raccoon on the left in the road there.

I suddenly realized that on another trip up this way I had come across a public hunting area with a tiny access right off a dead end gravel road. It was perfectly placed to save me even more time and it fit perfectly into my route. Brilliant! I was on my way, and the winds weren't even too bad yet. Fortunately, I was getting a tail wind for most of the first half of this route. 

Barns For Jason #2: Did I suddenly go back in time to the 1960's?

Barns For Jason #3: South of here there are hardly any barns. I had the first three here within 5 miles.

Leaving the truck I had only to go a quarter mile to Duffy Road. I needed the Northern bit of that road off the to-do list. On the way I did an out-and-back for the 3/4's of a mile of Buck Creek Road that exists in Black Hawk County, and then I headed up to C-57 to head West and pick up the dead end section of Adams Road.

Barns For Jason #4 on C-57

Adams Road South of C-57

By the time I got to the Adams Road section South of C-57 the wind was picking up pretty quickly. The weatherman said this would happen. It made riding South a real pain, but it wasn't just a South wind. No- it was out of the Southwest, so going West was no picnic now either. 

Not your usual Iowa farm animal!

The corn harvest is coming to a close.

I headed North, crossed back over C-57, and covered the Northern section of Adams Road. This "T"'ed into a road that wasn't named on the Iowa DOT map, but as it turned out, it was the lone, furthest East section of Gresham Road. I took the last bit of that West which turned me up North again into Pace Road and on to Highway 281. 

Soon all the wagons will be parked for another year.

Barns For Jason #5

This ended up being an odd section to get cleaned up because Highway 281 isn't on the county line, like Marquise Road is further West of this area. No, for whatever reason the engineers laid out this road a quarter mile South of the county line. This left me two stubs of gravel sitting North of the highway I'd have to do out-and-backs on. 

Barns For Jason #6: This one is on Highway 281

The county at least marked where the border was so I didn't have to guess.

Fortunately, the County marks the border with a street sign in the ditch, so when I was going up Pace Road, I could find the border and then go back to Highway 281. By this time the wind was so nuts that corn leaves were flying through the air around me and the bursts of wind were pushing along dust clouds down the road. Going against this was a really tough deal. 

The vastness of the Iowan landscape dwarfs this monster articulated tractor and disc rig.

The most Northeasterly section of gravel in Black Hawk County ends here.

So, I had a fight with the wind the rest of the ride. Even going East, which wasn't hard to do in terms of work, was rough because the wind was trying to push me out into the speeding traffic on Highway C-57. I was very glad to head North on Black Hawk-Buchanan Road to the corner with Highway 281 and reach the Northeastern most gravel in the County. 

Tractor with a mower attached. Not a John Deere, which is odd around these parts!

Barns For Jason #7: This barn is covered with garage door fascia on the end.

There was now a long slog South into the wind on Black Hawk- Buchanan road, which is the county line road on the East with Buchanan County. The wind was really bad! I maybe was doing 6-7mph here. This section took forever to ride. But, things ended better......

Teem Road. A nice, sheltered respite from the madness before.

The Wapsipinnicon River

I had one last road to knock off, Teem Road, which ended up being a nice, sheltered road along the Wapsipinnicon River. It was also beautiful, despite all the Fall color having been blown out of the trees. I bet it was spectacular a week ago. But that just shows you how fast things can change in Nature. 

It was a tough ride. I didn't ride all that far, but it took nearly three hours to get it done. I was pretty toasted afterward. I also was happy to have this troublesome section of "The Quest" off the list of things to have to get done. There will be more goofy bits to knock off the list, but that can wait a bit. Rest is on the docket now.