way to much happened today...

By this point I already gone over the bars in some deep ruts on a frozen minimum maintenance road. Havelock road has quite a few sweet sections of unmaintained dirt, we got away with traveling these sections because at ride time it somewhere between 15 & 20 degrees. Probably 5 miles of dirt broken up into mile chunks, nice. Pictured above is a hike-a-bike section over a creek where there was once a bridge. Moments before PC dabbed his foot in the icy creek which was not going to bode well for the rest of our journey. A cold, wet shoe & foot with the temp in the lower 20's. Bummer, but he's tough & gutted it out. Hell, his foot probably wasn't much colder than DS's who was just wearing mtb shoes.
Prior to my over the bars experience I managed to break off my fender when I hit a particularly harsh washboard section of road. I guess the fender slapped my tire & shattered. Damn, I'd had that beauty for 10 years! Note the smaller piece broken off the blade, that broke off when I landed on my back in the before mentioned endo.
So we made it to Elmwood, .89 center's were flowin', RC's that is, & only stayed long enough for PC's foot to warm up a bit & track mud around the store. Sorry about the mud, this is farm country though, probably nothing they haven't see before. Actually they've probably seen a lot worse.

Heading South out of Elmwood, Cornbread & myself start hearing a crunchy sound coming from my bike. Actually he heard it earlier but I passed it off as frozen water bottles rattling in my cages. Pulled over to investigate, BB had a ton of play. Bearings were/are trashed. I knew I could make it home but new BB needed this week.

As we turn West for the final leg...we feel a cross head wind? Day was supposed to NE switching to East? Not blowing hard but hardly the push we were hoping for. Found some more dirt but its warmed enough that its getting a bit sketchy.

Painful portion of the ride to follow...about 7-8 miles outside of Lincoln, were coming in on Pioneers, lots of rollers & that slight cross-head I mentioned. C-bread moves to the front & puts the hammer down. Dude rolls it for 5+ miles at the front setting a nasty tempo. DS, PC, Coach & myself are burying ourselves to keep his wheel. I was hitting low 180's all the way in with some 184's as the icing. Thanks man, it was a real gut check. I mean it. Nasty, nasty, nas-tay.

60 miles when the day was done. All good.

Bath day, Hudson hates it.
Shilo loves it but didn't cooperate for the camera.
Soaking up the sun, post-bath.
Indian on tap for supper, oh yeah!
Homemade salted nut-roll for desert, I couldn't wait.
If that doesn't do it, how about homemade cherry mash. I got involved in this pre-dinner also.
Wednesday lower 60's. See ya out there?

TK