Dirty metric # 3 for Josiah D.

“Kind of a weird day, weird ride. Got up super early, then dicked around for 2.5 hours before hitting the road. Packed and repacked my hippack, which became a handlebar bag via three zip ties and a voile strap. Brought the little radio, which was a bust – waste of space and weight, lack of interest, ultimately, and too much wind noise for the clarity and volume I could dial up.

Brought two bottles w sports drink and plenty of figbars, and I knew I had a stop at Tasty Pastry. There I purchased one double chocolate cookie, eaten immediately, and six (small!) Persian date cookies, eaten over the next hours. It was a good cookie day.

A light rain / heavy mist fell steadily for the first three or four hours. The roads were wet and slow, not super muddy, but muddyish in spots, and I had just a couple, short hike a bike sections, once, due to a bizarre 1/4 mile of 6″ loose sand.

The mucky surfaces, along with my rather laggard start, along w the moderate but constant headwind, contributed to a slow pace, and I quickly made the decision to end the day in Manhattan (I had a sizeable head start on an eastbound “SAG” truck 🙂 …).

It was an absolutely beautiful day. If it were not for the headwind, this would have been a contender for one of my favorite rides ever. Gorgeous, rough, lonely back roads, crisp, fresh air, lovely mist, roads I’d never seen. I wasn’t really feeling strong, for whatever reasons, including environmental, but the day was so nice that it was impossible but to enjoy myself (and take a lot of photos).

I would definitely ride this route before, and may do so as a there and back sometime soon, as I’m trying to increase my distance in training up for the Big DanKe. This was my longest solo gravel ride to date.

Once I got to Manhattan, the fabulous folks at Pathfinder (thank you, dirty cup rider BSS) fixed a broken spoke, the fabulous folks at Tallgrass fixed my thirst (big ups for the BWeisse), and my fabulous wife picked me up, Kansas City bound.”