Where: North Parking Lot of Big Woods Lake, Cedar Falls, Iowa.. For detailed directions to the parking lot see the July 10th entry HERE
When: 8:00am
What: A no-drop gravel road ride of 46.3 miles which will pass through the towns of Janesville, Iowa, Shell Rock, Iowa, and New Hartford, Iowa.
Why: A Ride to honor my son, Jacob Stevenson who died on August 2nd, 2025 at the age of 22 years.
Expectations: Casual pace. Riders can resupply in Janesville, Shell Rock, and New Hartford. No-drop means we may stop at various times to gather up stragglers. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU! There is NO SAG SUPPORT. If you have to bail, quit, or cannot go on for some reason, then you will have to self-extract, or have a back-up plan in place. No one associated with me is going to come and pick you up. THIS RIDE IS FREE. No entry fees, and therefore there should be no expectations for anything other than for you to bring a good attitude, a capability to ride 40 miles of gravel and pavement, and to have tools, water, nutrition, and a way to communicate to the outside world, (smart phone usually...or you can choose smoke signals. You do you.), and have all this on a competent bike in good condition.
IF you join me you assume all personal responsibility and will be held accountable for any and all actions you take, actions of others on the ride which may negatively affect you, or for any circumstances related to weather, traffic, and road conditions which may cause personal harm, injury, or death. In other words, I am not responsible for anything that happens to you if you come on this ride. IF you decide to ride with me, you assume all responsibility for YOURSELF.
Okay.................with all this understood, here are the finer details.......
Gravel starts here. I decided to take a Left and head up Leversee Road instead of what the original Ride For Jacob did which was to go North out of Waterloo up Burton Avenue. The start in Cedar Falls dictated this because it would make for an easier place to start, park vehicles, and return to. More so than almost any place in Waterloo would have for a start of a North route out of town.
I also tweaked the route coming out of Shell Rock. Instead of going West I decided to go South out of there to cut off a big loop I did last year which wasn't all that interesting. We will cross that old gabled bridge over the West Fork of the Cedar River though. And we will still be taking the short bit of pavement from the North into New Hartford to go by the convenience store there.
Finally, I did not like how I used a bit of Union Road last year and coming in on a great bike path on West First Street which dwindles down to crappy sidewalk seemed like a poor idea for a group of cyclists. So I rerouted out in the country to bring the ride back in on West 12th, then hitting that bike path to Hudson Road, and then continuing down 12th to State Street after the round-a-bout so we can go through downtown.
IF the group feels the itch to stop at, oh say....Second State Brewing Co., or something along those lines, we could do that. Then it is a short jaunt from there via bike path to the end where we started.
HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ROUTE.
The route is on Ride With GPS. Please download the file into your device if you are planning to come, or even if you are not coming, this would make a fun route to ride out of Cedar Falls and back again.
NOTE: I have not reconned this route yet and I plan on doing this before the 25th. IF there are any route changes I will announce this after recon. I do not anticipate there being anything different though.
Questions? Hit me up at g.ted.productions@gmail.com or here in the comments.
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