The Mud,

Hi,
I have returned from the journey through mud, slop, and landslides.

You know it has been a good bike ride when you come home tired, hungry, and thirsty. I packed 3 power bars, and drank over a gallon of fluids and still felt that way. Riding in mud was a lot of work. I was out exploring flood damage in North East Iowa after 13 inches of rain in two days. We all ready had lots of rain prior to the big rain fall, so that just made matters worse.

It was like winter riding in places, because you had to walk your bike at times, the wash outs were so deep, and mud so thick I had to walk the bike. There were places in the gravel that my tires would bury themselves in because of the standing water. It took me a long time to complete 62 miles. My drive train is clunking, time for some TLC.

I don't know who "Mr Thru Traffic" is, but they didn't want him around on almost every road I went on.



















This was gooey mud, tires packed full of mud and spinning out. There were a couple of tracks before me. I found these guys about 2 miles from here. Two mountain bikers in their 20s. They were cash'n in, done, to much mud, washouts, and areas you couldn't ride.



















This water is 25 feet under this bridge, so the flood waters rose 30 feet over the bridge. I can see how people drown in these flash floods. You can see some places were not ridable.
























There were lot of these wash outs, some places there was a 30 foot drop.
























This was a trail last week, now look at it, lots of places like this where landslides buried.



















I had this evil thought while riding today. I was thinking about going over to the "Dark Side" for a couple of weeks after reading Charlie's Farrows blog. You see Charlie is an epic rider, and not to far from my age. He rides races like Trans Iowa last year, nearly froze, found newspapers in the wee hours of the morning, stuffed them inside his clothing for warmth, slept in a cemetery for a few hours and then finished the ride. That among many other great rides. Check out his blog, and how he deals with the suffrage of ultra endurance bicycling.
But to my point, and the "Dark Side" a.k.a. not riding a bicycle for a few weeks. Well if a rider of Charlie's level can take 5 weeks to lock in and get a home project done. I should be able to take 2 weeks and finish the two rooms in this house that need remodeling. Seems that is the only way I am going to get this done. But after I finished my ride today, rested up, I cancelled the Dark Side trip, for now I've decided, NOPE, not going to do it. I'd rather ride again, and again, and again.
That's all I have to say about that. Today's challenge and feeling of well being went way above and beyond the need to remodel a room or two. :-)