Skip to main content

COVID Is Over, Maybe!!!

 





Post #19: It began with a simple exchange of text messages between Guitar Ted and Myself, as it once was pre-CoVID.  "Hey, wanna ride?", and we discussed the ride details.  It is generally easy to get Mark to go on a ride, if I promise two things, a route with roads I have never done and a doughnut stop in La Porte City.  
    Sometimes on our rides I get the sense I have explored more gravel roads around the counties surrounding Blackhawk County.  I know this sounds absurd but there are times when Mark's camera is out non-stop on a ride.  Mark has an on-going joke that he keeps going on taking pictures of barns.  He took a lot of pictures on Saturday.  
    We left town under the cover of overcast skies.  It had that late summer/early fall feeling of an Indian Summer heat wave.  The major difference was the corn was still up and ready for harvest.  That overcast came and went through the ride.  Occasionally BOB (Big Orange Ball) would come out and heat it up.  Then BOB would hide and we would be fine.  
    I noticed a lot of goats on this ride, a lot of goats.  I wonder if the people one gravel are becoming more self sufficient with the recent CoVID fun we had?  I know from experience more people are buying 1/2 or whole cows from the local meat markets.  
    We arrived in La Porte City as we neared mile 40 of the ride.  Our route took us to the infamous Rockets Bakery.  We pulled up and I noticed the bike rack is no longer there and now the next door building put in a handicap ramp where the bike rack was.  So we parked our bikes on a new bench out front.  After a careful analysis of the doughnuts, Mark and I both settled on a Bavarian cream filled doughnut.  
    After our morning sugar insulin rush, we pedaled back to the Waterloo region of the would via the GART.  I have decided in order to promote the Great American Rail Trail, I am going to refer to any path I ride that is on it by that name.  So the CVNT is now the GART too me.  Times are a changing and well I really want to ride the GART in my life time.

Cheers and Godspeed.  


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Dave Roll Waterloo Christmas Light Ride on 29th of November

     Yes, we are starting a Waterloo Christmas ride. It is not intended to do anything other than be a reason to ride a bike a short distance and be around others. The length is a whopping 3 miles. To sum that is more miles than they have rode for the previous 10 years. That is the person I want there. If you want to bang out miles and demonstrate your cycling skills, there is a ride in Cedar Falls on the 5th of December for that.  I believe they are meeting up 6pm and leaving from Overmen Park.       When: 29 November 2023 @ 6pm      Where: Kingsley Elementary School parking lot.  On the street parking is fine, look for No Parking sides.      Route: Link Here on Strava App      Ending: Lighthouse Lounge, bring a bike lock.   Parking is extremely limited, Also it is a Cash Only Bar.      See what happens this year, and may be this grows, who knows.  I started the Cedar Fall...

A glimpse behind the podcast

       If you know you know Guitar Ted and I have been doing a lot of Podcasting in the last year.  I can hear the improvements already.  I have my issues, and I tend to over speak Mark way more than I should.  In my defense, some pauses seem to be extraordinarily long and feels like dead air.  So I interject.  Then I listen back and I hear no pause  In the moment it seems like a life time has passed. We chat over text messages about topics or subjects we are interested in or exploring.  That is how we develop our subjects for a show.  I have asked for and I really want to do a interview with a specific person that may be controversial.  But I am also ignorant to a lot of things, so maybe the time is never right for that interview, who knows?  I do enjoy some of the feed back from the shows.  The ones I love is "not enough time spent on a topic".  I enjoy those comments.  I really want to...

Been off On Vacation and other Adventures

   Since my last post I have been off on vacation.  The Guitar Ted HoF ride occurred, and was a success.  I define success as one other person showing up.  I am not in to huge numbers and huge social media following.  I am not one to make something bigger than it is, of the best of the best.  I just  want simplicity, put a date, time, location out and see what occurs.  Mark did a great recap of the ride, and I am sure if you are reading this blog.  You probably read Mark's and you read his re-cap.       Since then, Mark and I have launched another podcast, I believe episode #96, by end of the month I hope we have #99 recorded, but that is if we have viable stuff to chat about.  That should cover Riding Gravel Radio Ranch podcast .  So far, I need to be more crisp on my responses and thoughts.  You are getting my hot takes on what Guitar Ted (Mark) brings up.  I do not see his sheets or notes p...