Throwing My Hat Into The Ring

Yesterday morning Robin and I drove over to a little town called Blue Grass to look at a young white quarter horse. He was big and friendly and I liked him. The recent rains made their pasture way too muddy to ride him, so Robin was a teeny bit disappointed, but he could still be the horse for her.

I was certainly curious to see the horse, but I was also happy to have Robin take me fifty some miles outside of town and let me ride my bike all day. I had briefly looked at some maps and figured I could get myself to Lone Tree. From there I would figure out what to do.

The ride started off very cloudy and foggy. It was a little bit cool too. And the part of Iowa I was in was dead flat. I saw no cars, dogs, or people for over an hour.

As I neared Lone Tree the sun was coming out. And there were more hills. That was nice too. The super flat is a little bit boring. I stopped at the gas station there for some cheesy crackers and looped south with intentions of riding over the ever-popular Tri-County Bridge.

It was grand. The B road just after it was a little less than grand. Slick, soft mud greeted me at the bottom of a steep hill. I didn't think it was too bad, and it wasn't at first. But as I kept grinding it got softer. I had a lot of wheel slippage, but I persevered with the spinning and made it without a dab.

I jumped onto some pavement (up to this point there had been almost no pavement) and rolled into Riverside, the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.


I grabbed a coke and a piece of pizza at the Casey's and refilled my bottles.

It was about two in the afternoon, the wind was still light, and the sun felt great. I couldn't have felt better. With close to sixty miles of gravel in, I decided to keep it up. So I went back south and worked my way west and south and south and west through the little town of Richmond and on towards, but not all the way to, Washington. It was a nice figure eight loop that brought me back to Riverside.

At this point my stomach felt less than ideal. On the last long ride I blamed the sugary sports drinks, on this ride I had less sugar water, but still some. And my stomach was not as upset as the last ride either. So perhaps I should cut back on the sugar water even more? Still time to see.

Anyways, I had a banana and drank some water and pointed my steed towards the hilly dirt roads south. When I got to Hills I knew I had plenty of gravel behind me so I took the pavement in. There were cyclists all over the road and I got lots of smiles and waves.

In the end I was a hair shy of 101 miles and 81 point something of them were on gravel. It took me 6 hours and 45 minutes to do it, including my three brief stops. Sounds kind of fast, but I had a lot of gentle breeze and a lot of favorable tailwinds thanks to Robin letting me take my bike on the horse viewing trip.

Here is a map for those of you who like maps.

So now I have one dirty century complete. Eleven more will get me one of these: