Been a while

Nothing terribily out of the ordinary going on, so no posts recently. been getting in lots of "subsistence miles" and getting longer rides in when time and weather permit. One of those long rides occurred on Saturday the 31st. With temps projected to hit the mid 40s, I took off from home around 6:30 to meet up with Tom, Scott, and Will at Tom's house and head towards the Booneville gravel loop. We met up with Squirrel and Rick near the X avenue traffic circle cemetary and proceeded to let Squirrel pound us into oblivion on the first lap of Booneville loop. Squirrel, Rick, Scott and I pulled into Rasmussen's at 9:35 and waited for others to show up for the 10:00 loop that we had mailed around earlier in the week. Tom and WIll phoned Squirrel to let him know they were calling it a day. I took off with the group towards Booneville again, and parted ways at X avenue and rode home. With a long ride of 30 miles since the new fit, I decided that 100K for the day on the MTB was going to be enough. I shifted into the big ring and removed the gloves for the tailwind ride home, making a quick stop at Tom's house to make sure he and will were OK.

Sunday, I met up with my friend Lacey and we took a relaxing two hour gravel ride out towards Dallas Center and back. This was Lacey's first gravel ride, and her first chance to finally try out some of her winter gear. I'm not sure if she's caught the gravel bug quite yet. The scenery is a little bleak this time of year, and the winds work their hardest to zap you of your strength.

Plans for this week are either an indoor spin at Lou's or an outdoor ride on Thursday evening. I don't really care which, as long as I get on my bike. Saturday, I'm working to get a group together for the Gravel Road Ride 2 BRR (GRR2BRR) 1. We'll be leaving from my house in Johnston and working our way to Perry for their annual BRR ride. If you're reading this, you're welcome to ride along. MTB or cross bike would be the best ride to choose.

I'm still working on getting the parts together for the drop bar conversion on the Karate Monkey. My plans for mounting an IGH based wheel on the Singlecross fell through as soon as I started researching the width of the rear stays. Not enough room. At this point, it appears the Monkey is going to be my weapon of choice for both TransIowa and Dirty Kanza. I'm hoping to ramp up the mileage a bit more this month. TI is only 3 months away, and DK is 4 months out. I am probably in better physical shape now than I was at this time last year, but I don't feel as mentally prepared. I'm sure some of it has to do with the cold weather, but I also think I'm more conscious about how much time I'm spending on the bike vs doing other things this year. I haven't gotten to a balance that I'm happy with as of yet. Hopefully that changes soon, or I will find myself calling for a bailout in the middle of a gravel road in Iowa or Kansas in May.