Inspection Time

A Canadian goose glides along Black Hawk Creek.

Sunday the winds died down enough here that I was feeling okay about checking out the Green Belt and seeing how bad things were. We had a 70mph wind gust during all the storm madness of Friday/Saturday, so I figured on seeing a lot of downed tree carnage. 

I decided also to take the Ti Muk 2 as it would likely be muddy. I did not know if the frost had come out yet, but I figured it may have since it had gotten up to the lower 80's on Friday. 

It certainly wasn't anywhere near that on Sunday! The temperature when I left the house was 39°F, a full 42°F lower than the high on Friday. This is not unheard of here. March can be wildly variable. In fact, we expect to be in the seventies tomorrow and then get 3 - 6" of snow on Wednesday. 

Anyway, I was fine as far as all of that went, but I did have to wear gloves and a wool cycling hat. 

Those are not figures carved by some ancient civilization. They are the tell-tale marks of the Emerald Ash Borer found on this dead Ash tree. 

 

This tree was at handlebar height across the trail.

Amazingly, most of the trail was tacky to dry. Maybe the frost is out now? I did actually hear frogs croaking at one point during the ride. Those frogs might be reconsidering waking up from hibernation when the snow hits Wednesday! 

I took a lap around the lake.

Part of the new prairie "lollipop" trail which goes down to Martin Road and back.

I took things easy and started out down by Hope Martin Park. I made it across the drainage dip, which is not easy, and after that first little section I climbed the dike, crossed Ansborough, and rode the spine of the dike till I was able to enter the Green Belt trail. 

Like I said, it was surprisingly dry-ish. I was expecting much worse. I did find about a 20 yard section where it was so greasy the bike just took off sideways like it was on ice. But besides that, it was easy-peasy.

One example of three where Marky-Mark will require some saw work.

A grove of Cedar trees along the Green Belt Lake.

Marky-Mark will need some saw work, but it all was much cleaner than I had hoped for, which was refreshing to find. I feared it would be much worse. So, besides a bit of clearing out of dead falls, this Spring should be a great season for these trails.

Chasing Colors

Monday was the first "real" taste of Fall weather here. This past weekend we went from the 90's to it being 40°F when I stepped out the door to ride on Monday morning. The brisk Northwest wind made it really feel like the seasons had changed. 

It is about this time of year when I get that feeling that I need to do my "pilgrimage" ride. The ride through the Green Belt which I do every year to mark three things in my life. 

One is the recognition of my introduction to mountain bikes. The Green Belt is where I learned to off-road and it is where I took my first mountain bike to ride it in the late 1980's. 

The second reason I feel the need to do this ride is to enjoy the peak Fall colors. I don't always hit on the perfect time, but I try! I also very much enjoy riding single track in the Fall, so that tracks for me as well.

Finally, I use this ride to assess the condition of the Marky-Mark Trail, a single track connector trail I helped put in the Green Belt with an assist from another friend named Mark. While I did the bulk of the work, I didn't do all of it. Still, I consider this trail to be my work up until this day, 27 years after it was put in. The once or twice a year check is done just to make sure the trail is passable and still there. (Sometimes I do a Spring checkup on Marky-Mark also)

The colors weren't too impressive in the Green Belt until I started coming up on the maple grove.

A little better color here.

This year the maples are popping but everything else is kind of muted. I think the drier latter half of Summer and all of Fall has had a poor effect on some trees and therefore the colors have been negatively affected. Just a guess on my part there, but many trees have dried up leaves and they just are not getting much beyond a pale yellow or brown for color this Fall. 

A monster branch which probably blew down over the weekend.

I came across a branch which had busted off an old ,maple about 25feet up in the air and which had fallen across the trail. We had major gusty winds Sunday, so I am betting that this was felled by a nasty gust then. The tree it came off of had already been damaged previously, and by the looks of it, the tree wasn't well internally. I am no tree doctor, but I have slept in a Holiday Inn before! (IYKYK)

I bet that branch made a mighty crashing noise when it came down from the approximately 25feet high place on the tree where it broke off. Glad I was nowhere near when it did come down! 

The West end of Marky-Mark is looking swell here.

As is the East end of Marky-Mark!

Marky-Mark isn't the name I gave this bit of trail that might be what? A half a mile long, maybe? I don't know, as I've never measured it that I recall. Anyway, I did not name it. Another former resident of the area did that, and I have come to use that name as it fits the trail well, I think. 

I found the trail in remarkably great condition. I moved one small blow-down and there is another that is no big deal, but too big to move on my own. There is also one other place where a dead fall is hanging about ten feet above the trail that should be taken down. A half an hour and a saw would do wonders to clear that up. There are a few tiny branches that could use some trimming back, but honestly, I was surprised at how good everything looked! 

Fall colors on the shores of Green Belt Lake.

I ended up making a partial lap around the Green Belt Lake and then heading home. I may have to throw the axe and a nipper in the Big Dummy and go see about taking down that dead fall and doing a bit of clean-up in Marky-Mark, but I also have to get on some review work before it really gets cold and riding in the country is difficult or impossible. 

More soon....

Green Belt Ramble

Fall going into Winter. This is the time of year I've always been drawn to mountain biking. Part of the reason for that is because for the better part of two decades around here you just did not go in the woods from around mid-June until the first frost. That was because of the weeds and mosquitoes. 

But these days there is a soft trails group and the City of Waterloo does a lot better job maintaining the Green Belt. That makes Summer time mountain biking a possibility, and of course, this year it was so hot and dry that weeds and insects were almost nothing to bother about. 

So, the point here is that I usually could not scratch the MTB itch until late September at the earliest. Maybe that is why I feel the pull of the knobbies around this time to go for a ride into the Green Belt. That and the fact that I've had a steady dose of gravel for a long time and a change in scenery was overdue. Maybe.....

The weather went very chilly for several days and we had some high winds so that knocked down a majority of the leaves in the woods, but there was still some beauty and still some leaves in the trees yet. A thick carpet of leaves was found in many spots on the single track, but they were dry enough that slipping and sliding was of no concern.

Black Hawk Creek meanders amongst big sand bars now that it is so low.

You generally cannot see the rapids during times of normal river levels

Black Hawk Creek is sad. This drought has really hit the area hard and the water level of this creek is alarming. With the weather people calling for a strong El Niño Winter, it doesn't bode well for more water here.

But it is good for riding single track and there was not one hint of mud or slimy dirt, like there often is, out there on this particular afternoon.  Even the places where loose sandy patches exist were packed and easily ridden. 

These short days make for long shadows.

A moody sky shrouds the Sun over the Green Belt Lake.

This was a ride also to help me finish up with a couple of reviews I am doing on some components. (Coming to the blog here soon) So, it was nice to get that wrapped up as well. Besides that I was out for two hours and there wasn't another soul to be seen out there. Of course, it was Friday afternoon and maybe that had a little to do with it! 

I hope to roll more gravel soon, but the mountain biking retreat has been a nice change of pace of late.

The Singular Cycles Gryphon Mk3: Off-Road Impressions

The weekend weather was warm and good enough that I was able to get a ride in out in the woods on Sunday. It was too darn windy to be out on the gravel, for me, anyway, so the woods ride was chanced in hopes that I'd be out of that strong breeze and that the woods would be dry-ish enough to be able to be ridden. 

Well, not only was the wind subdued out in the Green Belt, but it was dry! Like mid-Summer dry. I mean, I know the humidity has been low the past couple of days, (for Iowa), but this was actually a bit alarming. We should not be this dry at this point into Spring. 

But for riding it was perfect and a good test of the Singular Cycles Gryphon Mk3. It was bumpy, hardpacked, and fast. There were a lot of broken up branches and blow-downs all along the trail. So, it was good from a tire and frame compliance standpoint. This post will relate my feeling and impressions on the Gryphon's single track handling and ride qualities. 

One thing you have to really pay attention to on a "plus-bike" is tire pressure. That's because one or two psi difference can be felt and makes a big handling difference. In the case of the 2.8" tire here, I went with past experience with my old 650B X 2.8" tires and set these up at 20psi to start out with. My old 26" X 2.5 Extraterrestrials were also really good at about 20psi. So, it seems that this would transfer to the 29" X 2.8" tires.

I ended up finding that on the Spank rims and with the Teravail Coronado tires that 20psi was a tad stiff for off road. For purely paved riding it was fine, but something down into the teens was probably going to be best on this bike for off roading. And I think that is spot on after my ride this weekend. In fact, I think lower teens would be great in really soft sand, mud, or snow. But for this hard packed dirt and all the branches I was encountering, upper teens seemed better.

So, any wood bits up to 3" in diameter were erased. That was all tires. The rest of the ride was pretty springy. That Ti seat post and the entire frame was really quite smooth, and I was a bit surprised by that, actually. Not that Sam at Singular doesn't understand nice ride quality, because he does, and his frames are famous for it. It was just that these beefier tubes seemed less likely to give me that ride, but my fears were totally allayed. 

The fork wasn't overly flexy though, and in fact, it handles modulated braking and allows control in dicey descents better than the old Gryphon did. I was really impressed because a big footprint that a fat tire like that can give you can make a fork give up. But not this fork. 

The geometry is good too. The single track out in the Greenbelt isn't overly twisty, but I feel it is representative of most single track I've seen in other states and the Gryphon carves it up just fine. I bet our super-tight stuff might give this some fits. Maybe. I'll have to go to Ingawanis Woodlands to see about that someday. I did climb the dike in and out of the Green Belt which is a pretty steep pitch. The granny gear on this bike winched me up no problem. I'd likely want one cog bigger if I was out West, but I am not, so this is great for now.

Okay, that's about all, but there was one weird thing. This bike has a 1990's era XT rear derailleur on it. But there was no chain slap whatsoever. Hmm..... Weird that. 

Okay, that's all for now. I'll have another post on the Gryphon Mk3 after I've done a good long gravel ride on it.

The Singular Cycles Gryphon Mk3: Off-Road Impressions

The weekend weather was warm and good enough that I was able to get a ride in out in the woods on Sunday. It was too darn windy to be out on the gravel, for me, anyway, so the woods ride was chanced in hopes that I'd be out of that strong breeze and that the woods would be dry-ish enough to be able to be ridden. 

Well, not only was the wind subdued out in the Green Belt, but it was dry! Like mid-Summer dry. I mean, I know the humidity has been low the past couple of days, (for Iowa), but this was actually a bit alarming. We should not be this dry at this point into Spring. 

But for riding it was perfect and a good test of the Singular Cycles Gryphon Mk3. It was bumpy, hardpacked, and fast. There were a lot of broken up branches and blow-downs all along the trail. So, it was good from a tire and frame compliance standpoint. This post will relate my feeling and impressions on the Gryphon's single track handling and ride qualities. 

One thing you have to really pay attention to on a "plus-bike" is tire pressure. That's because one or two psi difference can be felt and makes a big handling difference. In the case of the 2.8" tire here, I went with past experience with my old 650B X 2.8" tires and set these up at 20psi to start out with. My old 26" X 2.5 Extraterrestrials were also really good at about 20psi. So, it seems that this would transfer to the 29" X 2.8" tires.

I ended up finding that on the Spank rims and with the Teravail Coronado tires that 20psi was a tad stiff for off road. For purely paved riding it was fine, but something down into the teens was probably going to be best on this bike for off roading. And I think that is spot on after my ride this weekend. In fact, I think lower teens would be great in really soft sand, mud, or snow. But for this hard packed dirt and all the branches I was encountering, upper teens seemed better.

So, any wood bits up to 3" in diameter were erased. That was all tires. The rest of the ride was pretty springy. That Ti seat post and the entire frame was really quite smooth, and I was a bit surprised by that, actually. Not that Sam at Singular doesn't understand nice ride quality, because he does, and his frames are famous for it. It was just that these beefier tubes seemed less likely to give me that ride, but my fears were totally allayed. 

The fork wasn't overly flexy though, and in fact, it handles modulated braking and allows control in dicey descents better than the old Gryphon did. I was really impressed because a big footprint that a fat tire like that can give you can make a fork give up. But not this fork. 

The geometry is good too. The single track out in the Greenbelt isn't overly twisty, but I feel it is representative of most single track I've seen in other states and the Gryphon carves it up just fine. I bet our super-tight stuff might give this some fits. Maybe. I'll have to go to Ingawanis Woodlands to see about that someday. I did climb the dike in and out of the Green Belt which is a pretty steep pitch. The granny gear on this bike winched me up no problem. I'd likely want one cog bigger if I was out West, but I am not, so this is great for now.

Okay, that's about all, but there was one weird thing. This bike has a 1990's era XT rear derailleur on it. But there was no chain slap whatsoever. Hmm..... Weird that. 

Okay, that's all for now. I'll have another post on the Gryphon Mk3 after I've done a good long gravel ride on it.

Country Views: Riding Into Fall

Escape Route: Bike Path: University Avenue

 Tuesday I had some time to myself in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, with hardly any clouds, low humidity, and a stiff Northwesterly breeze. I decided on a three hour ride to the North of Waterloo via some alleys, bike paths, urban Level B, and single track. Not necessarily all in that order. 

I was needing to test some tires, so that was part of the reason for the route I chose, but also, it is a good route when the winds are out of the Northwest. I go West mostly under the cover of woods and urban buildings, so there isn't much open headwind that way. Plus, it takes in part of my old commute to Andy's Bike Shop, which I miss riding.Then a lot of the North bit is sheltered as well, which is nice. 

Along the Cedar River. The sunflowers are numerous and about 7-8 feet high this year!

These abandoned mixer bodies remind us that at one time Lower Hartman Reserve was a sand and gravel quarry.

I veered off to take in Shirey Way and a bit of twisty, turny single track through Lower Hartman reserve which I helped put in years ago. Hardly anyone knows that around here but me, but it is true. It used to be called "John's Trail" when it was new. I have no idea what the folks who came in afterward decided to name it. 

North looking up Leversee Road.

 Looking East down Bennington Road

 

After some urban street scrambling and bike path action North of Cedar Falls, I emerged on a blacktop road which took me to another, major County blacktop and I turned East out of the wind. Major relief! Then a mile north on what used to be gravel, but they ruined that and put down chip seal. Bah! 

Eventually I got up North on Leversee Road to Bennington Road's Eastern side. I don't care who you are, East Bennington Road is one of the most beautiful sights looking East that I know of in Black Hawk County. 

A SUV stirs up dust going North On Streeter Road

The prairie sunflowers dominate the landscape this time of year.

Going East was nice. However; the county maintainers have visited Bennington Road and the gravel was deep and thick. This made for some laborious riding, but I managed. At least the recent rains have settled the dust to a great extent and even though it was windy, I saw no evidence of the usual 'dust drifting' which you can often see on gravel when it is windy out there in the country. 

A "Wooly-Bear" seen on Moline Road. This one says, "Bad Winter!" But.....

....this one seen less than five feet from the other seems to say "Huh? What Winter?"

Wooly bears are out now. I learned from Dave Pryor when we rode together recently that the bigger the orange stripe, the better Winter is supposed to be. Well, I saw four Wooly Bears on this ride and two were completely black and two were completely orange. 

Not sure what that means! 

Fall is definitely working in now, whatever the Wooly-Bears might be trying to tell us. The Sun sets early now, and the corn is beginning to dry down. I was a bit saddened over the last week. There were so many things I wanted to accomplish over Summer that I never even got started on. Rides planned and not done. Time out in the country not taken. But maybe that's the "american" coming out in me. I am not what I have accomplished. That doesn't fulfill me. 

I should be happy I got out at all. That I can ride is something I am privileged to be able to do both physically and from an economic standpoint. Some folks cannot do what I do at all for various reasons. That I didn't get to go nuts and ride until I passed out and then be upset about that is crazy. I need to learn to be satisfied with what I am, where I am, with what I have been given. That should be sufficient. It's more than I really need, to be honest. 

I need to relax about my ambitions sometimes. Other times I waste time and that gets on my nerves too. But Life is a balancing act. We aren't always going to get that balance right. And that's okay. 

I got a three hour ride in. I was satisfied and blessed.

Country Views: Riding Into Fall

Escape Route: Bike Path: University Avenue

 Tuesday I had some time to myself in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, with hardly any clouds, low humidity, and a stiff Northwesterly breeze. I decided on a three hour ride to the North of Waterloo via some alleys, bike paths, urban Level B, and single track. Not necessarily all in that order. 

I was needing to test some tires, so that was part of the reason for the route I chose, but also, it is a good route when the winds are out of the Northwest. I go West mostly under the cover of woods and urban buildings, so there isn't much open headwind that way. Plus, it takes in part of my old commute to Andy's Bike Shop, which I miss riding.Then a lot of the North bit is sheltered as well, which is nice. 

Along the Cedar River. The sunflowers are numerous and about 7-8 feet high this year!

These abandoned mixer bodies remind us that at one time Lower Hartman Reserve was a sand and gravel quarry.

I veered off to take in Shirey Way and a bit of twisty, turny single track through Lower Hartman reserve which I helped put in years ago. Hardly anyone knows that around here but me, but it is true. It used to be called "John's Trail" when it was new. I have no idea what the folks who came in afterward decided to name it. 

North looking up Leversee Road.

 Looking East down Bennington Road

 

After some urban street scrambling and bike path action North of Cedar Falls, I emerged on a blacktop road which took me to another, major County blacktop and I turned East out of the wind. Major relief! Then a mile north on what used to be gravel, but they ruined that and put down chip seal. Bah! 

Eventually I got up North on Leversee Road to Bennington Road's Eastern side. I don't care who you are, East Bennington Road is one of the most beautiful sights looking East that I know of in Black Hawk County. 

A SUV stirs up dust going North On Streeter Road

The prairie sunflowers dominate the landscape this time of year.

Going East was nice. However; the county maintainers have visited Bennington Road and the gravel was deep and thick. This made for some laborious riding, but I managed. At least the recent rains have settled the dust to a great extent and even though it was windy, I saw no evidence of the usual 'dust drifting' which you can often see on gravel when it is windy out there in the country. 

A "Wooly-Bear" seen on Moline Road. This one says, "Bad Winter!" But.....

....this one seen less than five feet from the other seems to say "Huh? What Winter?"

Wooly bears are out now. I learned from Dave Pryor when we rode together recently that the bigger the orange stripe, the better Winter is supposed to be. Well, I saw four Wooly Bears on this ride and two were completely black and two were completely orange. 

Not sure what that means! 

Fall is definitely working in now, whatever the Wooly-Bears might be trying to tell us. The Sun sets early now, and the corn is beginning to dry down. I was a bit saddened over the last week. There were so many things I wanted to accomplish over Summer that I never even got started on. Rides planned and not done. Time out in the country not taken. But maybe that's the "american" coming out in me. I am not what I have accomplished. That doesn't fulfill me. 

I should be happy I got out at all. That I can ride is something I am privileged to be able to do both physically and from an economic standpoint. Some folks cannot do what I do at all for various reasons. That I didn't get to go nuts and ride until I passed out and then be upset about that is crazy. I need to learn to be satisfied with what I am, where I am, with what I have been given. That should be sufficient. It's more than I really need, to be honest. 

I need to relax about my ambitions sometimes. Other times I waste time and that gets on my nerves too. But Life is a balancing act. We aren't always going to get that balance right. And that's okay. 

I got a three hour ride in. I was satisfied and blessed.

Fall Views: Tree Wrasslin'

Minimal tree color along the dike on Black Hawk Creek here.

 I mentioned in the Monday post that I had feared that I missed 'peak color' time for this Fall. Well, I was a bit off on that, apparently, and so I was wrong. It isn't quite to the peak yet. I found this out on my ride Tuesday along Black Hawk Creek in the Green Belt. 

I have hit that time of the year when I will have a lot more time off from work. I knew this was coming- it does every year in this business. So, I am not complaining, I'm just telling you how it is for me when Fall comes into its zenith and Winter is not far off. 

So, I was able to scoot out for a short jaunt into the Green Belt along Black Hawk Creek to see if the colors had popped and do my traditional 'pilgrimage ride'. The ride I try to do every Fall to remember my roots in mountain biking and to enjoy the Fall colors, be that what they may. See, the Green Belt was where I first rode a mountain bike in the late 80's and it is where I learned a lot of handling skills. 

Typically I would choose a single speed to do this ride because there usually are enough sticks and branches out there that a derailleur equipped bike runs the risk of having that dangly bit whacked off and it causing even more carnage. So, a single speed device generally is immune to such damage and chaos. But this time I took my Ti Muk 2, and it has gears, but they are hidden inside that big, German made hub, and cannot be harmed by the pitfalls of Fall riding. Plus, it is a fat bike, so really, it just crushes anything like a stick in its path with no problem. 

Work being done on the Fletcher Avenue crossing of the Black Hawk Creek.

There are some pretty places in the Green Belt if you know where to look.

The ride would be done as sort of a convoluted loop, thanks to my connector trail named "Marky-Mark". This provided me an excuse to see the condition of this trail. It generally is pretty low maintenance, and maybe some of that was by design, but I often think about how fortunate I was to lay this out, mostly by chance, along a line that just ended up being really sustainable. 

The angle of the light at this time of year makes riding in this area a real challenge from a sight perspective.

The 'money shot'. Most of the color was packed down into one corner as of this post.

Marky-Mark was clear as far as the tread of the trail went, but there were four dead-falls across it at certain points. One of which I was able to clear off myself. The others will require a saw. The wood is pretty dried out, and the sizes of the trunks are not all that big. It should not take much, but I'll have to source a trail saw and get back out there to clear that off sometime here soon. 

I tried moving those other trees, but they were just too long, too embedded into the duff around the area they were in, and I ended up having to let that go for now. But I tried moving each one. Tree wrasslin' should be a sport. It's a pretty much 'full-body' exercise action, and it would make for some comical viewing, I think. 

The new fishing pier at the Green Belt lake.

The best color tree I saw on the whole ride was like three blocks from where I live!

On the way back home I circled around part of the Green Belt lake and saw the new pier that had been installed recently. Call me a grump, a progress-hater, if you will, but it burns me up to see stuff like this being installed on this small water impoundment. They even put in a paved path going from the parking lot up to it. What once was a place uninhibited by man-made structure is now stained, in my view. Besides, I don't think a pier was at all necessary. 

And that pavement to it? A certain precursor to having a path paved around this small lake. Bah! Why do we think pavement is an improvement? I don't know where that came from. This small lake has a dirt path around it that is about as easy to walk on as you could ask for with zero maintenance. Even some small amount of thoughtful maintenance as it is now would make it so a wheel chair could easily go around the entire body of water. On dirt, yes. No, it would suck in the rain, but honestly, who would use it in inclement weather anyway? Likely no one, just as with our current paved trails. There just is no good reason to do the pavement out there. 

But I'm the odd one out in that way of thinking, I am sure.