Urban Gravel and Coffee Ride

Is Vlogging the natural transition from blogging, like typing is to handwritten stories or are we already well past that and I need to up my Tik Tok game? Since acquiring the GoPro and figuring out how much time goes into producing even an halfway decent video that isn't just 35 minutes of you riding in real time set to music, the ole blog has sort of taken a bit of a back seat here as of late. In a perfect world a person would have unlimited amounts of times to do all those things they wanted to do without being interrupted by things they have to do. We, or at least I, don't live in that world unfortunately but I'm trying to figure out balance... Danielson.




After a few weeks of back to back races we attempted to finally have a normal Saturday ride, then Mother Nature literally rained on our parade. I had toyed with the idea of getting into Wilderness Park earlier in the week but that didn't happen and with rain overnight Friday even the gravel seemed like it might be a no go early Saturday. Fear not, where there is a will there is a way and on Saturday that way was to have an in town gravel ride. Well, some gravel anyway in the form of several alleys. No clue how many people who come out cheer or groan at the idea of riding alleys but I dig them and it adds a different view instead of riding the same trails and roads. Traffic is also almost nonexistent on them so that is also one less worry with a larger group of people.





Also ventured down some quiet neighborhood streets to stay off the multi-use trail that hugs the edge of a busy street, who wants that on a peaceful bicycle ride. Even scooted across the mostly forgotten levee trail north of Holmes Lake, there was a time when there was more gravel than grass on this trail but due to lack of use nature has tried to reclaim it and done a pretty good job of it if not for the mowers.






Hit up the newly opened Filling Station in the old Panic building and then the Haymarket White Elm location before heading back to the shop and calling it a day. Good little ride, great group of people and a fun day overall. Why can't they all be like this.

Loess Hills Enduro - Year of the Butterfly

Saturday was the Loess Hills Enduro put on by the folks at the Omaha Trek Store and Harvest Racing. I'm a bit behind on keeping up with the blog lately, heck haven't even done a Buffalo Bill write up but you know, sometimes life things happen that keep you away from technology and that's not always a bad thing. Any who.. I think I've been to 3 of these now and they've all been challenging, even when they were the Good Life Gravel Gran Fondo, but the course is also very unique with the Loess Hills as the backdrop for several of the MMRs. This is the first year I can remember riding it that it wasn't close to the temperature of the sun during the ride so that was a nice change.





Despite the rains on Friday we still managed to get in most of the really run roads around Malvern and the big climb still sucked as it does every time we go up it. I sometimes wonder how "easy" it would be to navigate in a two wheel drive vehicle.




Legs were feeling pretty good and the bike was preforming pretty okay-ish, love that 2X setup but I wish that front derailleur would shift a bit more consistently. It got well used on Saturday trying not to burn the legs out pushing that 40 T up the big hills. There was even a wild Schmidty sighting during the race too and I got to ride with him for about the last 20 miles or so. And the butterflies man, they were crazy. Swarms of them everywhere on course, if a vehicle passed and scared them up they were even worse. Thankfully I never swallowed one but I imagine it wouldn't have been that difficult to do even if you weren't trying to.

With the introduction of video I have noticed I've been not taking as many pictures, need to work on that a bit but it is what it is. Good times, fun race. Next up is the Solar Fiddy on the 19th.