Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day for a bicycle ride with friends but then again fall is my favorite time of year for cycling so I might be a little biased. Whether you are ready or not it's the time of year once again for arm warmers, vests and layer because it's chilly in the morning with warming temps by the afternoon.
Had a great group for the ride yesterday, grand total for the ride was around 15 riders but not all at the same time as some had to bail early and others joined us already in route but when you join doesn't matter as long as you come out. This ride was sort of a mixed bag, started out on the great trail system in Lincoln, then we rode through Wilderness Park and eventually hit up some gravel out to Hickman.
The park is in great shape but you really need to be aware of some of the transitions right now where parts of the Jamaican trail is used to link up the single track as it is technically closed and there could be heavy equipment on the Jamaican trail and we should give them room to do what they need to do to get it back into shape. Once through the park we road the Homestead trail out to Roca as it is open and has been open for some time now.
Unfortunately, the Roca Tavern doesn't have food so it was just a pass through town on the way to Hickman.
Just on the other side of Roca we found one of my favorite signs which meant that it was time for some gravel.
Gravel was in excellent shape and it is just a short jaunt from Roca to Hickman on 54th so before you knew it we were in Hickman.
Did a little bit more touring of Hickman than we probably would have liked, new Garmin for some reason got a bit pissy that we changed things up and kept trying to reroute me back to the section of the original route we skipped so it wasn't being all that helpful and tried to take us places we didn't want to go. Since it is Hickman it didn't take us too long to figure out that Garmin was being a ninny and we routed ourselves. Not sure if this has actually been a Saloon since 1886 or not but it's been the Hickman Bar & Grill since 2009 and I know there have been others before that. I actually wouldn't be all that surprised, Hickman was kind of a bigger deal in years gone by and actually was the site of the Lancaster County fair in 1892 when it snubbed the capitol city, so anything is possible.
Fist time out there for me, it's your typical small town bar food but the Saturday special, prime rib sandwich, was pretty darn tasty.
The beer... well that's another story and I opted for the iced tea.
Something about those big tires just attract gawkers and Hickman was no exception, making friends where ever we go.
As cool as those flies were, they didn't have bicycles so we had to part ways and retrace our route heading back to Lincoln.
Of course had our mandatory bridge stop on the south end of Wilderness before hitting the single track.
While the bridge stop is a usual, it was the first time I'd seen Carlos sporting his Trump socks. Took me a bit to realize what they were, I initially thought he had squirrel hair stuck to his socks... they are classier than that though, might even be made with real toupee hair from the Donald himself.
Being a Husker bye week, we were even able to ride through the Haymarket without throngs of rabid fans being everywhere.
That might not seem like a big deal and I suppose it's not but had we taken a different route we would have missed this Market to Market team with their USMC colors and really short shorts.
No ride next week due to the Omaha Jackrabbit, hopefully I feel more energetic next weekend than I did yesterday or it's going to be a really long day. Should be a ride on the 22nd so check back early that week for the official event page and come out and join us before the cooler temps turn into cold temps.
Speaking of colder weather, new fat bikes are in the shop and even a few we haven't carried before like this Origin8 Amarok XLT. Rode it a bit around the shop and it rides really well and has some huge 5" tires that should float well on the snow that is bound to hit us sooner or later... and it's one of the least expensive true, non big box store, fat bikes out there right now at $1099. If you're looking for a fat bike on a budget and you missed out on the Surly fire sale, come down and take the Amorok for a spin.
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