I Missed The Mud.......A Little!

Wet, soft roads, like these in Spring of 2018, were absent this year.

Well, it would seem that we went from Winter straight into Spring with barely any transition at all. The roads all around Iowa are seemingly coming out of Winter with flying colors and in a rather unprecedented state, they are even getting fresh gravel already. That's usually something that waits until April sometime. 

And here I was, thinking we'd have a typical transition from Winter to Spring with at least two weeks of "slop season" riding. I tacked on fenders and clip-on mudguards all to no avail. They simply were not needed this year at all. In fact, I stripped two bikes of their fenders already, and may succumb to taking them off my Black Mountain Cycles Monster Cross rig. I have not ridden that bike without fenders for over five years. 

So, big deal, right? That's a good thing. Well......maybe, except we need the moisture and it is super dry out there now, even with this rain we are getting. I am just kind of shocked we haven't seen any moisture in the roads. It is a pain to deal with when you want to bicycle, but not having any? That's not good for anyone. So, I kind of missed the mud, to be honest, and I hope that it doesn't continue to be overly dry out there. 

The other side note to all of this is that I am supposed to be reviewing this rain jacket and, well..... Hopefully I can get out in this and put an end to this review I'm doing. It has rained before this, of course, but it was freezing cold and coming down in the form of 'soft snow'. Like big flakes of snow that had just been melted enough that you could call it rain. Not anything I'd want to ride in.

I'm not sure why, but my iPhone camera just cannot replicate the color of this bike correctly.

Sunday I rode the Standard Rando v2 around the neighborhood to get my daily exercise in. No big deal. Just enough to spin out the legs and to stress the knee I tweaked Saturday a bit so it wouldn't get stiff. That all worked out, but as I was riding it I kept debating in my mind whether or not I am going to keep riding the Winston Bar on there. Unfortunately, no decision was made. 

I guess I'll just keep riding it the way it is for the time being until I get inspired to do something different. I'm not necessarily missing a drop bar, but I'm not sure the Winston Bar is 100% right for this bike. It's really good, so don't get me wrong. It is probably just a case of over-thinking things. I guess I should forget about missing 'slop-season' and the Winston Bar and shut up and ride.