Always in search of a gravel adventure, my plan was to ride last year's GLGA course after work. Nice day, low 70's & overnight temps in the 40's. Pretty good scenario. I had some equipment that needed to be checked out so what better than a trial by fire. The ride went mostly as planned, well sort of.
got my eye on you...
enough already, "hey Lancaster County, stop! the roads are fine now", son of a b...! At least this stretch had a soft, power robbing edge you could grind it out on. So this is white rock by day, just wait till the sun goes down...
The wind was really tame, so tame that a vehicle's dust plume just sat in the low spots waiting for the intrepid rider's arrival to pass through the thick gritty clouds...
B Rd (literally) MMR sunset, just SE of Valpo...
Rolled into Valpo just after 8:00 pm, plenty of time to spare before the lottery cutoff:) A concerned local pointed out that it was nearly dark, & questioned me if I had a ride coming to pick me up. "Nope, I've got lights but thanks". He wandered out the door without a return comment. On the subject of night photos, the handful I took sucked. I'm posting this one only because the semi's lights as it passed under the I-80 bridge is somewhat cool....
Back to the white rock. By night, it's a whole other animal. Speaking of which, as I rode down Little Salt headed for the SW 98th MMR section I heard a really deep loud barking coming from a house off to my right. The white rock had me dancing all over the place but I accelerated as best I could because I could here him coming through the darkness. I figured I was going fast enough to keep ahead of the charging giant coming my way, next thing I know as I turn my head & headlamp to my right there he is pounding along right next to me barking wildly. Like a freaking charging rhino, he was huge! I yelled "no" about 5 times & after about 100 feet he adjusted his onslaught to a trot. Didn't seem like he was in attack mode but definitely in the "what the f... are you doing in front of my house in the dark" mode.Rolled through Malcolm, no need to stop the general store closes at 8:00 & pushed on to Denton. Here's where I decided I'd had enough, white rock wins. I had completed my equipment tests, all good. I had one more section I wanted to see but if I started working my way back to Lincoln soon I could be home around 1:00am with 110ish for the night. I decided to push on to the Saltillo MMR section & head in from there. If you've done this route you know how steep the exit from that section is. Pile it with fresh white rock, I mean really thick & it became nearly unrideable. I about stalled out trying to get through it. Yep, I'm done for the night.
Did get home just before 1:00am & it was 110 like I thought. Good time, I think.
Later,
TK
2 comments:
I've been doing my daily 34 east of town on 112th, first 1/2 in the dark on the way to work, and cursing the white rock myself (just realized it sounded like a unintended drug reference!); I hate that stuff. How does it compare to Kanza road surface? Your after work adventure sounded epic.
hey james, our white rock is a lot more uniform, although you could certainly cut a tire on white rock KS flint has way sharper edges & comes in all sizes. Don't fret though, not all of last year's course was nasty flint, there were a lot of really "good" sections. Then there was Little Egypt...:)
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