To everything there is a season.......

I wake up Saturday morning thinking the same thing I did when I went to bed last night. I need to spend the day riding my FatTire bike.

So Saturday morning arrives and I gathered up, and packed up what I would need to do so. The paradox, the conflict is this, as I age, mentally I get stronger, the more I can endure, the more I mentally want to push myself, but physically I regress. I'm 59, it becomes harder to ride longer, to go further physically. Knees, shoulders, fatigue and other body parts, want to shorten my ride. Recovery is harder, overtraining happens more often, my mind would prefer to ride a bike all day everyday, but the body won't follow a schedule like that.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;"

-- Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

But I will ride. A dear friend of mine, Jules Hansel, the bike rider of bike riders, flopped over on his bike at the age of 89, he was bicycling his last conscious moment. I rode centuries with this man when he was 80 some, he always wanted to get 10,000 miles in every year, and that became a battle, mentally he could ride 30,000 miles a year, but physically he could no longer get the 10,000 in. That was the battle. But that did not stop him from riding, he was always out there, saddling up, and riding away.

Sitting on Jule's bench.

I rode past what used to be a home built over 132 years ago. A home of many, built in the flats for blue collar meat packing workers when that was this  towns booming trade. This home has now been tore down to make way for a water drainage ditch. I sat in the basement there for a few minutes. I can't imagine the millions of conversations that occurred here. The supper table talk. So many people people that came and left, and all the children that grew up here and moved on.

After my ride around town, and through a closed river camp grounds just for the sake of a change of scenery I headed to the countryside, where I find the most peaceful of rides.

A dirty pile of snow soon to be gone.

I didn't take anymore pictures, nothing caught my eye, I just rode an additional 40 miles more on Iowa gravel roads, looking at country side starting to wake up from winter, and begin to grow.  


Tomorrow is Sunday, my day off work, I will get out there and ride somewhere.....

Cheers and  thanks for stopping by...
Dave