Brown Season: Harvest Coming To A Close

Escape Route: The new (not yet open) Park Avenue Bridge.

Tuesday was a great looking day. Windy, but great looking. And it was cooler. It struggled to get into the 50's here all morning, so I waited until after lunch to attempt a ride. With the stiff Northeasterly wind, I went North out of town. 

I rode the Noble GX5 with that new State Bicycle Co. Monster Fork and boy! Did it get an early test! I deadheaded a curb at slow speed and I heard a "crack!" that made me think I broke something carbon. I've heard carbon break before and it has a distinctive sound when it does. 

Was it the rim? That was my first thought, but my tire wasn't leaking and I couldn't feel any irregularities with my gloved hand. Did I break the head tube? I felt around but found nothing. The fork seemed rock solid and there was no play in anything. 

I slow rolled it a ways down some side streets, listening and hoping that nothing catastrophic would happen. Nothing seemed amiss, so I kept going and I decided it was too noisy in the city, what with the added noise of the wind, to hear anything, so I waited until I reached the gravel to do another inspection. If anything was wrong, it was pretty minor, but that sound I heard. That was something. 

Those big puffy clouds were hustling along with the wind.

A little Fall color here on Airline Highway

I got off the bike eventually and made a further inspection. Hmm.....the front brake was dragging. That seems odd! Then it hit me. I knew what I had heard and I was relieved. The Monster Fork has those aluminum inserts which you can 'flip' for a different offset and get more or less wheel clearance. One, or both of those, moved when I hit the curb. The result was that now the axle was in a very slightly different position, and brake rub was the result. A little time with a multi-tool and I had it figured out. 

The harvest of corn is finishing up now. It won't be long and every field will be gleaned and laid bare. I saw some harvesting activity and got passed by a semi-tractor trailer full of freshly harvested grain at one point during the ride. It was really dusty and the winds were blowing the dust all over. The roads were a weird mix of moon dust and chunky rock. My tires were whitish-grey the entire ride due to all the dust I was riding through. 

I had decided to make this a fairly short ride. Not just because the Northerly winds were really tough, but because I had waited to ride until it had warmed up somewhat. I am still getting acclimated to it being this chilly. I was riding in 80 and 90 degree weather just a week prior and we just dumped forty degrees with no slow roll down of temperatures.  This has been such an odd Fall and by the end of the week we are to be back into the 70's again. 

I would have loved to have been out longer, but with that wind and my time limitation, I couldn't take the risk. But despite the wind and chill the Sun felt great and the views were spectacular. At least I thought so.

There is just something about the landscape at harvest time when we get a blue-sky day, puffy white clouds, and the contrast in colors and with light. It was a magical day and even though I only rode about twenty miles, it was a great twenty miles. Well, with the possible exception of that worrisome cracking sound! At least I figured that out and it ended up being nothing that stopped me from riding.

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.....

Country Views: Harvest In Full Swing

Escape Route: Washington Park, Waterloo, Iowa.

 Monday was supposed to be another stellar Fall day. This stretch of great weather won't last, so I made plans on getting out there. I had to promise myself not to get bogged down at the computer and to just go out the door. Easier said than done sometimes.....

I probably should explain. I have a very limited work schedule at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective. Monday and Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings are the only times the shop is open. Soon I will be teaching a course there on Thursday evenings, but that all means I have a lot of time on my hands at weird parts of the day. that is- when I'm not busy with family transportation duties. Soon a part of that will change, but that's another story....

The morning was wide open time-wise, and the weather was cool, but the winds were light. It was in the upper 50's and I wore my Twin Six vest, but otherwise I did no other special clothing for this ride. I expected it would get warmer along the way. If I was a little chilly I'd just have to ride harder and later I should be okay, was the thought there. 

Bike path along the Cedar River at Evansdale, Iowa.

A splash of Fall color near the Cedar Valley Nature Trail entrance.

Much of the first hour of the ride was spent on bike paths to get me out of town. This is a nice benefit of living in Waterloo, Iowa. We have a TON of paved bicycle paths. I chose to exit town via Evansdale and then off on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail to get me to some rare Black Hawk County Level B dirt.

Sun dappled CVNT

Weiden Road. Rare Level B in Black Hawk County.

Dirt roads in Black Hawk County are hard to come by. Sure, we have a lot of little stubs of dirt that dead-end into arterial highways and Interstates, but just natural stretches of dirt? Well, you've got Petrie Road's West end, McKellar Road, and the Southern mile of Weiden Road, and that's about it. 

Once in awhile I'll take a flyer down McKellar Road, but I hardly ever ride Weiden Road's dirt, and that's a shame because it's really good. No elevation change to speak of, but it is fun nonetheless. I guess the only reason I don't ride that part of Weiden Road much is due to the fact that it dumps out on a County blacktop on the South end. There is no good way to connect to gravel and move onward without riding about two miles of pavement West to Foulk Road, and that's what I did. 

Follow that wagon train!

A wagon full of soybeans awaits deposit into a grain bin.

I followed a tractor pulling a couple of wagons out of Washburn, Iowa where there is a grain cooperative. That could only mean one thing- Harvest time is in full swing. I was wary of any traffic, as some ag equipment is so large now that you have to get off the road to allow its passage. But on this day everything I saw was manageable. 

A farmer doing work off in the distance in a harvested soybean field.

Rest Stop: Miller Creek Bridge on Quarry Road.

I reached Quarry Road and decided to take a short break at the Miller Creek Bridge. I had been having an excellent ride so far up to that point. The gravel, which has been heinous down that way all year, was crushed to bits by the heavy machinery driving on it of late. So, I was pleased to find that the gravel was not bad, and in many places it was actually excellent. 

One of the old rock quarries that Quarry Road takes its name from.

The skies finally cleared up a bit after my rest stop.

I was very thankful for being able to ride on this day. I finally tore myself away from doing writing and computer gazing long enough to get out and actually ride in the morning. This is a small victory for me. I need to do this more often. 

The harvest activities were evident everywhere I looked. Dust hung in the air and trucks, tractors, and pick-ups were traversing the very dusty gravel roads going to and fro to get to fields and grainaries. I'd say about 80% of the soybeans are out now and about 20% of the corn crop is out where I traveled. 

Give things a couple more weeks and the prairies will be barren again for the Winter to come until Spring arrives next year. 

Hopefully my riding will not coincide with the super-busy times of harvesting. That's not a fun time to be out in the countryside. You just get in the way too much and traffic is nuts at that point during the season. Fortunately the harvest scrum doesn't last very long!

Country Views: Harvest In Full Swing

Escape Route: Washington Park, Waterloo, Iowa.

 Monday was supposed to be another stellar Fall day. This stretch of great weather won't last, so I made plans on getting out there. I had to promise myself not to get bogged down at the computer and to just go out the door. Easier said than done sometimes.....

I probably should explain. I have a very limited work schedule at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective. Monday and Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings are the only times the shop is open. Soon I will be teaching a course there on Thursday evenings, but that all means I have a lot of time on my hands at weird parts of the day. that is- when I'm not busy with family transportation duties. Soon a part of that will change, but that's another story....

The morning was wide open time-wise, and the weather was cool, but the winds were light. It was in the upper 50's and I wore my Twin Six vest, but otherwise I did no other special clothing for this ride. I expected it would get warmer along the way. If I was a little chilly I'd just have to ride harder and later I should be okay, was the thought there. 

Bike path along the Cedar River at Evansdale, Iowa.

A splash of Fall color near the Cedar Valley Nature Trail entrance.

Much of the first hour of the ride was spent on bike paths to get me out of town. This is a nice benefit of living in Waterloo, Iowa. We have a TON of paved bicycle paths. I chose to exit town via Evansdale and then off on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail to get me to some rare Black Hawk County Level B dirt.

Sun dappled CVNT

Weiden Road. Rare Level B in Black Hawk County.

Dirt roads in Black Hawk County are hard to come by. Sure, we have a lot of little stubs of dirt that dead-end into arterial highways and Interstates, but just natural stretches of dirt? Well, you've got Petrie Road's West end, McKellar Road, and the Southern mile of Weiden Road, and that's about it. 

Once in awhile I'll take a flyer down McKellar Road, but I hardly ever ride Weiden Road's dirt, and that's a shame because it's really good. No elevation change to speak of, but it is fun nonetheless. I guess the only reason I don't ride that part of Weiden Road much is due to the fact that it dumps out on a County blacktop on the South end. There is no good way to connect to gravel and move onward without riding about two miles of pavement West to Foulk Road, and that's what I did. 

Follow that wagon train!

A wagon full of soybeans awaits deposit into a grain bin.

I followed a tractor pulling a couple of wagons out of Washburn, Iowa where there is a grain cooperative. That could only mean one thing- Harvest time is in full swing. I was wary of any traffic, as some ag equipment is so large now that you have to get off the road to allow its passage. But on this day everything I saw was manageable. 

A farmer doing work off in the distance in a harvested soybean field.

Rest Stop: Miller Creek Bridge on Quarry Road.

I reached Quarry Road and decided to take a short break at the Miller Creek Bridge. I had been having an excellent ride so far up to that point. The gravel, which has been heinous down that way all year, was crushed to bits by the heavy machinery driving on it of late. So, I was pleased to find that the gravel was not bad, and in many places it was actually excellent. 

One of the old rock quarries that Quarry Road takes its name from.

The skies finally cleared up a bit after my rest stop.

I was very thankful for being able to ride on this day. I finally tore myself away from doing writing and computer gazing long enough to get out and actually ride in the morning. This is a small victory for me. I need to do this more often. 

The harvest activities were evident everywhere I looked. Dust hung in the air and trucks, tractors, and pick-ups were traversing the very dusty gravel roads going to and fro to get to fields and grainaries. I'd say about 80% of the soybeans are out now and about 20% of the corn crop is out where I traveled. 

Give things a couple more weeks and the prairies will be barren again for the Winter to come until Spring arrives next year. 

Hopefully my riding will not coincide with the super-busy times of harvesting. That's not a fun time to be out in the countryside. You just get in the way too much and traffic is nuts at that point during the season. Fortunately the harvest scrum doesn't last very long!

Fall Views: Harvesting

Escape route: The municipal bike path >> CVNT>>Gravel.

Wednesday was forecast to be beautiful, actually more "August" than October, so I planned on another foray out in the country. This time I was going to do a little more 'mopping up' along HWY 218 South and West of La Porte City on some roads I needed to bag for my quest. You know.....that quest. The one I am attempting where I ride every gravel road in Black Hawk County. 

The harvest is still in swing here. Lots of corn to be picked yet. It seems the farmers, at least where I was, are more concerned with bringing in the ripened soybean crop first. That stuff is fragile and yields can be lowered when those beans start dropping on the ground, and the pods are super dried up. in fact, everything is pretty dry out in the rural areas. 

I went out just before 9:00am so it was still pretty chilly. I wore arm warmers, a 45NRTH gillet, a Twin Six wool jersey, and bib shorts. I wore a Buff on my head and I used the Handske Gloves I reviewed on RidingGravel.com . I also was using the Atomik/Berd Ultimate wheels I am reviewing along with the Hutchinson Touareg tires which will get a final write up soon. The bicycle I used was the test mule for Riding Gravel, the Nobel Bikes GX5. 

The escape route was South, more or less, on the bike paths to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, (CVNT), and then off on Foulk Road due South at that point to access the roads I needed to ride. This would entail a lot of out-and-back riding since many of the roads I needed to get on were truncated by different things or ran out onto paved roads. Kind of a hassle, but it is part of the game I am playing, so it has to be done.

This tractor towing two grain wagons went by me in a cloud of dust. Things are tinderbox dry out here!

 

Wagons awaiting the next loading of soybeans from this field.

One thing about this area I was in- It is very flat. It is mostly Cedar River flood plain, but that isn't to say I wasn't on some hills. There were notable climbs, mostly going up from the highway if I had to be around that area. But for the most part, this was not a climbing exercise. That meant a lot of pedaling!

Nearing the Northern end of Cotter Road

The Eastern end of Ripple Road, maybe....

I ended up finding the way to get the Eastern bit of Miller Creek Road done without much fuss, so I bagged that one. That was unplanned. I figured I'd have to make a special trip to get at that one since it is the only gravel bit East of HWY 218, South of Gilbertville, and North of La Porte City of any import. There are a few stubs of roads as well. Those stubs being mostly access roads to the CVNT which comes hard against the highway about 4-5 miles from La Porte City. I figured out how to get to one easily. A road which the maps showed as continuing West past the highway, and that it was called Ripple Road. 

Well, I had to stop on the CVNT to verify what I was looking at, which was little more than a two-track dirt road, was, in fact, Ripple Road. It ran out to the highway, but by the time you get closer, there is a large "McMansion" to the right and Ripple is chip sealed from their property to the highway. This looks a bit more "private road" than public although the county maps say it is a public stretch of road. 

From a high point on Cotter Road. This is a climb N.Y. Roll likes coming from the North.

Barns For Jason #1

One climb I had which was over a mile in length was up Ripple Road to Cotter Road. It starts out gradually, and like most Iowa hills it gets worse the closer that you get to the top. It's a characteristic of many rolling Iowa hills. I haven't ever really experienced anything like that in other states I have ridden gravel. 

It's rare to see a White Farm tractor anymore, much less two of them! My dad used to work where these were made.

Barns For Jason #2- Near the East end of Quarry Road.

I was getting things knocked off the list alright, but all the out-and-back, running loops thing was taking up a lot of time. I had maybe two hours to get down there and do what I could, then a solid hour to get back home. Maybe it would have made more sense to haul my rig down to La Porte City and base operations out of there, but that seems like cheating. That being said, I may have to consider doing just that to get all this mess cleared up before the snow flies. 

Barns For Jason #3

Barns For Jason #4: This at the East end of Quarry Road and HWY 218.

One thing I had to also get out of the way was to run the remaining ends of Quarry Road and Reinbeck Road to their Eastern terminations. This was another time consumer. Oh well. Now those are off the list. Finally, I had just enough time to start knocking off a couple of short North-South roads just West of La Porte, but I'll have to get back to finishing up those. 

Barns For Jason #5- This one has a nice barn quilt and is on a Century Farm from 1869!

 

Lots of harvesting activity in the soybean fields for now.

 

I ended up at the Eastern end of Reinbeck Road and decided I had to get back to Waterloo or I'd be toast and gone all day. I pretty much time trialed it with the exception of stopping for a 'nature break'. It ended up being a shade over a three hour ride, which was a good amount of time. 

The next bit I want to knock off I have been eying for several weeks now. It will be the last long chunk of road I need to bag. Then it will be bits and pieces of roads Southeast of Gilbertville, the last crumbs around La Porte City, and a convoluted mess way up in the Northeastern corner of the county. Then I will be double checking my roads against what I've done and see if I have missed anything. I figure on at least having four more outings to knock all of it out. Like I mentioned, most of all this is far from home, so I probably will end up hauling the bike to a destination and doing my business from there. We'll see....

Fall colors are about midway through. Soon it will be Brown Season, and that means time is running out in 2020.