Country Views: Moody

Escape Route: Burton Avenue

The weekend and first day of this week were brutally hot and I did not venture out of town on the bike at all. But after a severe storm outbreak, from which we barely escaped damage, the weather cracked. 

It was cooler on Tuesday and still humid, but a refreshingly cool Northwest breeze was in the air and I felt like I needed to get out there again and enjoy some riding. Plus I'd be able to inspect the countryside for any damage after the storm. 

Since the breeze was out of the direction I mentioned, I went into it first, which meant that I had to ride North out of town. I decided this breeze wasn't too bad, so the "Northwest Passage" out of the wind to get to gravel would not be necessary this time. I meandered around town and ended up on Burton Avenue going straight North..... Well....not exactly straight, but definitely North.

As you can see, Burton Avenue is not very straight to begin with!

Things started out windy and mostly Sunny.

With all the rains we've had, and the last night's rain being a particularly hard one, the roads have come out nicely. No fresh gravel to speak of, hardly any dust, and smooth going, for the most part. I'm still marveling at the conditions of the gravel roads this year because it has been a long, long time since they've been this good. 

There was a little traffic out here on Tuesday.

East Janesville Church

I had the Wahoo Elemnt ROAM with me on this ride and I was having some fun watching the climbing add up, the elevation readout, and the gradient readout. Of course, I did not need a GPS device to tell me riding out North on Burton was mostly uphill, but it was nice to see some hard data on this fact. 

I've done some elevation hunting South of Waterloo, but not really anything North of town. I was wondering if I'd see anything close to 1,000ft elevation, and in fact, I did. I saw 1,014ft! I know.....it's nothing, but when you live in a state where the highest elevation is a little over 1,600ft, you know you are not going to see big numbers around here. What you will see in Iowa is that to get to 1,014ft from about 800ft where I live, you will ride upward over 1,000ft in less than 30 miles. It was a lot of "up and down"! It's worse in other places in Iowa. And half of the route I rode was against the wind, so there was that to contend with too. 

I didn't realize that the clouds were gathering behind me

Heading back South I had the wind at my back.

It was cheery looking going North and when I went back South the skies were all moody and grey-blue. A random drop of rain would strike me from time to time, but it never even got close to a sprinkle. There was a chill in the air, probably because it felt less like 100 degrees, like it had for days, and was feeling more like the 70's now. But I was reminded that Fall is only a couple of months away. 

I ran across this large dog in a random place.

As I crossed Bennington Road I saw something very large and whitish at the edge of the ditch. At first I thought it might be a large bag, or a piece of abandoned furniture. But as I approached I saw that this was a large dog. A very large dog. 

It sat there and looked at me sheepishly. As I got closer it ran out into the road, but not at that "attack angle" you might have experienced. It looked like it wanted to run with me. I was having nothing to do with that idea! 

So I stopped and began talking to the dog nicely. It stopped and gazed at me as if he were listening intently. As I looked at this animal, it seemed to have characteristics of a Great Pyrenees, but it had a different face. Almost Labrador-ish. Maybe it had a Labrador personality? I wasn't all that interested in finding out, so I turned and went back to the intersection and went around the mile instead. 

The rest of the ride was pretty non-descript. As I said, it never really rained, but I was getting random drops on me the rest of the way home. It was good to get out into the countryside again. Can't wait for the next ride....