Country Views: Just About A Perfect Day

Benton County Court House, Vinton Iowa

I mentioned it Saturday in my "Barns For Jason" post, but N.Y. Roll arranged for a ride and invited myself and Tom to join him. The ride was going to be a metric century and it was to start in Vinton, Iowa. N.Y. Roll wanted to get an early start, so he set a time of 5:30am for picking me up at G-Ted Headquarters. That meant that I had to get to bed early Friday evening and have the alarm set for 5:00am. I had everything laid out the evening before and the bike was loaded as well. 

My plan was to use the Gravel Worlds set up on the pink Black Mountain Cycles MCD. I also was wearing the clothing I figured on using for the event, just to make sure I was going to be good to go for this coming weekend. I ended up putting on the Sun-sleeves and going glove-less, but that ended up being good and bad for other reasons than I anticipated! I'll get to that in the discussion later. 

Roll and I got going right at 5:30am and made our way to Vinton to rendezvous with Tom at a local MTB trail head near an old looking ball field. Apparently there is about a mile of well groomed sngle track right there. I may have to go down sometime with one of my single speed MTB's and check that out, now that I know where that is.

Leaving Vinton, crossing the Cedar River. This shot reminds me of "Pink Floyd"!

There was a LOT of fog and the low angle of the Sun made for some treacherous early conditions.

We hooked up with Tom and were off at about 6:30am. The Sun comes up later now so we were actually going just as the Sun was rising. It made for that 'golden hour' lighting and with shreds of fog everywhere, it looked spectacular. We rolled out of Vinton on a similar route to what I used when I went through there last year on my aborted Guitar Ted Death Ride attempt. 

I was surprisingly chilly. Lower 50's at the start, and no wind! Zero! It was dead calm. The air was really humid and with the fog it sucked the heat right out of my finger tips and my hands were freezing! What a change in weather! I was super happy about the Sun sleeves though! It would have been really cold without those on. In fact, both Tom and N.Y. Roll were without a wind breaker or any sleeve coverings, so they were inclined to go hard out of the gate to get warm and stay that way. 

First gravel didn't come for almost 6 miles. We would see more miles of pavement all throughout the ride.

Tom following N.Y. Roll as he goes to 'poke a square'.

Last time N.Y. Roll and I did a gravel ride he was playing some GPS game where he had to ride into a 'square' on the map to lay claim to riding there. He was up to those shenanigans again on this ride. We had to await him three times, or I should say, I waited. Tom went with him the first two times to keep warm! 

The fog was gone and the Sun was coming up higher now. It was getting more tolerable and I wasn't freezing in the fingers anymore. But still......no wind! It was impossible. No- it was real. It was also really quiet. Tom and I were remarking on that as N.Y. Roll went off to 'poke another square' on his own. You couldn't hear anything but the far off cooing of Mourning Doves, the raspy call of a rooster far off, or the barking of some cur over the hills. Otherwise, it was dead still. And, I might add, very beautiful out!

Prairie Creek Christian Church, built in 1858, and added on to a few times!

 

N.Y. Roll found this rad Level B Road to ride.

We weren't even 20 miles into the route and I was remarking how cool the route was. The roads and views were amazing. It didn't hurt that the weather was just about perfect. The wildfire smoke had finally cleared out the day before, and the skies were clean, nearly cloud-free, and that familiar blue. 

N.Y. Roll even had a super-fun Level B Road on the route that featured sandier dirt which was solid, smooth, and pretty rut-free. I enjoyed that a lot! It was a full mile of that and then back to gravel, a bit of pavement, and finally into an area that I've been itching to ride in for years. It is down between Urbana and Center Point on the West side of I-380. 

Gorgeous roads and good company

Center Point is just over that ridge....

Along about this time we noted the smell of alfalfa roasting in the Sun. If you have been around silage, you know 'that' aroma. Looking about us, we saw several wind-rowed fields waiting to be bailed. N.Y. Roll quipped that "That's just kimchi for cows!" N.Y. Roll dropping the wisdom-bombs!

Then we rolled up onto a ridge for a bit. It was high above all around us and we could see that we would be making a big descent. Just as we hit the first downhill corner we spied a cool cemetery and N.Y. Roll suggested I make a quick photo opp happen. 

Cox Cemetery. It would not be the last one we would stop at on the day!

Tom cruising up on another ridge on his single speed SOMA

At this point we were being treated to some pretty spectacular views up on top of another ridge as we drew ever closer to Center Point and our planned stop. The Sun was riding high at this point and we were all very comfortable in the low humidity and with temperatures getting through the 60's by this point and onward to the 70's. Still, there was no wind. So uncanny! 

Coming off the ridges and down toward Center Point now.

After the Center Point stop we were treated to more spectacular roads.

We eventually got off the ridges and down along some tree-lined lower valley area where we started noting garbage in small plastic bags along the roadside here and there. It was random, and some bits were identifiable. I noted an insulated water bottle and N.Y. Roll went into this detailed story of how this indicated a relationship gone sour and more. It was pretty outlandish and I thanked him afterward for his astute forensic garbage analysis. 

Center Point was a busy place. There was highschool football practice going on at the school we passed by. A sign of Fall, and not the last we would see on the day. There was plenty of lawn mowing, car washing, and other traffic as well. We pulled into the Casey's just off I-380. It was one of their newest, bigger sized stores and it even had an indoor fountain! Pretty fancy stuff. I got a bottle of YooHoo and some Dot's Pretzel sticks for the feed bag. 

N.Y. Roll, directing traffic.

 N.Y. Roll said that it was unusual for a Level B Road to cross a rail road track, so he demanded I put this in here.

The first several miles past Center Point were punctuated by steep climbs and tree-lined roads. Tom, on his single speed SOMA, was put in that position of either grunting out a climb at a higher intensity than he'd have preferred, or walking a hill. One in particular was steep enough and long enough that it put him over the line, although we weren't really aware of it right away. Not long afterward, Tom started falling off the back. It became apparent that we needed to stop, and a chance find of a pioneer era cemetery provided just the diversion we needed with about 20+ miles to go. 

The lane leading up to the cemetery was pockmarked with half-hidden burrow holes big enough to swallow a tire.

What people did to come to Iowa, settle, and try to survive in the 19th Century blows me away.

We spent some time checking out the various tombstone inscriptions and marveling at what it must have been like for these people in those times. There were a few hale, older Red Cedar trees in this lot which had been there so long that their tops were broken and a tangled mess. We sheltered from the Sun under a couple of these while we took our leisure for a short time.

Then it was time to head out again for the last bit of our ride. The roads had been dusty all day. Lots of places had fresh gravel and it was hard to find the good line. We ran into several miles of wash-boarded gravel after leaving Center Point. It was so bad that Tom agreed with my assessment that it was 'rattling eyes out' bad. But here after the cemetery stop we found the cleanest lines and the smoothest gravel of the day. That is, up until we hit the last five to six miles, which again were chunky-goodness. 

The first signs I've seen of the corn drying down. Definitely a sign of Fall!

 Not far to go here at this point.

We crossed a highway where N.Y. Roll wanted us to all get across together for safety's sake. Tom then revealed that he had run out of water. So I quickly offered him my Jet Green bottle, which is 950ml in capacity, and Tom made that bottle empty in a hurry by drinking some and storing the rest for the remainder of the journey. 

It wasn't far, but N.Y. Roll thought that at the next opportunity for shade that we came across, that we should stop and let Tom cool down. It was probably into the 80's by this point in the late morning. The Sun was fierce, but I managed to stay calm and was fine. I had plenty of water and food and was taking it on all throughout the ride. Basically, munching and sipping consistently all the morning long. 

A tractor pulling an implement passed us by at our shady rest stop. 

We were held up from crossing into Vinton by this quarter mile long line of double-file Harleys.

We found that shade about five miles from the finish so we took another short break. By the way- still no wind! Then it was down hill into Vinton and back to the cars, about a full metric century down. We finished up right at noon, so 5.5 hours, even with all the stopping we did. Not too shabby.  I felt tired, but not exhausted, not by any stretch, and I could have gone on. This felt like a good way to top-up the training for Gravel Worlds. 

My assessment of the set-up I have going was a mixed bag. On one hand, the bike was 99.9% perfect. I may have to tweak the rear derailleur cable a hair, but otherwise, there was nothing wrong with the way things worked. The clothing was spot on for the day. Had it gotten more humid, warmer, or both, I would have felt better about my choices, because I would be floored if we get the weather we had Saturday for Gravel Worlds in Nebraska. Oh, and there will be wind! There is no way it won't be windy in Nebraska!

So, I am not 100% sure about the clothing, or how strong I am without a wind test, but I am going to roll with it. No reason not to at this point. I was a bit concerned when I compared my mileage total with N.Y. Roll's who was using a Wahoo GPS unit. I was over, and so I need to re calibrate the unit, but... During the ride I realized my Lezyne GPS unit has an "O" ring mount, very similar to the Sigma computer I have, so I could mount the Lezyne up without issues. A big "doh!" moment for me, but I have that mount in hand and so I won't have to mess with the Sigma now and the sensor unit. 

Nutritionally I have a few items on their way to G-Ted Headquarters which I know work and should round out the needs quite nicely- if they show up in time! I know....I worry too much, but it would be nice to get that out of the way. Cues are in, so I am going to try my T.I. style cues for Gravel Worlds. The cue sheet holder passed the 60mph test on the way down to Vinton, so that part is good to go. Okay... There are probably a few more details to get in order, but the knot is being tied and soon I will have to go with what I have and the thinkering process will have to come to an end. 

Five days to go......