A Middle Chainring Day

Note: There seems to be a problem uploading pictures today. I will try again later.

My bike has 27 speeds. There are three chainrings at the crank, and 9 cogs on the freewheel cassette. By choosing various combinations of front and back gears, you can find a gear ratio for just about any situation. In the mountains, I spend a lot of time on my small chainring, giving me a selection of my lowest ratios. On the flat stretches and downhills, I usually keep it on the big chainring, for the highest gear ratios. Today should have been one of those days, but a strong crosswind turned into a headwind for a good part of the ride, and my middle chainring got a real workout for once. It was also like that going into Sioux Falls. Fortunately, the wind was out of the Northeast instead of Southeast today, making it about 15 degrees cooler than the last few riding days.

We departed Sioux Falls by way of their very nice bike trail, running along the Big Sioux River, each turn bringing us into a cool glen still wet with rain from an eary morning thunderstorm. Eventually we made it to Sioux Falls Park, where we had to leave it for regular roads. It was nice while it lasted. The regular roads did have one benefit, they led us to a new state, our fifth state.

I noticed several things today. It was the first day since eastern Idaho where there was not a place where I could not see a house. If you have trouble with all the "nots", it means that we are back in "civilization". There are frequent towns, and farms between the towns. I even noticed "outskirts" to Worthington. Also, everything looks green here. Being surrounded by green vegetation has a profound effect on how I feel while riding. I noticed the other day that when I looked at a brown wheat field to my right, I felt hot and thirsty. If I looked at the lush corn field to my left, I immediately felt cooler. I don't care if it is all in my mind, because my mind runs my body. Finally, there were a lot of large windmills visible from miles away at several locations. These appeared to be about 200 feet high, and were silently turning the abundant wind energy into electricity. I thought they looked very nice among the fields, kind of like (extra)large flowers. A lot nicer than a smoke-belching coal-fired plant.

Today the winds were our main foe. When we were headed at all northward, we fought the winds gusting to over 20 mph. I had more problems with being blown around by crosswinds. At one point I was blown clear off the road by a gust. The gravel shoulder was not firmly packed, and my tire dug in. When this happens, you lose steering. I managed to get my foot down before falling over, as I would have acquired a gravel-rash badge of courage like a few of our other riders. To clarify some other blog accounts, there was no other traffic involved.

After the SAG stop, I caught up with Larry, the new recumbent rider. As it turns out, his bike had a broken support to the seat, which explained the rattling noise he had been wondering about for several miles. We combined Larry's allen wrench with my Duck brand duct tape, and fashioned a great splint. It held over the next 30 miles and we pulled into the motel in time for Larry to call in an order for a new seat to be shipped tomorrow. In the meantime, mechanic Tom modified the broken strut to make it useable again, so Larry can ride tomorrow instead of SAGging or riding a spare bike.

It never got hot today. I had fogotten what "cool" felt like. Also, my replacement camera, ordered over a week ago, has arrived at our next destination. Thanks Mom!