“Swapped the Woodchippers on my Fargo for a set of Cowchippers, and wrapped the bars with some fancy Origin8 tape. I wanted to ride south of town towards Traer, but I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to go after that. The worst part about riding south is having to ride all of the way through town to get to the gravel.

I made sure my route took me through the Level B section of Petrie Rd. There were a few sections of gravel that I wanted to ride, so I backtracked this year’s Trans Iowa route to the SE. As I rode up to a “T” intersection in Tama County, I flushed a red fox out of the ditch and he took off to the East. I was turning that direction anyway, so I followed him. He would stop and poke his head out of the grass to see if I was still following and then take off again until he ditched me. A rooster pheasant flushed from the ditch, and I wondered whether the fox or I had scared it off.

A few miles later, I flushed a pair of Hungarian Partridge. They only flew a few hundred yards down the road and landed in the ditch, but they didn’t flush again when I rode to the spot that they had landed.

I stopped in Traer and refueled at the convenience store. I decided to ride towards Reinbeck in case I wanted to stop for a beer at the Broad Street Brewing Co. As I was riding down Main Street, I saw a lady sitting in front of the grocery store with a handful of poppies from the AMVETS. I stopped and made a donation and fastened the poppy on my cue sheet holder. As I was riding out of town I noticed a monument along Wolf Creek. It was an old millstone from the grist mill that stood there 150 years ago.

I took Ridge Rd. to the NW and then turned North on M which turns into Grundy Rd as it follows the Black Hawk/Grundy County line. I realized that I didn’t have enough time to stop for a beer, so I kept pedaling North. As I neared Hudson, I turned East on Watters Rd and stopped to take a picture of my bike by a big rock. The same rock was pictured by another Cup O’ Dirt Challenger in his Blog about his Trans Iowa attempt.

As I neared Waterloo, I was dreading the thought of having to ride paved bike paths or streets, until I remembered the mountain bike path through the greenbelt along Black Hawk Creek. Our weather has been pretty dry lately, and the path was in good shape. Some of the low spots had a lot of deep/soft sand, but I was able to chug through it. I took a detour on a tricky section of singletrack that I had ridden last Winter on my Pugsley, and was happy with how the Fargo handled it.

I had to ride city streets for the rest of the way home, and the Friday afternoon traffic was pretty heavy. I drove in my driveway with slightly less than 71 miles on the Garmin.”

-Tony M.