Brown Season: Hints Of Spring

Escape Route: Hoff Road

 There are signs of Spring that one starts to pick up on if they live in the same area for a long while. Here, where I live in Iowa, there are certain "signs of Spring" which I look for every year to give me a bit of hope that Winter is actually going to leave us. 

In no particular order these things are:

• Obviously, the snow melting.
• The return of Robins
• The return of the Red Winged Blackbirds
• The frost boils on the gravel roads.
• The maintainers come out to tend to the roads

All of the above have happened already, so, despite the chances that we may get snow again, or have a cold-snap, I am declaring that Spring has arrived in East-Central Iowa. So there.....

It is getting harder to find snow now.

Besides those things, I can say that we are about two weeks ahead of schedule with Spring - if this weather holds up. We could always go backward and have a big snowstorm or something. But typically the snow isn't all gone until mid-March around here. 

A big patch of freshly laid gravel on Ansborough Avenue.

About mid-ride the skies started clearing up a bit.

My ride started out cold and cheerless. It was a bit windy, which made the wind chill pretty significant and the air temperature was in the low 30's anyway. I was a bit worried that my windproof Craft base layer, my long sleeved Pirate Cycling League jersey, and my Bontrager heavy-duty wind jacket would not be enough to ward off this colder air. But once I was out there working, it all was just fine. 

It helped a lot that once the Sun started peeking through that the temperatures moderated a tiny bit, but more importantly, the Sun's warmth really does a trick this time of year, no matter what the temperature is. Those rays of goodness were making it feel a lot better out there.

 Note the darker stripe of gravel on the right here. That's frost boiling up through the roadbed.

You can see the County maintainer's tracks here.

Road conditions were all over the map. There was "hero gravel", "normal" gravel conditions, ditch-to-ditch fresh gravel, and many spots where the frost was coming out that made the roadbed soft and fluffy. This was most common along the edges where traffic typically doesn't run. You knew if you dropped a tire in this. It was like putting the brakes on. 

Eventually the sky was more blue than gray.

The Sun is still lower in the sky, as evidenced by the long shadows here.

I managed to get in what I wanted to time-wise and I was pleased with the outcome of my ride. It didn't start out very well, I wasn't breathing right and I felt like my heart rate was too high, but everything settled down eventually and I had good sensations for the remainder of the ride. Most importantly, I didn't go too hard and I was able to get good base miles in on this day. 

Next I'll start stretching the time out and start getting longer rides in. I have a few routes that should work well for getting the ball rolling here this Spring, as long as this weather holds out. The goal is to be ready for 65 miles by April 1st at the Gents Race.