Last Wednesday on a hot August day I found myself in the tiny village of Palmyra, Nebraska getting ready to tackle the full 2020 Tour of Dirt Roads course. The official ride usually happens in May but this has been anything but a usual year and that ride was cancelled. A few of us did a half ToDR in May but roads were less than ideal in more than a few spots so a lot of the vaunted dirt roads were unridable. Having another go at it in ideal conditions sounded like a fantastic idea so when I got invited to skip work and ride the course to help celebrate Chris's birthday, I did just that.
The plan was to try to get an early start but that didn't work out quite a well as we had hoped so it was already starting to heat up by the time we made it onto the dirt. The forecast had temps soaring up into the upper 90° range, making it one of the hottest days of the year so far. The hottest day might have been the day we tackled the virtual Gravel Worlds Privateer on the tandem, I guess you can say we are gluttons for punishment.
Although not depicted here, this AG Pilot was putting on quite a show. The corn blocked the view as far as being able to get a picture of it but they were probably less than a foot or two above the corn stalks, it was quite the site to watch.
The roads just kept getting better and better the more miles we ticked off and shade when we could find it was often stopped in for a few minutes to cool down.
In addition to the superlative dirt roads on this route there are also some really amazing bridges, this one has been featured in several of the past ToDR but it still gets me giddy to see it. Pro tip if you're ever down this way, do not talk to the donkey just up the road... the donkey doesn't seem to mind but the guy that lives there is much less enthusiastic about it. Even if you are still on a public road, perhaps the donkey knows some dark secrets and is a bit loose of lip.
The dirt road miles just kept ticking off and I know we have only touched the surface as far as what is out there around Palmyra for roads. I know these types of roads don't much interest those who live on the coasts or in bigger cities and they aren't really marketable as far as tourism goes but I've lived in bigger cities, on the coast and both at the same time. I'd trade traffic jams, endless population numbers and the lure of the bright lights for a great dirt road, hell, I guess I sort of did.
Football practice in Sterling, Nebraska.
Sterling, Nebraska at mile 38 was our first town since leaving Palmyra and we took full advantage of the Jet Stop to refuel.
The sky was doing it's part to put on a rather spectacular show itself, I guess it didn't want to be completely showed up by the roads.
Kind of an odd story, we pulled over in the shade to enjoy a coldish beverage and we were passed by this shirtless guy in the Honda side by side. That in and of itself isn't that unusual but as we were getting ready to pedal on, here he comes from the other direction and heading straight at us. Since we were literally out in the middle of nowhere so I was really hoping shit wasn't going to go sideways real quick. Thankfully he was just turning around to chat about the odd sighting up the road and to see if maybe we were with them, ended up being a decent conversation and a decent encounter.
What had this guy so on edge, well there were two cars up the road. One parked just off the road and the guy was sitting in his opened trunk, the other was blocking the road sort of sideways and they were just "talking" to each other. Not an unusual site I suppose except these were both minimum maintenance roads, neither looked like a farmer or had a vehicle suited for traveling these roads and they also had out of state plates.... they looked really out of place and if the locals think it's fishy, it's probably fishy. Thankfully we were able to skirt around the car blocking the road without incident, not sure what they were doing but didn't want to stick around and find out either. I've seen enough movies with banjo music to know when it's time to get to getting and to keep on keepin on.
Gravel cyclists aren't the only ones who sometimes take a road closed sign as a mere suggestion, I remember this crossing from a few years back and have always wondered who the first person was that decided crossing the creek was a better idea than driving an extra few miles. You know it wasn't this smooth initially, would have been one heck of a butt puckering ride I'm sure.
I'll get you a good deal on a fixer upper.
Rolled into Adams, Nebraska at mile 57 quite a bit later than we had planned because of the late start. Sun was getting somewhat low in the sky and we had 20 or so miles left to get back to Palmyra, no dilly dalling here.
We quickly masked up and hit the grocery store for drinks and ice cream, no matter how bad things get ice cream never makes it worse. There is always time for ice cream.
In the last waning light of dusk we rolled back into Palmyra and a successful birthday celebration.
