Rides 2010-53/54: Amber Waves Of Grain

With some ugly storms rolling in on Saturday night, it was important to get a quality ride into my legs earlier in the day. A mid-morning ride was the plan with slightly unconventional route for me that first headed north, before driving south to Lake Minnetonka.

Great blue skies full of fluffy, white clouds for the whole ride.

The final totals clocked-in at just under 30 miles with an average velocity reflected my sporadic riding these past few weeks. Here are the stats from the Garmin computer for your review.

While out riding, there were definitely some beautiful fields of grain throughout the rolling countryside. The wheat had turned a wonderful golden hue and was a pleasure to ride along side. The corn and soybeans have become deep green and are reaching their full maturity before they begin to bear the fruit/seeds that will become the crop. Growing up in a farm community, I can appreciate the effort it takes to work the soil and get the crops conditioned to produce to their maximum potential. It’s a joy to see that work result in expansive fields throughout my route.

Upon rolling back into the neighborhood, I noticed that my neighbors had a large U-Haul truck rolled up to their garage and were loading things at a steady pace. Knowing that their twin sons just graduated from high school, I was thinking that this was the big “move away from home” event for at least one of them. But, after stopping to chat, I realized that they were just clearing out the garage after many years of assorted collecting. The neighbor, like me, likes to do much of his own home repairs, and was using this chance to clear out the various accumulated pieces that seem to remain from all sorts of projects. From shower systems to assorted scrap wood, they were able to fill a truck several times over.

Back at my house, I realized that I could stand to go through the same cleaning exercise and would welcome the chance to clear out the garage of it unwanted scraps.

Saturday evening produced some ugly storms that hit just north of Plymouth, but generated enough winds/rain around my neighborhood to blow down some fences and push over a few trees. I only had the miscellaneous junk that gets shed from trees scattered throughout my yard, but a few neighbors had some 25+ year old maples get pushed over. While clearing out my yard on Sunday morning, one of the neighbors was walking by surveying the damage along the street. He mentioned that he lost a big tree in his front yard and was currently blocked-in, as the tree went right across his driveway. I had to leave to Starbuck for my nephew’s birthday party later that morning, so I lent him my chainsaw – feeling a little bad that I didn’t have time to help him out.

After the great day along Lake Minnewaska in Starbuck, I was back at home in Plymouth for another Sunday evening ride. The goals were simple in that I was targeting around one hour and had no real goals for speed.

Here are the Garmin details for the ride.

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As I mentioned in previous posts, I am still working to remove a “creaking” noise from my bike. Several weeks ago (and after over $50 worth of specialty tool purchases), I tore apart the entire drivetrain in hopes of attributing the noise to my bottom bracket. But, no such luck, as the noise is still there AND only getting worse. I can now guess that it is either in my pedals or my chain. The current chain on the bike has around 3000 miles into it, so it is probably a good time for a replacement. But, at nearly $50 for a nice Ultegra chain, I’m a little hesitant to spend the money. Of course, a noisy chain can also mean added wear-n-tear on the other components in the drivetrain, so the $50 is probably well-spent and will add to the long life of other, more-expensive components.

Other than that, the bike is riding remarkably well. I am considering upgrading the cables to the Yokozuna Reaction (http://www.yokozunausa.com/) set at some point in the near future. It’s not that my current cables are really all that bad, but I am curious regarding the feel of the shifting performance with a set of high-quality cables. Plus, my bike has all external cable routing, so changing out the cables should be a relatively easy affair.

Of course, it also gives me more reasons to “tinker”, which is never a bad thing for my engineering mind. It also gives me a chance to better match the aesthetic of the bike’s paint job, as the white housing to the new cable system would be a better match than the current gray/silver pattern.

After all, if you are going to ride hard – you might as well look good at the same time.