Country Views: Wind And Rock

Escape Route: West 5th/6th Street

So, as you may have seen in Saturday's post, I received a new Hammerhead Karoo 2 GPS unit. Well, I did get out on Thursday to test the thing out. I used the same route I used for the last test of the first unit I had. I call it the "Southern Black Hawk County Route". 

It is a 33+ mile loop out and back from my house, so there is a fair amount of pavement to get out to the country. A mixed-terrain route, if you will. This time the weather was about perfect in terms of temperature and humidity. Mid to upper 70's and low humidity. But the wind! Northwest at 25mph with higher gusts. And, you know, out in the country it is always worse. 

But that's okay. We are used to wind here. You just learn to deal with that. I was going out knowing that I would be doing the entire second half of the loop in a quartering headwind. 

I used a bike I did not have anything to test, well, other than the new GPS unit. I started the route and hit the streets headed out toward Evansdale via the bike trail system.

Today's stage was held up by protesters who think humans pave over stuff too much.

Crossing the Cedar River on the CVNT. This is looking upstream.

The wind was my friend going out so I was making good time. There were points at which I was not pedaling and I was being pushed along at 10-12mph for as long as I wanted. Makes you feel like a hero, but there would be a price to pay later on. 

The lavender colored flowers on the right side of the road are chicory.

Nice colors in the ditch here.

This is "high season" for ditch flowers. It's my favorite time to ride in Summer. You don't see flowers everywhere, but sometimes you run across some nice patches of day lillies, chicory, or later on, prairie sunflowers. The latter aren't out just yet, but very soon, they will be, and yellow will dominate the ditches for the remainder of the season. 

Well, that's a LOT of fresh rock! It was like this most of the time on gravel this day.

A quick stop for a 'nature break'.

Once I was on gravel I found wall-to-wall fresh, chunky gravel and little clear lanes at all. Uggh! Added with wind, this is the worst possible combination to ride in. The fresh gravel was so rough I couldn't read the GPS at all. All I could do was look at the ever scrolling map and see where it wanted me to turn. I didn't hardly dare take a hand off the bars to drink or photograph it was so rough. 

A FedEx truck blazes up Hess Road.

I've heard of 'under-biking' before, but 'under-mowing'?

Chunky, chunk, chunk.... I plodded along Quarry Road heading West over fresh graveled roads. Nothing you can do but measure out your effort and keep pedaling. The wind was a bit gusty at times, trying to knock me over, but all it really did was annoy me further. 

I find how certain farmers take care of their land to be amusing. I call it "grass farming". They certainly put a lot of effort into shaving acres and acres of ditches and in between fields down to golf course like levels of manicure. On my ride this day I witnessed a woman out at least a quarter mile away from the house mowing alongside a bean field. 

How odd..... 

A dead vulture in the road on Ansborough

Petrie Road rising toward the West off in the distance.

The roughness of the roads on this ride did not let up. I was probably better off using one of my bikes with a Redshift Sports ShockStop Stem, but I was 'full-rigid' on the Noble Bikes GX5 on this ride. And I paid a price. Dang! Good thing the entire route wasn't gravel. 

But I did enjoy being out there. And I got back in under three hours for 33+ miles, so that's pretty fast considering the rough roads and wind. Good. I need a good test before I try this tour I'm planning to go on here soon.