Country Views: 4th of July 2026

Escape Route: Waterloo alleys

I had been looking forward to the 4th of July this year. Not because it was a big date in history, America's 250th, but because I needed to get out into the country. The 4th was a date I had circled since coming back from the BRAN experience. 

BRAN caused damage. I had some nasty saddle sores I needed to allow to heal. And, of course, I needed a bit of time to recover from the week. I saw progress in both areas over the last half of June, but it was slow. Then it got beastly HOT. 

So, June was slipping away and the 4th of July weekend allotted me some space to make a plan to get on a bike and grind some gravel. Then it rained all day Thursday, on Friday morning, and again early Saturday morning. Was I going to be able to squeeze in a ride? The weather looked clear between about 9:00am and maybe 2:00pm or so. I decided to take off and do a run South and East of Waterloo. 

Day lilies lined the ditches along Ansborough for several miles.

A lot of people were into the spirit of celebrating the USA's 250th. 

Getting out of town now to the South has been made a bit more complicated due to construction and a bridge out on the Sergeant Road Trail. So, I backtracked a route I typically use getting into town. Going backward on a route may as well be a new, unforeseen route. Everything looks and feels different! I ended up getting dumped out on Ansborough Avenue not far from Highway 20. Not at all where I wanted to be. Oh well! I made it work. 

 

It has been a while since I took Ansborough Avenue out of town to the South. This was the first road I used as a regular gravel riding route back in the mid-2000's. I'd ride Ansborough to Tama County and back home. About a 35 mile ride round trip. 

Today I was going to head South until I reached Quarry and turn East. Maybe I'd get in around 30 miles. At least I wouldn't have to come back through Waterloo's convoluted street layout! 

Tall corn provides excellent privacy for a "nature break". 

 

Annual check of corn growth on the 4th. 

I rode the XLBird on its first out of town gravel ride. Things went smoothly, and I'll have a specific write-up on the bike this week. But yes, I like it. I also liked the roads. The recent heavy rains have smoothed out the loose gravel and vehicles have accelerated the transfer of gravel from all across the roadway to the typical three clear lines. 

Corn is looking great. No wonder with all the rain and humidity of late. It's perhaps not as exceedingly tall as it can be at this time of the year, but it is still "man high on the 4th of July!" 

 

You can see some chicory alongside the road on the right here. 

Quarry Road had obviously been maintained recently as the gravel was thick. The rain helped it not be so loose, but it was a chore to find a good line. One positive out of the weather situation was that there was zero dust. A very unusual situation! 

Quarry Road was also lined with various wild flowers. I love seeing the flowers dancing and bobbing in the breezes. My favorite flower to see is the Chicory. I love their color. I think they are a bit early this year, but I'll take it!

 

Fellow gravel grinders Robert and Cary Fry. 

I stopped on the bridge over Miller Creek to take a quick break. I ate an Epic pemmican bar, drank some water, and listened to the swollen creek as it gurgled on its way to the Cedar River not too many miles away. 

Suddenly I heard voices and I looked back West up Quarry Road and spied two riders coming my way. It turned out to be Robert and Cary Fry out for a gravel ride. What a surprise! They were on their way to LaPorte City, so I rode about a mile with them before I turned North up Foulk Road. I told Robert he and Cary were maybe the third, maybe fourth occurrence ever of me meeting another gravel rider out around Waterloo in 20 years of grinding gravel.  

I call these lonely four cottonwood trees on the East side of Foulk Road "The Four Sisters". 

 

Evidence of our recent heavy rains. Many have stated they received between 4" to 6" in the area just on Thursday!

Foulk Road is FLAT. Lots of pedaling on Foulk Road. If you are bucking a headwind, or bashing through thick, fresh gravel - or heaven forbid, BOTH - it is a real mental slog to ride this section. Fortunately only the gravel was mildly troublesome on this particular ride. 

There is a pair of aggressive Labradors now on a place just North off the corner of Schrock Road and Foulk Road on the West side of Foulk. One is a yellow lab and the other is black. They both came out on the road and had me stopped until their foul-mouthed owner came out to call them off. Just a head's up in case you go by there..... 

Waterloo displayed 1,776 flags around the Veteran's Memorial complex in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. 

I made it back home with a little over 28 miles in. Not anything to write home about, although I just wrote an entire post about it! But it is what it is. A start back to regular riding, I hope, and perhaps this stupid weather will cooperate for a while. We will see! 

Country Views: July 4th, 2025

Escape Route: Waterloo's vast alley network

I've been doing "July 4th" rides for as many years as this blog has been around, I think. So, of course, I was out again this year.

It was a 'firecracker' day, for sure, with temperatures in the upper 80's. This was cooler than last week's Tree In The Road Ride, however, the humidity was worse, so it felt almost exactly the same.

Now, it was July 4th, so I wore my ancient Stars and Stripes jersey and a new-to-me cycling hat which was in a red, white, and blue theme. You know, it is weird how some folks in the cycling community are against whatever they are against, and this may mean they won't celebrate something like the 4th of July. You know, the alternative scenario for us here isn't known. Can't be. But I'd wager it wouldn't be as good. Probably worse. And this is our country. Not perfect, by any means, but with so many people trying to get here, it must not be all that bad either.

Something to think about, anyway, and that is all I have to say here about this. 

The route was the anticlockwise Tour of Southern Black Hawk County. Seeing as how the winds were out of the Southwest, this made sense to me to go South first, then East. So that is what I did.

First quick rest stop about seven miles in.

There used to be two cool old barns here. Now it is just another nondescript corner.

The wind was pretty stiff at around 20mph. There was almost no clouds. The Sun was heating things up, but I seemed to be doing okay. I was concerned because ever since the Tree In The Road Ride my legs have been in some form of pain. One day my hamstrings were sore. The next day it would be my glutes. Then another day my knees were sore. Weird! Of course, I was riding a little every day and many days on a fixed gear.

There used to be a home here. All that is left is the swing set and flowers someone planted years ago. 

I stopped again at the intersection of Aker and Quarry Road to stretch. I was riding my Honeman Flyer single speed. This bike is weird, and I shouldn't like it as much as I do, but I love getting out on it. There is a certain smoothness to this bike which is just great, and the stability of the bike is good. This means it doesn't get pinged around on chunky, loose gravel and it mostly allows me to ride whatever line I want regardless of the state of the gravel. 

I know I said Friday I was going to ride my red, white, and blue Tamland, but the siren song of the single speed won me over.  

The corn is about as high as usual. I didn't think it would get there, but it did!

Black Hawk County views may not be as good as Cass and Audubon County views, but I'll take it. 

Once I started East up Quarry Road, I noticed a set of bicycle tracks meandering along on the same side of the road as I was on. The tires looked bigger. Maybe 650B's or fat 700's. Whatever size they were, they were fairly fresh. Probably they were laid down earlier on the 4th, or maybe on the evening of the 3rd, but no older than this. I kept wondering who these tracks were laid down by. My bet was Tom, but it could have been anyone. 

I did not see the bird here in this image until I got home and was processing the images I took. 

 

A surprising number of people walk gravel. Maybe I should start a site called "Walking Gravel"!

Eventually the rider I was tracking must have turned aside as the tracks ceased to exist on Quarry Road. Oh well! It was fun while it lasted. Just about this time I ran across a set of tracks left by a walker. I actually saw a few folks out walking on this ride. This is not totally uncommon either. I think there are more folks walking gravel than we might think. 

This place is always neat as a pin.

Now this is an impressive "grass farmer". Look at the size of this mown field!

Farmers love to either have a wild, unkempt appearance to their lands or they seem to manicure the living daylights out of their homestead. I never could understand why some mow such huge tracts of tillable land. Why not grow something and make a bit more money off of it? Perhaps allow it to be pasture for some farm animals. But to mow these huge tracts of land is doing what? Taking up a lot of resources, I would say.

 

Foulk Road is really pretty flat. You have to pedal every inch of it.

Heading back toward Waterloo, I was still having some assistance via the quartering tailwind, so it was not as bad as it could be with this route. Foulk Road is one of those roads you get no relief from. Pedal, pedal, pedal. It is flat and coasting is rare. But the tailwind helped and at least the road wasn't super-chunky as it has been in recent years. 

A random American flag was spotted just down from the intersection with Foulk Road and East Schrock Road.

A 'detour' for some Level B road action.

Once I got back to more urban areas, I went on a bit of a lollipop route to take in the dirt of McKeller and Weiden Roads. The irrigated field on McKellar has some monster-sized corn this year! I was thinking it may have been the tallest I'd seen all day. Then I went and road down Weiden Road's Level B section, which takes you to Washburn. From there I went down the blacktop East to catch Golinvaux Road. This then looped me back toward Evansdale.

 

Weiden Road looking South.

Golinvaux Road looking North.

I ended up back home after 3.5 hours and I wasn't too bad as far as being whooped goes. I did double up on dosage with electrolytes this time, and I was sweating a LOT. It was soooo humid Friday! I was wishing I would have brought gloves or that I had worn Sun-sleeves as my sweat was making my grip compromised. I also wished I had brought something to eat as I was bonking by the time I reached the house. A bite or two of chicken kabob and some chocolate milk later and I was all fixed up.

It was a great way to celebrate my freedom to ride and my thankfulness for this country.  

Happy 4th of July!

Man high by the 4th of July!

 Happy 4th of July! 

 There will be no FN&V today as it is the 4th of July in the USA. Look for a return of that venerable series coming next week.

Hopefully today I am out riding to celebrate the fact I can ride and ride free. I hope wherever you are that you can get out and spin some pedals as well.

Look for a detailed ride report to come on Monday. most likely. I have a modest plan for a ride and hope to accomplish it on my red, white, and blue Raleigh Tamland Two, of course.

Thank you for checking in here at Guitar Ted Productions! 

Country Views: 4th Of July Ride

Escape Route: Sergeant Road Trail.

I usually go for a July 4th ride every year to celebrate the fact that I can go for a July 4th ride every year. Freedom. It's nice to have that ability to go places without being constrained by a government or what have you. 

Anyway, this year I was not all that sure I could move about freely because storms were forecast and well, I don't want to be a lightning rod. 

So much for freedom, eh? The weather rules! 

And the weather ruled for sure. It was beautiful on the 4th, and rain did not come into play until Sunset, well after I was finished up with my riding. The only niggle I had with the weather was with the stiff Southwesterly wind. 

I found my old Stars and Stripes jersey which I wore on RAGBRAI in 2002. I still can wiggle into it, so I wore that, my Stars and Stripes buff on my head, and my new Mint socks. They are really great socks, by the way, and no - I did not get them for free. I just really like them.

It was hovering around 80°F and the wind was something around 20mph, so I went South first and decided to do my "Tour of Southern Black Hawk County" loop. I took the Noble GX5 so I could further experience those new WTB tires I just got not long ago.

The gravel was mostly like this for all the gravel on  the 34 mile loop.

This hill on Aker Road reminds me of the hills in Nebraska around Lincoln.

The long slog into the wind was going well because I decided not to burn my matches on the flat Sergeant Road bike trail. That allowed me to not have to stop all the way down until I reached Quarry Road where I wanted to look at the radar. We had rain forecast at a pretty high percentage and I could see thunderheads off in the distance to the West and North. I didn't want to commit to the full route unless I felt secure that I was not going to end up in the midst of a thunderstorm. 

Oh! And by the way, the weather service finally took Black Hawk County off the drought list. That hasn't happened in a few years. So, any extra rain we were going to get was bonus moisture. In some cases, it wasn't wanted moisture. 

The view from the bridge on Quarry Road looking North back up Aker Road.

The first "corn height check".

It is kind of a tradition with these 4th of July rides for me to find a spot to gauge the corn growth by contrasting it with my bicycle. When I do this I have to be careful to find places where I am not trespassing into a field or on property belonging to a farmer. I will only go as far as the edge of a ditch to get these images. Maybe that's pushing the boundaries a bit, but I mean no harm and I leave things as I find them. 

Anyway, the corn has been kind of all over the place for height this year. But lately, with all the rain and higher humidity, the corn has really taken off. My first check was a spot where the corn was only so-so, but obviously well above "knee-high", as the old saw goes. 

Chasing that long rocky ribbon.

Corn Height Check #2: Now that's impressive!

As I turned onto Quarry Road to go East I realized that this was a great day. Now the wind wasn't such a bother, coming at me from a quartering tailwind sort of way, and the gravel was fantastic. None of that rubble from ditch to ditch for miles as it had been down this way for the last couple of years. 

I felt pretty good too, and I was very thankful for that as I had woke up feeling awful, truth be known. This was turning out to be a right awesome ride and no rain was in sight after all. That said, I could look North and see some tall thunderheads off in the far distance. Rain was falling somewhere in Iowa, but not in Black Hawk County on the 4th. 

Looks like rain up North, but it never got close to me.

There were some clouds way off in the Southeast as well.

The gravel continued to be awesome with the exception of the last mile I was going South on Aker which had fresh gravel in short stretches. The recent rains have kept the gravel hard packed and the base firm, so the riding has been a lot better so far everywhere around Waterloo, but especially so South of town. 

That's an old rock quarry to the left. In fact, there is a quarry at each corner of the intersection ahead.

I made it up the hill where Quarry Road gets its name. There are four rock quarries filled with water now, as the quarries ceased to be mined years ago. The odd thing is that the one on the Northwest corner of Quarry Road and Dysart Road has had all the tree cover removed from around it. Now I can clearly see the water in the old quarry as I ride by. Did I see this is going to be a County park soon? I thnk I saw that somewhere.... 

Foulk Road

McKellar Road.

I made an interesting observation on this ride. I saw only two American flags being flown with no other indications that it was the Forth of July. And isn't 2024 an election year? You wouldn't know it out here in the country around Waterloo, nor would you know that driving around town. The utter lack of any political signage is amazing. Come to think of it, those annoying text messages have all but ceased as well. 

I rode through what was a notoriously "Trump" neighborhood on this ride. In 2020, you'd have thought this was Trump-central. There were signs, flags, banners and what not all throughout that neighborhood. This year? Nothin'. Nada.... No sign of support at all anywhere. 

No other commentary about that from me other than, "That's kinda weird". 

Corn Height Check #3: Again - Impressive!

This corn is ready to tassel out any day now.

So, I ended the ride doing mostly bike path from Evansdale to Waterloo and then a few oddball streets back to the house. I got a comment on my Stars and Stripes jersey from a local guy who was telling me I should "go home". Not sure what that means, but it wasn't meant in kindness, that's for sure. 

Weird year this year. At least the ride was fantastic, and I was in the Sun the entire ride as well. No rain! Time now to mount some tires and do a bit of switching around. Stay tuned....

Country Views: 4th Of July Ride

Escape Route: Sergeant Road bike path.

The plan was to get up early, get out by 6:00am, and beat the impending doom of heat that the weather-people were claiming was on our way. Well, they didn't say anything about an early morning thunderstorm! So I ended up having to wait a bit before heading out.

I had been checking out previous 4th of July rides and noticed that I had used my Noble Bikes GX5 probably four years in a row for the 4th, so I thought I'd change things up and ride the Twin Six Standard Rando v2. Besides, Twin Six has a motto for the bike, "Freedom Machine", which fits the theme for a 4th of July ride rather nicely, I think. 

I experienced some consternation when the Wahoo wasn't cooperating with me, (more on that later), so I had to just forget about that and focus on just having some fun. Once that was decided, I was off and rolling.

This is about as clear as the skies have been in over a month.

Not everyone gets the 4th of July off from work.

That rain I spoke of? Well, that and the combination of several other days of thunderstorms and showers has conspired to make the roads wet. Kind of like a Springtime situation. Everything was at least somewhat mushy. Some places more than others. I could see the impression of another cyclist's tires in Aker Road, so I knew I was fighting that a bit. Not to mention a fairly stiff headwind. 

Most of the corn isn't quite this tall, unlike other years, I suppose due to the dry weather in June.

Man! I was sure glad to turn out of that South wind when I did. I wasn't firing on all cylinders or something. My breakfast wasn't settling well with me, and at times I felt nauseous. I never got real comfortable on the bike and I felt tired. But I plugged along anyway. 

If you look close here you can see the chicory flowers. Obviously, the road was pretty chunky here!

 

Pretty sano flag display here.

Heading East the road was difficult in spots. There was alternately either lots of gravel with a wet base or just mushy dirty gravel. Sometimes there were good lines. I was quite surprised at the condition of the roads out there. 

You can see how the dirt is getting pulled up through the gravel in spots here due to the saturation of water.

I was surprised to find a lot of trees missing here.

I rolled up to the sharp hill where Quarry Road crosses Dysart Road. This is the area where Quarry Road takes its name from as there are quarries at each corner here. All of them are retired from active usage and have been filled with water for years now. 

There always were trees lining the road here so thickly that you couldn't see the small lakes formed by the quarries. But I saw now where there trees are gone, grubbed out right down to the Northwestern lake's shoreline. Big huge piles of chipped wood sit there now. I'm not sure what is going on here but it sure looks interesting.

Rolling North and I was thinking about how this ride was going to end. I could just go over the Cedar River on the CVNT bridge and head back the "usual way" or I could try something different. I needed to think about something like that because I needed the distraction from not feeling the greatest on this ride. 

I was contemplating one way, which I had done once, but I wasn't feeling it, so I ended up taking this bike path on a whim. It ended up dumping me right back into the road after about a half mile. I mean.....why?! Why even bother making that bit, unless they have plans, but sheesh! It was not only a dead end bike path, but the road had zero shoulder and traffic was going 45mph. Nice! 

Day lillies have been severely stunted this year by dry weather. This was the best I've seen this year here.

Almost off the gravel by this point. The roads were mushy the entire way.

I ended up over by the casino in Waterloo, a very high traffic area, and I had to blitz across an intersection that had been designed with no concern for pedestrians or cyclists at all. Then I found another bike path. It went about a half mile then it made you cross at a busy turn off to an amusement park to get to the other side where the path picked up again, only except there is construction now, so it's closed. 

Oh yeah, and ALL of that is brand new and really stupidly designed. Great! I should have just stayed on the road.Then there was this.....

Adventure time!

Honestly, this was great. No traffic since the road was closed, obviously, and no construction was going on because it was the 4th of July. Perfect! I could navigate this with no issues since I would have no cars at all to deal with. 

It was muddy, but rideable. Barely. I laid down some awesome mud chunks on the bike path once I cleared the area. Then it was on toward home and the end of the ride. 

Barns For Jason

I actually had never been on the Shaulis Road bike path this far East. So, because of that. I ended up riding by a barn I hadn't ridden by before and well, there's another Barns For Jason pic now! 

I ended up with 32 miles and got back before it got brutally hot. So, despite my not feeling great at all, and hurting everywhere, I got a ride in and that felt great. I hope to log another this week at some point, maybe Friday. We'll see, but this was a great opportunity that I had and I am glad I took it.