Memorial Day marks the beginning of the outdoor season but it was cold and wet here on the High Planes, couldn’t even barbecue. The forecast though showed the possibility for a spectacular day, the day after, so I started forming a plan. I was thinking a good long bike ride but I still have a pretty good layer of winter fat, a necessity out here on the High Planes, so I thought, keep it reasonable. Fifty miles should be more than enough to test my mettle, so that was the plan, a half century gravel grinder up to the south edge of the Cheyenne Ridge Wind Farm. The thought occurred to me that it would be sort of a Dutch thang. The Dutch love their bicycles and their windmills. Not many Dutch in this country, mostly Irish and German, perhaps the Dutch were smart enough to look for more hospitable environs to settle. So I buttered up three slices of sourdough bread, I had baked over the weekend, grabbed a couple bananas and a mix of walnuts and raisins, filled the water bottles and was headed out, down main street by 8 AM. It was still pretty cool so I wore the wind breaker.
The first ten miles flew by at an average speed of 18 MPH. The road was in good condition, the gravel crunching beneath the tires, the breeze quartering on my left shoulder. It felt great to actually be cycling outdoors on real roads, where I could hear the birds a twitter and see the endless sky that makes the High Planes so special. Almost all of the bike time so far this year has been on the trainer in the basement, drudgery in comparison to being out in the great wide open.
Ten miles put me just north of Arapahoe to a place I have been numerous times. There are two old trees right next to the road which I have used for shade to eat lunch or a snack numerous times, shade is hard to come by in this country but I was feeling strong and stopped only long enough to take a quick picture and have a drink of water. Up until now there had only been two short sections of riding into the north wind but now I turned north into the wind for a good long stretch. It is amazing how much difference the wind makes on a bike, I was working at least twice as hard and going half as fast, ugh.
I kept working north against the wind, towards the windmills on the horizon. Down through the Smoky Hill River bottom, the road getting sandy, the bike getting a little squirrelly. If I kept the bike in the 10″ worn tire track, it was pretty smooth but both edges were mounds of loose sand, hit them and bike wants to fishtail, even with the floatation tires. Then it was up the other side, steep and against the wind, a far cry from the first ten miles cruising on the wind. I unzip the wind jacket down to the waist and keep spinning the pedals against gravity and the northwest breeze, beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead.
I am almost to the first windmills, I was told that they had a half dozen working but not in this section of the field, they are all idle like some kind of sculpture on the horizon. A couple of windmills frame a pump jack as I navigate up the road and I wonder if wind turbines can really replace fossil fuels in our unquenchable need for energy. I have watched them build this wind farm and know without a doubt that it would not be possible without fossil fuel. Hundreds of pickups, big rigs and cranes all running on fossil fuel. Cheap oil drove the industrial revolution and created the unnatural mass over consumption that permeates society, I can’t help wondering what’s next.
Then finally, I turn west, hoping to get out of the headwind a little. Nope. Looks like the wind is more out of the west than the north, damn, oh well. At least the road flattens some and I peddle on. I get to one of the giant sculptures just off the road and decide to pedal down for a look see, I am about 20 miles into the ride and it is time for a little break anyway. These things are big, massive, it’s hard to get perspective just driving by on the highway but once you get close, it’s like, wow.
Just the bolts holding them to the foundation are as long as a man’s forearm and there are hundreds of them. They are big, that’s for sure. You don’t realize until you get right next to one.
Then I come across a tank battery with a windsock. I have been by here a few times in the past. The sock confirms my suspicion that the wind is coming predominantly from the west and I have quite a few more miles to go in that direction, sigh. A Mortensen pickup comes barreling down the road from the opposite direction at high speed, the construction firm building out the wind farm. He doesn’t slow, doesn’t wave, just barrels past at 60 MPH, throwing up a half mile long jetstream of sand, dust and gravel – asshole. I try and hold my breath but it doesn’t last long, I’m winded. I breathe slowly through my nose trying to filter the dust. Then I feel the back tire going soft, damn. I pull over on the side of the road, flip the bike on it’s top, take off the wind jacket and have a sit to patch the tire. I grab the earphones and cue up a Buddy Guy and Junior Wells album on Apple Music, needing some flat tire blues tunes to keep me motivated.
I patch the tire and head off down the road but don’t get a mile before the tire goes soft again, at least it’s a beautiful morning. The biting flies though come out this time as I sit in the dust repairing the tire again, little bastards. I just grab a new tube from the handlebar bag, I don’t feel like tracking down the hole and patching it. I check the tire and find two thorns through the casing, remove them and put the new tube in. Just as I am finishing up a man slows and stops. He looks at me out the window and asks,”are you having fun”. I smile, slap a biting fly off my leg and respond, “I was until the goat head attack.” He asks, “do you need anything?” I thought, fortitude brother, a good dose of fortitude, but I said, “no, I’m good, thanks for asking.”
I gather everything and load up, eat a banana and a slice of bread. I figure I’m about half way but not sure because I keep forgetting to turn the GPS back on after I stop but I’m approaching highway 385, so I know I am roughly 25 miles in. Down the road I come upon the old barn that I have driven by numerous times while scouting and hunting for deer but the landscape has definitely changed, there is a new wind turbine just up the hill from the old homestead.
Some things change, some things stay the same. Dry land wheat farming has been the life blood of this area for a long time, before oil, before windmills there was wheat. The small farmer though barely exists anymore. With the highly manipulated commodities markets, the small farmer doesn’t stand a chance anymore. Unable to leverage like the big dogs in the futures markets, they have no choice but to sell out to the large conglomerates. Main Street USA is going the same way, no room for the independent businesses, everyone takes their government handout to Wal-Mart or Dollar General, trying to save a few dollars but destroying their community in the process.
This is a bike ride though, not a libertarian public service announcement, so let’s get back to the ride. I cross over highway 385, still working against the predominantly west wind. I had planned to ride another 6 miles west before turning south but I am tired of fighting the wind and decide to turn south a mile past the highway on a road I travel quite a bit, thinking I may even just head straight on down the road to Emerald City, cutting the ride short. It feels good to be riding on the wind and then I hit the long down hill into the Smoky Hill River bottom for the second time on the ride, flying down the hill, crunching the gravel at close to 30 MPH. Then up the other side, the steeper side, all the way down in the granny gear, clawing and huffing. Just as I approach the top the front tire starts going soft. I pull over, make quick work of the patch job, eat a banana and two slices of sourdough and chug some water. I look at the watch and figure I am about 30 miles deep into the ride.
I look at the map on top of my handlebar bag. I can go straight down the road and get to town in about 5 miles or I can turn right in about half a mile and loop out to the west and add another 15 miles, which would give me the 50 miles I planned to ride. Decision point. I rode toward the intersection, thinking about the three flat tires and the soreness in my sixty+ year old legs. A sane person would just ride straight to town and take a nap, I thought. I turned right and spun the pedals into the headwind again, thinking, I sure hope I don’t have another flat tire. I didn’t and most of the distance was riding the wind on gently rolling hard pack roads.
The total score was 48.1 miles of gravel. So, close enough. I’m calling it a half century. The season though has only just begun, so I hope to tally some bigger scores in the weeks to come. “Get Out There” and “Never Stop Exploring”