Country Views: Harvest Begins

Escape Route: Sergeant Road Trail.

Saturday is a rare day for me to get in a ride anymore these days. I have to work at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collectivc until noon. Then I go home, eat lunch with my family (very important to me) and then generally we go grocery shopping in the afternoon, and well, that pretty much shoots the day for riding. 

But last Saturday I had freedom in the afternoon to get out for a ride. It was the last "official day" of Summer, it was 90+ degrees, and the winds were gusting up to 30mph out of the Southwest. Oh well! You take the chances you get. 

So, I saddled up on the recently fixed up Raleigh Tamland Two and headed Southwest on the Sergeant Road Bike Trail. Hot, big wind, and lots of Sun is a recipe for me to get overheated fast, so I tried to throttle it back and spin. It seemed to be working fine until I got a few miles out on the gravel and the relentless wind was working me pretty hard. 

I wasn't out into the country long before I noted that everything looked very dry, there were a LOT of ag tread tracks in the gravel, and that a soybean field I was passing by had been harvested. Then I saw it.....

A combine harvesting soybeans South of Waterloo.

Grain being loaded into a semi-tractor trailer.

I decided to try going a mile or so Eastward and then back South, then East, and maybe shorter stints into the wind would extend the ride. I decided to get to the corner of Ansborough and Washburn Road before making a call on the ride distance. Unfortunately I was just not feeling well enough to crack off another hour plus in that heat and wind. Plus I was being conscientious of the harvest as big trucks and machinery were everywhere in fields where I was riding. That and dust was bad enough. Getting dusted by an 18 wheeler wouldn't have been much fun. In more ways than one!

The wind was about to rip flags off flag poles.

The rate at which everything has dried up this year is amazing.

Turning back North was pretty awesome! However; it was still hot, and the drier wind made it feel like I was racing a hot and windy DK200 from back in the day. That heat and drier air just sucks the life out of you. 

I had to stop where I found shade on the road twice just to cool down some. It was quite the last day of Summer, and now we've flipped a switch and gone quite a bit cooler with rain and winds out of the Northwest instead of the Southwest. Sometimes the weather matches the calendar, I guess! 

More soon on the Tamland, by the way. Stay tuned.....