Fat Solo - Rise of the Graders

Used to be a time where if I was riding a bicycle I was riding solo almost 90% of the time and with someone else or a group about 10% of the time. That stat is probably flip flopped 180° now with 90% being group/duo rides and 10% or less being solo rides. In all actuality it's a great reversal of ride splits as it's always more fun IMO to ride with others as a general rule.


Then there are occasions where the solitude of a solo ride is welcoming and decompressing, where not talking to anyone during the entire ride isn't considered bad form. Yesterday's ride was one of those solo rides that was nice to have, buying a house in a seller's market has been one of the most frustrating, stressful and sometimes down right time consuming endeavors I have ever had the displeasure of being a part of. At times, during the process, I thought I'd rather be back in '99 sharing a shelter half in the California desert with my dirty, crab riddled (and not the kind you eat) Marine Corps shelter buddy than go see another house. I think we might be drawing to an end of our nightmare and in the end if things work out we will have a great house, away from the melting pot of society known as an apartment complex. So there is a good upside to the whole process but it'll be sometime, if ever, that I attempt to buy a house when the cards are so stacked in the sellers favor again. Yesterday was just what the Dr. ordered as far as clearing the mind, body and soul of all the hustle and bustle of the last two months.


Headed out south on a familiar gravel route, seemed like there were closed roads or roads under construction at almost every turn.


Thankfully I don't read so well and Pugsley doesn't give two shits about your rough surfaced, under construction roads. We totally rode all those closed roads and to be honest it was really nice not having to dodge rednecks in manhood compensating, diesel, dualy pick-me-up trucks with a distinct lack of spatial recognition.


Rode out Capehart Rd west to I-80 and spent a good 10-15 minutes atop the overpass with my two friends Cliff Bar and Todd the Axeman, pretty good riding partners if I do say so myself and they sort of oddly work together better than you might think a beer and an energy bar ought to. Funny thing about sitting on an overpass, drinking a beer, eating an energy bar; you get lots of honks from vehicles passing below. Never quite sure if they are saying "hi", pissed off because I'm an unexpected sight that is distracting them or because they think I'm about to splat myself all over the interstate but if it were to be the latter, I'd probably aim for those honking... a horn blast is not way to console the down trodden and not a very convincing argument about not swan diving onto the cement below, you know if that was your line of thinking to begin with.


Decided to take Schram Rd back and of course ran into more road closed signs but this time they weren't kidding. Holy serious amounts of road grading Batman!


Used to be a pretty good climb right here and they moved a poop ton of dirt somewhere as  you can see by where the light pole still is on the original ground and where the ground is now.

Looks like the VA is putting in a cemetery, which is good because Vet's need a nice place to rest once they pass on, but man are they screwing up a lot of prime gravel. I'm guessing the grading is the first step to paving the whole place for easy access, thing about it is the dead don't care about easy access and a gravel road would be more than adequate. Oh well, one more "improvement" project that the city of Omaha forgot to consult me on I guess.


New section of the Papio trail is motor bike approved so that's a good thing I suppose. Got in about 30 miles and a little over 2 hours of nice, quiet, peaceful, head straightening gravel riding all told. Not a bad night and not a bad way to find my center again.