reasonable expectations v.2: put the needle on the record..

...when the drumbeat goes like this. Strava is a free ap on my iphone, a gps tracker. Start it when you leave & you end up with this loaded to their website, plus some basic stats from the ride like avg. mph & elevation gain graph. This embedded version is bare bones. The mileage difference between it & my computer is less than a mile. I think it's a pay service at some point but I was just messing around with it. Downside...it used 60% of my phone battery in a 9 hour sesh. I knew that would happen, just saying.

left early enough to get a jump, but late enough that I didn't need lights...

first mmr, s. 38th section, 4 straight miles of dirt. I saw some jack rabbits here 3 years ago, keep looking but haven't seen any since. All road conditions were perfecto, mmr was pristine all day.

it was fairly cool yet, had a good nasal drip flowing...

the wind & I struck up a deal yesterday...a gentle push part of the way down, switching to a manageable distraction in my face to my destination, & eventually an all out "lets get ya home" blast from behind. Thanks buddy, generally we grumble but yesterday we we're on the same page.

passed here on the way down, so paused on the way back to start the shedding of clothes. Eventually my jersey pockets were over-stuffed with every piece of layering I left Lincoln with. Not much left to Barneston, NE. We raced through here a few years ago, still a ghost town. I would guess this is local stone. This far South there is a lot of signs that you are nearing flint hills country.

I need to get my camera back in business cuz every time I want to take a picture I have to stop & dig out my phone, saw a bunch of cool stuff but usually decided to keep rolling. Below: entrance to a hilly mmr that was partly reminiscent of the easier bits of Little Egypt & partly like the climb after the creek crossing at Almanzo last year. Should have grabbed a picture of this anomaly for SE NE, but I was busy out of the saddle climbing & avoiding loose and embedded rock in the road...