If you have served or are currently serving our country in the armed forces, I SALUTE YOU! God bless you for what you did or are doing.
Since I was off work today for Veteran’s Day, I was keeping my fingers crossed about the weather, hoping for a chance to get out on my bike. The day started pretty nippy, so I took my time this morning lifting weights, getting ready, then taking care of a little business. By about 12:30 I decided it was about as good as it was going to get, so I got dressed and headed out. You can see from the flags above that conditions were less than ideal. I got kicked around by the wind quite a bit and riding south or west was pretty onerous, but it sure beat sitting at home.
As I headed out across the river and started toiling up the hill, I was a little concerned that I had overdressed in tights and a long sleeve base layer under my jersey. I ended up being warm enough, but not uncomfortably hot the entire ride. That wind made a huge difference and I’m sure I would have been cold had I chosen less.
Just after I passed Mentor, I got to watch a red-tailed hawk swoop down and grab an unsuspecting snake before flying into a tree to eat it. It’s kind of hard to tell, but it’s holding the snake in it’s beak in the picture above. It was fun to watch!
I turned back to the east when I got to County Line Road, and what a nice difference that southwesterly wind made. I never was able to get it directly at my back, but my average speed picked up from 13.3 for the first six miles to 17.4 for the next 12. That was without really trying to see how fast I could go, which was pretty much my plan for the day.
The storms we had earlier in the week put an end to the fall color here in the Ozarks. The few trees that had any colorful leaves at all have been battered by the wind. In fact, there were several times today when I rode through a whirlwind of leaves skipping across the road. I tried to get a picture of some, but never was successful.
The driveway pictured above caught my attention as I passed. It’s not very far from Rogersville, and has always had a collection of old implements sitting around as “decoration”. Now, they’ve gone ahead and named the place. It’s quite appropriate, although in looking at what’s there I can’t find any theme other than “old and rusty”. It might look a little better if they would clean up some of the brush.
I stopped in Rogersville for a pit stop and to re-fuel. My fuel of choice today was a Snickers bar. As far as I’m concerned, that suits me about as well as any of the sport bars I’ve tried. A good old candy bar can’t be beat when you’re out battling the wind like I was today!
After the rain this week, I noticed that some of the ponds were starting to fill up. They’ve still got a long way to go, and I noticed at least one that was still totally dry, but it’s sure looking better around here than it did a month or so ago.
Today’s little doodle was basically a ride over roads that I’ve ridden dozens of times (hundreds maybe?) and know like the back of my hand. I guess you could call this ride my “standby” because it’s the route I most often do when I’m alone and have a couple of hours to kill. I like it because it’s a loop that doesn’t have me back-tracking. It’s a combination of challenging hills as well as the flats out around Rogersville. And, it’s just about the right length for “off season” rides like today.
Click the map above for the GPS track.
Hope your day was a great one!
God bless…
TW
