Under a Steel Gray Sky

While the pacific northwest endures the unusually high temperatures of the “heat dome”, here in the northern Midwest we seem to have inherited their typical weather, with high temperatures in the mid-70’s and day after day of rain.

It’s hard to complain about those temperatures - July is often a series of days with temps in the high 80 to low 90-degree (F) range paired with high humidity here in northern Illinois. But the rain… well, that makes it a little harder to find time to get out and pedal. In these circumstances, getting time on the road involves careful scrutiny of the weather radar to find openings to avoid - or at least minimize - encountering the wet stuff.

This meant that, once I headed out today, it was under a steel gray sky.

Under a steel gray sky

I decided to strike out along a new route for a bit of variety. It included portions of roads that I ride on fairly regularly, but also incorporated sections that I rarely encounter and, in one section, a portion of road I don’t believe I’ve ever been down. The more I ride, the harder that is to find, so it’s something I particularly enjoy when it does happen.

With respect to avoiding the rain, I was initially less successful than I’d hoped. A couple of minutes after I started out I found myself in a fine, misting drizzle. This isn’t the end of the world - the gear that I usually wear handles a bit of moisture just fine - but I was a little worried that it meant that I’d miscalculated in my read of the radar projections. Fortunately, it cleared up a few miles into the ride, and stayed clear for the remainder.

One of the more challenging parts of laying out new routes in the area is piecing together sections to make a reasonable distance without having to spend too much time - or ideally no time - on gravel. In this case, however, I did include a section that included about three-quarters of a mile worth of the rocky surface. However, importantly, the surface of that section looked like this:

Minimal graveliness

I don’t always ride on gravel, but when I do, I prefer roads with a minimal amount of graveliness.

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Yes - that’s a word. Or at least I’m pretty sure it is. Or maybe it is now because I just typed it out. But you know what I mean - the fewer rocks the better.

When it all came together, the entirely new part of the route turned out to be only about a mile or so. But it did offer a bit of a surprise:

Abandoned

Abandoned

Little cemeteries are not an uncommon thing to encounter out here on the prairie. In the early days of settlement it was not uncommon for families to establish small plots to intern their dearly departed. I’ve spent a bit of time over the years putting together our family history, and part of that has involved making visits to many such sites in the region. For a while, this was a primary focus of my riding - identifying sites that might have ancestors laid to rest and riding to them.

This is why this site was a surprise - this site is less than seven miles from my home, as the crow flies, and I was completely unaware of it. It occurred to me after I came across the site that I’d seen a small green patch indicated on Google maps for this portion of the road. Usually that designates something set aside - a designated natural area or a cemetery - but it was very small and unnamed. So that mystery was solved as well.

Usually these little sites are a study in compromise. They are generally cared for in terms of manicuring - someone typically mows them, but it’s no one’s job to prevent the earth from claiming the stones after they fall. But here there’s no hint of any tending to it at all. And the amount of space between the remaining visible stones suggest that there are likely more occupied spaces here, swallowed by the inexorable progress of time.

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…All of which gets a little heavier than I intended for a Sunday morning ride. But all in all, the new route turned out to be right about 21.5 miles, give or take. And I got back inside before the rain came back in earnest, so it’s a win in my book.

Bluff and Bluster

I’m fond of remarking on this site that there are very few weather conditions that will keep me from riding. This is mostly true - I tend to draw the line primarily on situations that impair visibility, both for myself and, more importantly, for the motor vehicle operators with which a share the road. This means fog, heavy rain, and heavy or blowing and drifting snow. And given that I’m sitting on a fairly sizeable conductor on the open roadway, I tend to shy away from lightening as well. But I realized over the past couple of weeks that there is another weather condition that sometimes keeps me out of the trike seat:

The wind.

To be clear, it’s not just any wind. I live in Northern Illinois, on the open prairie. I’d simply never ride if a windy day were enough to keep me home all by itself. But there are days, particularly in the spring, where we have winds that run steadily over twenty miles per hour, with gusts another 10-15mph above that.

The wind hasn’t been on my list because, in my head at least, it doesn’t keep me home. Looking through Cyclemeter for the past year (the premium version records weather conditions for rides) I can find outings with winds up to 25mph. What I will do is try to “front load” the portion that is against the wind - ride into the wind for the first half of the trip, as much as possible, so that I’m getting a boost for the latter half. And you can get quite a boost indeed.

That all being the case, as I said, the wind just hasn’t been on that list. But this past week I hit the end of the day, and I had an opportunity to ride. However, it was a very blustery day - winds probably gusting up to 30-35mph against a steady backdrop over 20mph. Just walking out to the mailbox was unpleasant, and as I was making that walk I began to debate as to whether to get out the trike.

I did not get it out.

The fact that it was the end of a workday - so I was already more fatigued than I would be, say, early in the afternoon on a Saturday - probably contributed to that decision. Being a little worn out already, the idea of pushing my way through the the gusts just wasn’t something that seemed attractive. It was definitely a combined effect.

And I realize now, looking back over the site here, that I’ve had the debate in the past about how windy is too windy. But on that occasion, I did go ahead and ride (and that was in February). But this time I let the wind beat me.

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So yesterday I was planning to go into town for the afternoon to help the ‘rents sort out their annual tithe to the federal government. It’s just over five miles into town, so it’s not a long trip by any stretch of the imagination. The sun was shining, and the temperature was working it’s way up to a high in the low 80’s (F). By most markers it was almost the perfect scenario for a ride.

Almost. But the winds in the morning had already tipped up into the 20mph range, and it seemed like each time I checked it was going up - now 21… now 23… all coming in from south by southwest. And town, for the record, is directly to the south.

This left me frequently looking out the window at the swaying tree branches and waves in the grass and mentally debating. But, ultimately, wind is a part of spring. If I continue to let it beat me, to keep me home, I might as well just take the season off, and that I’m not willing to do.

So I grabbed my gear (and my big-boy pants) and set up the trike.

I actually had a couple of things to take in to my folks that would not fit in the pannier bags or on top of the rack, so I hooked up my trailer, and headed out.

Immediately after I rolled out the driveway and headed to the south I could feel it - that wind, pushing back against me. This is a feeling everyone who does cycling becomes familiar with. It’s the realization that everything that you normally do on the machine - the spinning of the pedals, the breathing, the forward progress - just works less. It’s a little like working at a job for years, but now suddenly you are getting half the pay.

My average speed over the ride into town came in at 9.5mph. By way of comparison, my average speed for the month of April was 13.7mph. I’m sure that the trailer slowed me down a little bit too, but I made better time on a very similar ride with the trailer and two five gallon gas cans, so most of the impact was from the wind.

But I arrived intact. Well - mostly. When I parked and got up off the trike and turned around I was dismayed to see that only the bottom half of my flag pole - the part without, you know, the flag on it - was still attached. It appears that, at some point in the ride, the wind caught it just right and separated the two halves. I’d actually had this happen once before, but under very different circumstances, but it’s still disconcerting.

In what felt a little bit like cheating, I asked my Dad to drive back over the route with me to find it. Maybe I should have ridden back to look for it, but:

A) I was there to help them with something, and riding back to look would have taken quite a while; and 2) I didn’t want to.

We found the flag in the middle of the road about a mile and a half or so out of town. It was still intact, light on it still flashing. So that was a relief.

As one might imagine, the return trip was… better. I had been a little concerned that it would be one of those days when Mother Nature decided she would have a little fun and, say, flip the wind direction completely around partway through the afternoon. But she was uncharacteristically kind this time around, and that southwest wind abetted my return trip - at least somewhat. It doesn’t seem like that oblique wind angle was nearly as helpful from behind as it was a hindrance working against me, but it was still better.

And the flag stayed on all the way home. I’d thank the fates for that too, but I taped it together before I started back…

According to Cyclemeter, the wind speed during my trip was 32mph. I’m not sure exactly when in a trip the weather info represents - e.g. beginning, end, or somewhere in-between - but I’d believe that wind speed as a beginning point.

And all in all tho, I got to ride. And in the end, isn’t that the important part?