Flat Donuts and Dead Legs

For the majority of the year Wilber, Nebraska lives in relative anonymity, another rural Nebraska farm town scratching out an existence as best it can. In early August for three days, however, Wilber thrives with it's annual Czech Days festival. Unlike many rural farm towns in Nebraska, Wilber has continued to grow each census. Platted in 1873 it's population in 1880 was 710 souls and it's continued to grow and at last census in 2020 the population was 1,937 souls. Fun fact... Dana Altman, head coach of the Oregon Ducks men's basketball team hails from Wilber and began his basketball career as a play at the now defunct Fairbury Junior College that was in Fairbury, Nebraska. Wilber has put on 62 Czech days and we have been organizing some sort of ride since roughly 2017, although I attended my first Czech Days in 2014. The starting location has changed from year to year but we have always approached from the east prior to this year when we shifted the start to Plymouth, Nebraska which is almost directly south of Wilber. 




The weather was fantastic for the ride with temps starting just below the 70° mark. The group was pretty big as we set sail on Saturday, matching our previous high number or riders in 2018 and I am sure the cooler temps helped in that aspect. There have been some scorchers in past years and even a rainy year or two so having the nice weather was a welcomed sight.





The course this year ended up being relatively flat also which helped us make quick work of the 20-ish miles from Plymouth to Wilber.


We ran into some friends who had ridden out from Lincoln and as is tradition we all touched the Wilber wiener that resides in front of Frank's Smokehouse.





After the wiener we headed over to the Sokol Pavilion for brauts, kraut and kolaches. Sokol Pavilion was built in 1930 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The Pavillion was originally the home for Sokol gymnastics, a Czech gymnastics organization that dates back to 1862 when it was founded in Prague. We didn't do any tumbling on Saturday but we did wrestle some beers down.


As is also tradition, we stopped at the Wilber sign proclaiming it to be the Czech Capital of the United States. They aren't just blowing smoke either, the very first Czech Days in 1962 brought in 20,000 people and 60,000 people in 1965. Numbers are one thing but in 1963 then Governor Frank Morrison officially proclaimed Wilber to be the Czech Capital of Nebraska. If that weren't enough to cement the claim, in 1987 then President Ronald Reagan degreed Wilber the Czech Capital of the United States. So when Wilber makes the claim they have the pedigree to back it up.


Official ditch beer sight, caught 'Grammin. 






Cooler temps in the morning gave way to high temps and more sun in the afternoon prompting a stop at the Red Zone in De Witt, Nebraska on the ride back. The Red Zone is your typical quaint small town Nebraska bar that time seemingly has forgotten but this one also doubles as a semi-shrine to the late, great Elvis Presley with several shelves of knick-knacks and bric-a-brac. No blue suede shoes were found in the establishment.


Back in Plymouth a stop at the more modern looking Bart's Bar was in order for cold refreshments, we miss timed our arrival and hit the sad hours between lunch and dinner when the grill gets a bit of a rest so a liquid lunch is all we could muster up. Good ride, great group and as always a fun time at the Wilber, Nebraska Czech Days.


Didn't get enough of Czech Days, check out the companion video.

 

Open Weekend Wandering

Had a bit of an oddity last weekend and ended up not having any planned rides or any plans at all really. Had plans for Saturday morning that kept us from the usual Saturday ride but at the last minute those didn't pan out and things opened wide up. Slept in a little bit on Saturday and then headed down to Marysville and some single track out at Alcove Springs. With the recent rains the "falls" were flowing on Saturday, not something you get to see all the time since the springs for which the area gets it's name are actually below the level of the falls so they don't contribute at all to them.




Sunday was forecast to be a near perfect day for riding so we got up and at 'em a little bit earlier and plotted out a route that would take us through parts of Jefferson, Gage and Saline counties. Wanting to keep the ride at a reasonable distance we opted to drive over to Plymouth to start things out.





We rolled east and north for a bit before getting into De Witt at around mile 10, De Witt like most rural communities have been declining in population since the railroads that made the towns pulled out. De Witt has managed to be one of them though that has been able to convince people to stay for the most part, it's only down about 200 people from it's heyday in 1890. Having a manufacturing business helps these small towns and De Witt has one of the better stories when it comes to that. De Witt is the home of THE original Vise-Grip pliers where William Petersen invented and started selling them in 1924 and continued to do so until 2008 when Rubbermaid, who bought the company in 2002, closed the plant in De Witt and moved production to China after which some say the quality of the tool dropped dramatically. That's not the end of the story though, some of this is fact and some is rumor and speculation but somewhere in the middle is the truth I suppose. When the company was sold and moved overseas the original die used to make the tools were supposed to have been destroyed but rumor has it that this never occurred, instead the die were squirreled away somewhere and kept secret. In 2018 Malco Tools purchased the old De Witt plant and began making a locking plier under the name of Eagle Grip. I'm not saying that the old dies were "discovered" again but look at an old pair of Vise-Grip locking pliers next to a pair of Eagle Grip locking pliers and you might just notice a few similarities. Vise or Eagle, which ever grip you prefer in your locking pliers one thing is for certain, that plant has helped to keep the town more prosperous than many town of their size.


We were a bit early to De Witt and the bar wasn't yet opened so we pushed on to Wilber at around mile 20.



Wilber has been a long standing ride with the group in August when they have their annual Czech Festival, this year will be their 62nd annual running of the event. There weren't any Kolache to be had on Sunday but a quick stop at Casey's for a slice solved the hunger issues. It was a little weird coming into Wilber from the wrong side, in August we have always approached town from the Lincoln side of things so coming at it from the opposite direction was a bit different. Not seeing the hoards of people, vendors and music was also a bit off-putting but all that will be back soon enough and we may just use this same route then for our Wilber ride.



Some pretty decent MMRs out that way coming from the other direction, never met a dry MMR I didn't like.

Kind of a sucker for the old wind mills, this one has been meticulously maintained.. if you look closely just to the left of the top bar of the swinging portion of the gate you can see another little wind mill hiding there between two fence posts. A rare double wind mill!



Sunday was the first really warm day so far this spring with temps nearing 90° and there wasn't much of a breeze to be had for a change so it was nice to run across a center pivot just outside of Plymouth that was trying to get the road to grow by watering it. That water was super cold and felt great on our sun baked skin, a little redneck A/C you might say. You do what you can to keep cool when the days get hot I suppose. Looks like rain most of this week so the riding will be down, hopefully next week we will be back to business as usual.

 

Kolache For My Men (and women), Air For My Horses

Saturday was the 3rd annual Kolache Ride to Wilber Nebraska and their Czech Days. When we went to bed on Friday there was a slight chance of a thundershower around 3 am, only about 30%, but Saturday morning brought 100% chance of rain at 7:30 because why would a weather forecast be accurate.



Despite the liquid sunshine trying to literally rain on our parade, spirits were high for both the two and four legged folks. A determination was made to delay the start of the ride by an hour to allow the lingering rain to hopefully pass by enough so that we were at least not getting soaked from above and below, it was highly likely we were going to get moist from the water on the road regardless but limiting it to one direction was more ideal.




Right around 9 am it was decided that we were either going to have to go or we were going to have to call it off. Thankfully it was determined that going was a better option than not going, a little water never hurt anyone right. Surprisingly the roads weren't all that bad, a little bit of gravel kicked up on you but we have ridden in worse conditions.




Sometimes I make statements like the one I just made and it blows my mind to think how fast gravel has changed what cycling is for me and our group. It wasn't too many years ago that most of my riding was on single track, loops of 5-15 miles at a time and barely anything over 30 in any give month, let alone several times a month. I know the roadies have been hammering out the miles for decades but while I like road OK, it's never really called to me the way that gravel has. Even the bikes have changed, mountain bikes with single or double squishy bits have been replaced by mostly rigid bikes with wider tires... wider than 2" was not something I even had in my mind back then. Oh the times they are a changing.




Back to the ride at hand, our first stop on the Kolache Ride was Kramer, where Kansas Todd risked ear herpes to try to call 1982 Kansas Todd and give him some advice on things to come. As was the case most of the time in '82, nobody answered and Kansas Todd of old did not have an answering machine to leave any sort of message. Probably for the best, we all saw how things turned out for Biff in the end.... huh, Kansas Todd does have a similar almost not there on top hair style as Biff did, coincidence or have we been here before?!?! GREAT SCOTT!




A few more wet miles, yup the 20% chance of rain was wrong again, and we arrived in Wilber, the self proclaimed Czech Capital.


People watching is already one of my favorite things to do in large crowds, some folks are out there man, but the Czech Days usually has a way of bumping even that up a notch. This red pleather cowboy did not disappoint in the way out there department, on a muggy and rainy day like Saturday, I bet that was a fun outfit to wear around.



"Get over here and touch the wiener" is probably not something you should yell all that often, but then again it was Czech Days so some of those rules get bent at times and it did look like everyone involved was having consensual fun. Consent is the key here boys and girls, touching a wiener or making someone touch a wiener when they aren't willing is bad, mmm-kay.



Sokol Hall is the place to go when in Wilber for Czech Days, the food is legit and you can get a whole bag of Czech donuts to go. Just remember to bring cash, Czech's don't take credit and ironically they don't accept checks either.




The key to Czech Days is to get in, eat and get the heck out of there before the parade starts at 2 pm. However with the dark clouds looming and Todd's flat which he had to change out and air up after we got back to the bikes, it was decided that we would head to the Casey's to seek shelter before departing... dude in the convertible would be sorry for leaving that top down in just a few minutes.


Hiding under the gas pump roof was a popular pastime for a few minutes while the most recent round of sprinkles passed by.


As soon as the rain stopped we decided it was time to get out of there before the next round came through but not before we got an eyeful of this sweet Ferrari. They look much more sporty on the tele but it did have some bitchin ground effect lights.




Once we broke Wilber's orbit, things improved greatly weather wise. Most of the rain seemed to be tracking south and west, we were heading north and east so that was good. The one MMR on our route was bone dry like it hadn't even rained at all near Hallam, weird weather anyway.




Todd thought it was a great place for a ditchie and it was a great place indeed, Doug turned his craft beer nose up at the offer but in the end drank it anyway... while Pat investigated a weird spot in the field where it did seem like it rained just ever so briefly... it was wet anyway, whatever the cause.





With the sun popping out it actually started to get a wee bit warm, Hallam was a welcomed site and the Hallam Station was hoppin so we decided to go in there to see what all the excitement was about. Czech Days seemed to have stole all their business but that was OK with us, the hipster nectar was cold and we were able to find seating easily.



With the day slipping away from us and still things to get to later in the evening, we high tailed back to Doug's and parted ways. Something new going in near the old Hallam Nuclear Plant, not sure what it's going to be but it's going to be big whatever it is.



After a quick shower, an even quicker bite to eat it was back on the bike to meet up with the gang for Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss out at the Pinewood Bowl. Alison was amazing, Willie, well lets just say that you're paying for how Willie used to sing more than you are paying for how he rasps out the lyrics now, but shit the dude is 86 years young. Still a great time and a good way to finish out a awesome Saturday.