Country Views: Thinkering

Escape Route: Exchange Park

Monday. A new month. Another Country Views ride. This time I was doing a couple things. One- I was testing functions on the Karoo 2 computer. More on that in another post. Two: I was "thinkering". 

Yes- thinkering. It isn't a term I came up with. I first read this from the legendary endurance racer Mike Curiak on the mtbr.com endurance forum way back in the early 00's. I'm not sure where he came up with the term, but upon reading it in context of what he was laying down at that time, it made a lot of sense to my mind. I've adopted the term ever since. (So- Thanks Mike! I guess...)

What is thinkering? Well, I think it is trying out new ideas in mechanical form, testing them, tweaking the idea, testing it, and on and on. It probably was meant to describe the mental/physical tandem you experience while testing out ideas on the bike. You are riding, but feeling, and thinking, and planning, and then you go back and tweak, and tinker, and on and on. See? I think "thinkering" is just a compact, neat little term to describe a lot of complex ideas and physical actions which are all tied together. Somehow.... Anyway....

Headed North into the wind

 

Obviously the County had not maintained the roads North of Waterloo like they had in the South of the County!

I was thinking about the bike I was riding, the "Gravel Bus", my Twin Six Standard Rando v2 single speed bike, and what to do with a couple of things which I was wrestling with. The Limited Edition GRX Silver group which requires that certain standards exist to make it usable. I was thinking about that Singular Cycles Gryphon, now not due to arrive until the end of this year, first part of next year. I was also thinking about the possible purchase of a Mason Exposure frame and fork to put the GRX stuff on.
 

An old tractor with a wind row rake sits in a field of cut grass.

It was idyllic out Monday and I enjoyed my ride.

I've been inquiring about the Mason. While it would be a lot of fun to have tried that bike out, I just had to nix that idea for a couple of reasons. First, it is expensive. Second- I need to cut down on the number of bicycles in the house, not add numbers to my inventory. 

So, regrettably I am letting that idea go. But, I came up with what I think will end up becoming a much better plan for me overall. I not only figured out what to do while riding, or thinkering, I figured out how to make it so I only have to spend a minimal amount to use up the GRX stuff and build the Singular. 

The "corn-u-flaged" Twin Six Standard Rando v2

Some of our Waterloo alleyways resemble Level B Maintenance roads.

Yep, I figured out that I just have to get over myself and put the GRX silver stuff on my Standard Rando v2, despite the bike being yellow. It should fit the 140mm rear rotor and everything else should slot right in. I got full cable guides when I bought the frame and fork in the Summer of 2020 so that was fortuitous in the end. 

By doing this, I will displace the mostly silver TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes which are the flat mount type I need for the Singular. I will have to remove the recently built wheel with the Paul single speed hub, but.... Now I can relace that with a different rim. And I have the perfect candidate. I already own polished silver Velocity Dually's. I would likely need a front hub, might have one, and I'd have to build a set of wheels. 

That solves the conundrum with brakes and the drive train for the Singular, since I'd be going single speed. That solves the issue with the GRX since it would go on the Gravel Bus. I have a wheel set for the GRX set-up too, so that is no problem. 

That may have been the last ride on a single speed platform for this bike.

 Negatives? I would need new spokes and nipples for a wheel set to build the Singular wheels. I might need a new front hub. I would need a new bottom bracket for the Gravel Buss. I might need something like bar tape or small bits like cables, or what have you. (There is always something!) But obviously, whatever I need to build a wheel set and whatever bits and bobs become necessary to complete two bikes, it would be far less than the 2G+ a Mason Exposure would cost me and then I have added a bike to the stable. The Gryphon is already an addition, (but really a one-for-one, since I am tearing down another bike to build the Gryphon with) 

And I have a house clearing plan in store for unused bikes which is going to happen soon as well. 

Stay tuned. More "thinkering" to come.........

Country Views: Thinkering

Escape Route: Exchange Park

Monday. A new month. Another Country Views ride. This time I was doing a couple things. One- I was testing functions on the Karoo 2 computer. More on that in another post. Two: I was "thinkering". 

Yes- thinkering. It isn't a term I came up with. I first read this from the legendary endurance racer Mike Curiak on the mtbr.com endurance forum way back in the early 00's. I'm not sure where he came up with the term, but upon reading it in context of what he was laying down at that time, it made a lot of sense to my mind. I've adopted the term ever since. (So- Thanks Mike! I guess...)

What is thinkering? Well, I think it is trying out new ideas in mechanical form, testing them, tweaking the idea, testing it, and on and on. It probably was meant to describe the mental/physical tandem you experience while testing out ideas on the bike. You are riding, but feeling, and thinking, and planning, and then you go back and tweak, and tinker, and on and on. See? I think "thinkering" is just a compact, neat little term to describe a lot of complex ideas and physical actions which are all tied together. Somehow.... Anyway....

Headed North into the wind

 

Obviously the County had not maintained the roads North of Waterloo like they had in the South of the County!

I was thinking about the bike I was riding, the "Gravel Bus", my Twin Six Standard Rando v2 single speed bike, and what to do with a couple of things which I was wrestling with. The Limited Edition GRX Silver group which requires that certain standards exist to make it usable. I was thinking about that Singular Cycles Gryphon, now not due to arrive until the end of this year, first part of next year. I was also thinking about the possible purchase of a Mason Exposure frame and fork to put the GRX stuff on.
 

An old tractor with a wind row rake sits in a field of cut grass.

It was idyllic out Monday and I enjoyed my ride.

I've been inquiring about the Mason. While it would be a lot of fun to have tried that bike out, I just had to nix that idea for a couple of reasons. First, it is expensive. Second- I need to cut down on the number of bicycles in the house, not add numbers to my inventory. 

So, regrettably I am letting that idea go. But, I came up with what I think will end up becoming a much better plan for me overall. I not only figured out what to do while riding, or thinkering, I figured out how to make it so I only have to spend a minimal amount to use up the GRX stuff and build the Singular. 

The "corn-u-flaged" Twin Six Standard Rando v2

Some of our Waterloo alleyways resemble Level B Maintenance roads.

Yep, I figured out that I just have to get over myself and put the GRX silver stuff on my Standard Rando v2, despite the bike being yellow. It should fit the 140mm rear rotor and everything else should slot right in. I got full cable guides when I bought the frame and fork in the Summer of 2020 so that was fortuitous in the end. 

By doing this, I will displace the mostly silver TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes which are the flat mount type I need for the Singular. I will have to remove the recently built wheel with the Paul single speed hub, but.... Now I can relace that with a different rim. And I have the perfect candidate. I already own polished silver Velocity Dually's. I would likely need a front hub, might have one, and I'd have to build a set of wheels. 

That solves the conundrum with brakes and the drive train for the Singular, since I'd be going single speed. That solves the issue with the GRX since it would go on the Gravel Bus. I have a wheel set for the GRX set-up too, so that is no problem. 

That may have been the last ride on a single speed platform for this bike.

 Negatives? I would need new spokes and nipples for a wheel set to build the Singular wheels. I might need a new front hub. I would need a new bottom bracket for the Gravel Buss. I might need something like bar tape or small bits like cables, or what have you. (There is always something!) But obviously, whatever I need to build a wheel set and whatever bits and bobs become necessary to complete two bikes, it would be far less than the 2G+ a Mason Exposure would cost me and then I have added a bike to the stable. The Gryphon is already an addition, (but really a one-for-one, since I am tearing down another bike to build the Gryphon with) 

And I have a house clearing plan in store for unused bikes which is going to happen soon as well. 

Stay tuned. More "thinkering" to come.........

Death Of The Top Tube

Spanish brand "UNNO" just announced the Dash. (Image courtesy of UNNO)

I've been keenly interested in mountain bikes since the late 1980's. Since that time, there have been several permutations of mountain bikes and much evolution in thought within the mountain bike design community. 

This is perhaps most evident in some of the newer designs I have seen in the last several years. Things are at such a state that, if it were possible to time-travel backward and show these bikes to designers from 20 years ago, they might just cause quite the stir. I'm positive that would be the case. Take this bike I am featuring today from the Spanish brand UNNO. Their Dash model is a 150mm/140mm travel dual suspension, "all-mountain" bike.

Something like 25 years ago now, in the seminal mountain bike magazine known as "Dirt Rag" (R.I.P.), there was an article I recall which gathered together a symposium of then current movers and shakers in the mountain bike design and manufacturing communities. There were questions about where MTB design might be going in the future. 

Of course, suspension design was a hot topic then, and "all-mountain", "free-ride" bikes like Cannondale's  Super V were blowing the doors off of conventional design theories. Those Super V bikes were polarizing- You either loved them or thought that they were the ugliest thing ever designed, but they were a portent of things to come. 

Catalog snip of a Cannondale Super V 3000.

But however they affected people, those bicycles and others were challenging the conventional design thought of the day. How much suspension travel was too much? How would longer travel forks integrate with the rider and the ergonomics of the bicycle?

I recall that one of the so-called "limiting factors" for design was front end height. Keep in mind that all throughout the 1990's the 'pinnacle' of mountain bike design was thought to have been achieved by the then ubiquitous "NORBA geometry hard tail". It might be hard to understand this now, because examples of such bikes are rare anymore.

But imagine a steep head angle- 71°- and a what would be considered laughably slack now 73° seat tube angle. Consider that 29" wheels did not exist- Everyone was on 26"ers, and that was the ONLY choice. Then throw in the "long travel" forks which were 80mm, with 38mm fork offsets, and you can begin to see that these bikes were radically different than what we have today. My favorite feature of bikes from that era are the stem lengths. Think about this factoid; A 135mm long stem was considered as "short" in those days! 

And all of that hampered the Cannondale Super V's and other designs of their time. So when the designers were asked what the limits were, these conventions were where they were coming from. You simply could not imagine a fork with longer than 100mm travel because it would jack the front end up so high, mostly due to that steep head angle, that the bike would be laughable. Top tubes would become so sloped, to accommodate stand over, that these bikes would look like- excuse me here, but this was the term back then- "girl's bikes". 

Boy! Have we come a long way in many areas, but I wanted to paint a picture here of where we've come from in terms of design. Top tubes? What top tubes? If ever there was a bike that could claim the name "full-suspension mixte'", it would be the UNNO above, and I think this is a design which features currently held design maxims which- in my opinion- will be gone in the future as well. We've rid ourselves of those pesky top tubes, the seat tube will be next!

GAS GAS trials moto (Image courtesy of Motocross Action)

I think about motorcycle trials bikes here. These bikes typically have no saddles or any provision for one. Of course, they have a motor to propel them, so pedaling is not a concern. How would one eliminate the seat tube to gain maximum clearance for the rider on a bicycle? How about eliminating the seat post/seat tube idea and making a telescoping seat tube instead? 

The unit could be so compact that it would take that bike in the first image and make it look a heck of a lot more like the motorcycle to the left. (Or a parallelogram linkage saddle which could be raised and lowered.) Imagine it with an integrated electric motor/transmission, such as what we are seeing proposed now for HPC/ebikes, and you could easily see something that looks a heck of a lot like the trials bike here. 

Just like the elimination of conventional top tubes seemed unthinkable to that panel of experts in the late 90's, this idea may seem out-to-lunch to you now. However; I think it has legs, especially when you see how goofy that provision for a seat post is on the Dash above. The top tube is dead! Seat tubes? We're coming for you next!

Death Of The Top Tube

Spanish brand "UNNO" just announced the Dash. (Image courtesy of UNNO)

I've been keenly interested in mountain bikes since the late 1980's. Since that time, there have been several permutations of mountain bikes and much evolution in thought within the mountain bike design community. 

This is perhaps most evident in some of the newer designs I have seen in the last several years. Things are at such a state that, if it were possible to time-travel backward and show these bikes to designers from 20 years ago, they might just cause quite the stir. I'm positive that would be the case. Take this bike I am featuring today from the Spanish brand UNNO. Their Dash model is a 150mm/140mm travel dual suspension, "all-mountain" bike.

Something like 25 years ago now, in the seminal mountain bike magazine known as "Dirt Rag" (R.I.P.), there was an article I recall which gathered together a symposium of then current movers and shakers in the mountain bike design and manufacturing communities. There were questions about where MTB design might be going in the future. 

Of course, suspension design was a hot topic then, and "all-mountain", "free-ride" bikes like Cannondale's  Super V were blowing the doors off of conventional design theories. Those Super V bikes were polarizing- You either loved them or thought that they were the ugliest thing ever designed, but they were a portent of things to come. 

Catalog snip of a Cannondale Super V 3000.

But however they affected people, those bicycles and others were challenging the conventional design thought of the day. How much suspension travel was too much? How would longer travel forks integrate with the rider and the ergonomics of the bicycle?

I recall that one of the so-called "limiting factors" for design was front end height. Keep in mind that all throughout the 1990's the 'pinnacle' of mountain bike design was thought to have been achieved by the then ubiquitous "NORBA geometry hard tail". It might be hard to understand this now, because examples of such bikes are rare anymore.

But imagine a steep head angle- 71°- and a what would be considered laughably slack now 73° seat tube angle. Consider that 29" wheels did not exist- Everyone was on 26"ers, and that was the ONLY choice. Then throw in the "long travel" forks which were 80mm, with 38mm fork offsets, and you can begin to see that these bikes were radically different than what we have today. My favorite feature of bikes from that era are the stem lengths. Think about this factoid; A 135mm long stem was considered as "short" in those days! 

And all of that hampered the Cannondale Super V's and other designs of their time. So when the designers were asked what the limits were, these conventions were where they were coming from. You simply could not imagine a fork with longer than 100mm travel because it would jack the front end up so high, mostly due to that steep head angle, that the bike would be laughable. Top tubes would become so sloped, to accommodate stand over, that these bikes would look like- excuse me here, but this was the term back then- "girl's bikes". 

Boy! Have we come a long way in many areas, but I wanted to paint a picture here of where we've come from in terms of design. Top tubes? What top tubes? If ever there was a bike that could claim the name "full-suspension mixte'", it would be the UNNO above, and I think this is a design which features currently held design maxims which- in my opinion- will be gone in the future as well. We've rid ourselves of those pesky top tubes, the seat tube will be next!

GAS GAS trials moto (Image courtesy of Motocross Action)

I think about motorcycle trials bikes here. These bikes typically have no saddles or any provision for one. Of course, they have a motor to propel them, so pedaling is not a concern. How would one eliminate the seat tube to gain maximum clearance for the rider on a bicycle? How about eliminating the seat post/seat tube idea and making a telescoping seat tube instead? 

The unit could be so compact that it would take that bike in the first image and make it look a heck of a lot more like the motorcycle to the left. (Or a parallelogram linkage saddle which could be raised and lowered.) Imagine it with an integrated electric motor/transmission, such as what we are seeing proposed now for HPC/ebikes, and you could easily see something that looks a heck of a lot like the trials bike here. 

Just like the elimination of conventional top tubes seemed unthinkable to that panel of experts in the late 90's, this idea may seem out-to-lunch to you now. However; I think it has legs, especially when you see how goofy that provision for a seat post is on the Dash above. The top tube is dead! Seat tubes? We're coming for you next!

Karoo 2 Take 2: Part 2

Last Saturday I introduced my new Karoo 2 GPS computer. I detailed the set-up process experience. The next thing I was interested in was if this new unit would do the turn-by-turn navigation I was desiring to have so I can utilize other routes in GPS form. 

So, I had saved a route through Southern Black Hawk County which I talked about yesterday in my "Country Views" post. As I stated, that route starts right at my house and ends there. 

I got on the ride, fired up the computer, found my route, and with one touch the Karoo 2 started the route. Once I moved it let me know that the route wasn't being recorded, and did I want that? One tap and it was on. 

So, audible prompts, a map, and arrows guided me along the entire route. There was another page with more "normal" cycling information, like overall mileage, average speed, maximum speed, and time of day. However; it was largely useless due to the severity of the gravel this time which made reading anything impossible. The unit was just vibrating far too much to safely see it. 

That's not the fault of the Karoo 2, but it does bring up the need to be able to increase font size and eliminate all but the two or three things you really need to see. Maybe that's in a deeper editing feature, I don't know at this point. 

And that brings up another fault I find with Hammerhead. There is no place to go to look things up at a glance, and I'd like that to be an actual manual you could take out in the field with you. I'm not going to try to see a webpage in bright Sunlight on my iPhone to figure this deal out, especially so since getting into the dashboard has been a frustrating experience so far due to the password having to be entered more than once every time I've had to login up to this point. Just give me a paper manual and make it easy already.

Taken on a bike path, because the gravel was too rough!

The display was easy to see, at least when it wasn't being rattled violently! But I had no issues with the route, the prompts, or any of that. Road names were called out correctly, and I was able to follow the route the entire distance with zero hiccups or fails. 

Battery life is not very impressive.

Okay, the very basics have been accomplished and this experience was 1000 times better than with the first unit. Now I will have to create a new route and see how much easier, or not, it is to do with the new unit. 

Since I got what I wanted- so far- I am willing to invest in the time it will take to tweak out the unit to my liking. I will explore the other options for cycling, and I may start doing a deeper dive with this if all that goes smoothly. 

I was not impressed with the battery life. I started out the ride on the half-charge the unit came with. At the time I started, it was at 43%. That was after all the rig-a-ma-roll with the set-up procedure which sucked some of the battery down. 

You can see in the image above that I had 24% battery life left, but about four blocks from the house, which was shortly after the image was taken, the unit alerted me to a "low battery status". I'm not sure when that comes on. At 20% maybe? Dunno..... Again- it'd be great if I had an owner's manual to check on that at a glance. 

I plugged in the Karoo 2  into my home computer to recharge it, and four hours later, it was at 81%. Sheesh! How long can it take? I guess longer than four hours, eh? But anyway, this thing eats through its battery pretty fast, seemingly, and it takes forever to charge it back up. I'll have to test this out on an all-day ride sometime to see if it will even make it that far. I imagine not using the turn-by-turn feature uses less battery life. We'll see... 

So far, okay. No Bluetooth to my iPhone. Set-up was a bit frustrating. Battery life is so-so. GPS works. I'll see about other features later on. I may become more fond of it later on once I become more acquainted with how this thing works. One thing I do know- there had to be something amiss with the first one. It was defective for sure. This unit has- so far- been much better to interface with. 

More soon.

Karoo 2 Take 2: Part 2

Last Saturday I introduced my new Karoo 2 GPS computer. I detailed the set-up process experience. The next thing I was interested in was if this new unit would do the turn-by-turn navigation I was desiring to have so I can utilize other routes in GPS form. 

So, I had saved a route through Southern Black Hawk County which I talked about yesterday in my "Country Views" post. As I stated, that route starts right at my house and ends there. 

I got on the ride, fired up the computer, found my route, and with one touch the Karoo 2 started the route. Once I moved it let me know that the route wasn't being recorded, and did I want that? One tap and it was on. 

So, audible prompts, a map, and arrows guided me along the entire route. There was another page with more "normal" cycling information, like overall mileage, average speed, maximum speed, and time of day. However; it was largely useless due to the severity of the gravel this time which made reading anything impossible. The unit was just vibrating far too much to safely see it. 

That's not the fault of the Karoo 2, but it does bring up the need to be able to increase font size and eliminate all but the two or three things you really need to see. Maybe that's in a deeper editing feature, I don't know at this point. 

And that brings up another fault I find with Hammerhead. There is no place to go to look things up at a glance, and I'd like that to be an actual manual you could take out in the field with you. I'm not going to try to see a webpage in bright Sunlight on my iPhone to figure this deal out, especially so since getting into the dashboard has been a frustrating experience so far due to the password having to be entered more than once every time I've had to login up to this point. Just give me a paper manual and make it easy already.

Taken on a bike path, because the gravel was too rough!

The display was easy to see, at least when it wasn't being rattled violently! But I had no issues with the route, the prompts, or any of that. Road names were called out correctly, and I was able to follow the route the entire distance with zero hiccups or fails. 

Battery life is not very impressive.

Okay, the very basics have been accomplished and this experience was 1000 times better than with the first unit. Now I will have to create a new route and see how much easier, or not, it is to do with the new unit. 

Since I got what I wanted- so far- I am willing to invest in the time it will take to tweak out the unit to my liking. I will explore the other options for cycling, and I may start doing a deeper dive with this if all that goes smoothly. 

I was not impressed with the battery life. I started out the ride on the half-charge the unit came with. At the time I started, it was at 43%. That was after all the rig-a-ma-roll with the set-up procedure which sucked some of the battery down. 

You can see in the image above that I had 24% battery life left, but about four blocks from the house, which was shortly after the image was taken, the unit alerted me to a "low battery status". I'm not sure when that comes on. At 20% maybe? Dunno..... Again- it'd be great if I had an owner's manual to check on that at a glance. 

I plugged in the Karoo 2  into my home computer to recharge it, and four hours later, it was at 81%. Sheesh! How long can it take? I guess longer than four hours, eh? But anyway, this thing eats through its battery pretty fast, seemingly, and it takes forever to charge it back up. I'll have to test this out on an all-day ride sometime to see if it will even make it that far. I imagine not using the turn-by-turn feature uses less battery life. We'll see... 

So far, okay. No Bluetooth to my iPhone. Set-up was a bit frustrating. Battery life is so-so. GPS works. I'll see about other features later on. I may become more fond of it later on once I become more acquainted with how this thing works. One thing I do know- there had to be something amiss with the first one. It was defective for sure. This unit has- so far- been much better to interface with. 

More soon.

Country Views: Wind And Rock

Escape Route: West 5th/6th Street

So, as you may have seen in Saturday's post, I received a new Hammerhead Karoo 2 GPS unit. Well, I did get out on Thursday to test the thing out. I used the same route I used for the last test of the first unit I had. I call it the "Southern Black Hawk County Route". 

It is a 33+ mile loop out and back from my house, so there is a fair amount of pavement to get out to the country. A mixed-terrain route, if you will. This time the weather was about perfect in terms of temperature and humidity. Mid to upper 70's and low humidity. But the wind! Northwest at 25mph with higher gusts. And, you know, out in the country it is always worse. 

But that's okay. We are used to wind here. You just learn to deal with that. I was going out knowing that I would be doing the entire second half of the loop in a quartering headwind. 

I used a bike I did not have anything to test, well, other than the new GPS unit. I started the route and hit the streets headed out toward Evansdale via the bike trail system.

Today's stage was held up by protesters who think humans pave over stuff too much.

Crossing the Cedar River on the CVNT. This is looking upstream.

The wind was my friend going out so I was making good time. There were points at which I was not pedaling and I was being pushed along at 10-12mph for as long as I wanted. Makes you feel like a hero, but there would be a price to pay later on. 

The lavender colored flowers on the right side of the road are chicory.

Nice colors in the ditch here.

This is "high season" for ditch flowers. It's my favorite time to ride in Summer. You don't see flowers everywhere, but sometimes you run across some nice patches of day lillies, chicory, or later on, prairie sunflowers. The latter aren't out just yet, but very soon, they will be, and yellow will dominate the ditches for the remainder of the season. 

Well, that's a LOT of fresh rock! It was like this most of the time on gravel this day.

A quick stop for a 'nature break'.

Once I was on gravel I found wall-to-wall fresh, chunky gravel and little clear lanes at all. Uggh! Added with wind, this is the worst possible combination to ride in. The fresh gravel was so rough I couldn't read the GPS at all. All I could do was look at the ever scrolling map and see where it wanted me to turn. I didn't hardly dare take a hand off the bars to drink or photograph it was so rough. 

A FedEx truck blazes up Hess Road.

I've heard of 'under-biking' before, but 'under-mowing'?

Chunky, chunk, chunk.... I plodded along Quarry Road heading West over fresh graveled roads. Nothing you can do but measure out your effort and keep pedaling. The wind was a bit gusty at times, trying to knock me over, but all it really did was annoy me further. 

I find how certain farmers take care of their land to be amusing. I call it "grass farming". They certainly put a lot of effort into shaving acres and acres of ditches and in between fields down to golf course like levels of manicure. On my ride this day I witnessed a woman out at least a quarter mile away from the house mowing alongside a bean field. 

How odd..... 

A dead vulture in the road on Ansborough

Petrie Road rising toward the West off in the distance.

The roughness of the roads on this ride did not let up. I was probably better off using one of my bikes with a Redshift Sports ShockStop Stem, but I was 'full-rigid' on the Noble Bikes GX5 on this ride. And I paid a price. Dang! Good thing the entire route wasn't gravel. 

But I did enjoy being out there. And I got back in under three hours for 33+ miles, so that's pretty fast considering the rough roads and wind. Good. I need a good test before I try this tour I'm planning to go on here soon.

Country Views: Wind And Rock

Escape Route: West 5th/6th Street

So, as you may have seen in Saturday's post, I received a new Hammerhead Karoo 2 GPS unit. Well, I did get out on Thursday to test the thing out. I used the same route I used for the last test of the first unit I had. I call it the "Southern Black Hawk County Route". 

It is a 33+ mile loop out and back from my house, so there is a fair amount of pavement to get out to the country. A mixed-terrain route, if you will. This time the weather was about perfect in terms of temperature and humidity. Mid to upper 70's and low humidity. But the wind! Northwest at 25mph with higher gusts. And, you know, out in the country it is always worse. 

But that's okay. We are used to wind here. You just learn to deal with that. I was going out knowing that I would be doing the entire second half of the loop in a quartering headwind. 

I used a bike I did not have anything to test, well, other than the new GPS unit. I started the route and hit the streets headed out toward Evansdale via the bike trail system.

Today's stage was held up by protesters who think humans pave over stuff too much.

Crossing the Cedar River on the CVNT. This is looking upstream.

The wind was my friend going out so I was making good time. There were points at which I was not pedaling and I was being pushed along at 10-12mph for as long as I wanted. Makes you feel like a hero, but there would be a price to pay later on. 

The lavender colored flowers on the right side of the road are chicory.

Nice colors in the ditch here.

This is "high season" for ditch flowers. It's my favorite time to ride in Summer. You don't see flowers everywhere, but sometimes you run across some nice patches of day lillies, chicory, or later on, prairie sunflowers. The latter aren't out just yet, but very soon, they will be, and yellow will dominate the ditches for the remainder of the season. 

Well, that's a LOT of fresh rock! It was like this most of the time on gravel this day.

A quick stop for a 'nature break'.

Once I was on gravel I found wall-to-wall fresh, chunky gravel and little clear lanes at all. Uggh! Added with wind, this is the worst possible combination to ride in. The fresh gravel was so rough I couldn't read the GPS at all. All I could do was look at the ever scrolling map and see where it wanted me to turn. I didn't hardly dare take a hand off the bars to drink or photograph it was so rough. 

A FedEx truck blazes up Hess Road.

I've heard of 'under-biking' before, but 'under-mowing'?

Chunky, chunk, chunk.... I plodded along Quarry Road heading West over fresh graveled roads. Nothing you can do but measure out your effort and keep pedaling. The wind was a bit gusty at times, trying to knock me over, but all it really did was annoy me further. 

I find how certain farmers take care of their land to be amusing. I call it "grass farming". They certainly put a lot of effort into shaving acres and acres of ditches and in between fields down to golf course like levels of manicure. On my ride this day I witnessed a woman out at least a quarter mile away from the house mowing alongside a bean field. 

How odd..... 

A dead vulture in the road on Ansborough

Petrie Road rising toward the West off in the distance.

The roughness of the roads on this ride did not let up. I was probably better off using one of my bikes with a Redshift Sports ShockStop Stem, but I was 'full-rigid' on the Noble Bikes GX5 on this ride. And I paid a price. Dang! Good thing the entire route wasn't gravel. 

But I did enjoy being out there. And I got back in under three hours for 33+ miles, so that's pretty fast considering the rough roads and wind. Good. I need a good test before I try this tour I'm planning to go on here soon.