At long last, Mike got his new bike! It’s pretty cool, all decked out in blue. It’s a Kona Kahu, and is actually an older new stock frame that he had built up. Weight about 18 lbs, so he’s gonna be mighty fast on that thing.
He joined us Saturday morning for it’s inaugural ride. We rode from Elwood out to Ash Grove, and back.
The ride out there was an absolute blast. The low point on the ride is Ash Grove, so the first leg is usually deceivingly easy, especially if there is a south wind. We had that today, and pretty much flew across the prairie-like landscape, arriving in Ash Grove with an 18.5 mph average speed.
We made our usual C-store stop, and while we were there, ran into an old friend from our Evergreen Church days. Gary C. is a cop in Ash Grove, and he stopped to visit with us a few minutes before he and we went our separate ways.
As we were resting, I took an opportunity to give that bike a good look. It is a lugged steel frame, and it’s white lugs are quite striking.
As we headed out of town on Piper Road, I joked that it was time to “pay the piper”. I couldn’t resist it, but was pretty serious, as it didn’t take long at all to realize we were going to have to work a little harder on the way back to the truck.
As we started for home, we came upon a farm house where a couple of little kids were having a “garage sale”, complete with ice cold water. We couldn’t resist stopping to buy a couple of bottles. They were pretty cute, and got a big kick out of us stopping. We were their first (and possibly only) customers!
One thing that was kind of odd about today was the number of dog chases we had. I’ll bet Pam had to get our trusty dog repellant out 8 or 9 times. Nothing got close enough to be serious, but I’m sure curious about why there were so many chases today.
The roads are laid out on a mostly square grid in that area, so it’s pretty easy to find your way back even though you may not always know where you are. Just keep turning left, and then turn right and keep going until you hit farm road 124, which will take you back to Elwood. That’s what we did, but we rode past 124 and I didn’t catch it until I looked at my computer and realized we were far enough that we should be on the final eastbound leg. Luckily, I caught it before we had gone too far out of our way.
Both Pam and I really enjoy riding out there. It is so quiet and peaceful. If you can catch it without any wind, that makes it even better. Today, there was a lot of spiderwort blooming in the ditches, and later in the year, they will be full of daisies.
We made it back to the truck with exactly 31 miles on the bike, and just a touch of sunburn on our arms. We screwed up and forgot the sunscreen because it was still pretty cloudy when we left the house, and we were both wearing sleeves. They didn’t last long, and it’s probably a good thing we didn’t ride any longer than we did.
Here’s a link to the GPS track. We rode a total of 31 miles, then when we got home, we rewarded ourselves. After Pam snapped this pic, she joined me for a quick nap!
God bless…
TW
