January 28, 2023
Blowing off the cobwebs in Iola
Two rides today
Bad weather, pestilence and other forces for chaos have seriously cut into our time on the bike lately. With three more long driving days ahead of us from Iola Kansas, Tucson will not be soon enough to attend to this deficit. We need some exercise. Iola has two interesting opportunities for a ride so we'll park it here and spend today on the bikes.
The Prairie Spirit Trail first caught my eye a couple months ago when I was prepping for a bike touring class. I found it on the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's list of Hall of Fame Trails while making a map of rail trails within a day's drive of St. Louis. Running 52 miles from Iola to Ottawa Kansas on packed limestone, it looks worth a scouting ride, at least part of the way.
South of Iola on the site of the old LeHigh Portland cement plant and quarry, 10 miles of mountain bike trails have been built along the banks of Elm Creek by the quarry lake. We'll get the mountain bikes out for some fun today too.
It's the best bike day we've seen in weeks, already in the low-40s this morning at the Storage and RV Park of Iola. I guess it's not the most romantic name for a vacation stay, but the location less than a half mile from the trails is all I care about. We pedal out to the LeHigh Portland trails first so we'll get some wind protection in the trees.
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I've devoted a fair amount of time and energy the last couple of months to getting comfortable on Louise - joining a beginner mtb ride, logging some hours on strength training and even springing for a coaching lesson, all in service of avoiding catastrophe. Barry joined me on the trails once this season to be sociable and feels plenty comfortable on his hardtail. He's not big on either winter riding or mountain biking so he gets points for coming along.
Following a double-track connector off the rail trail, we find some easy single-track along the lake. It's thickly wooded and I walk a few stretches here and there to avoid hooking my bar riding between trees. There's also some walking on the steeper drops and anything I can't see ahead on, quite a bit of walking actually. I'm still deep in "better safe than sorry" mentality. Barry walks hardly at all of course. It's a fun ride with enough challenge to build my confidence and after 7 miles or so my dinner bell is clanging. We call it good for the morning and ride back to the fiberglass palace at the RV park for lunch.
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After lunch I'm humming the old "double your pleasure, double your fun..." gum jingle as we wheel the recumbents out for ride #2 on the rail trail. These are our favorite bikes for a big road tour when we'll be in the saddle all day every day. They're just really comfortable, fast on the flats and downhills, and they do fine going up hill with the triple cranks.
But before we hit the trail, let's do a little shoppin. I noticed the Southwind Bike shop on the way in yesterday, and Barry wants some new mtb pedals to replace the ones he has with the broken cages.
Neither of us have flat fix tools on the mountain bikes and the owner Ben Alexander sets us up with some small bags and essentials, plus a pair of two-way platform/SPD pedals for Barry. I'm sticking with the flat pedals on Louise but am sure that with his mountain goat instincts Barry will be fine clipping in now and then.
We pass several cheery "Welcome to Iola" signs while riding on to the Prairie Spirit trailhead. Barry suggests we could go out 10 miles and turn around. I see his 10 and raise him 5, going for 30 round trip. I haven't ridden this bike much in the last six months and am eager to get back up to speed.
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While we slog along, I'm thinking how happy I am just to have the P-38 on this trip. For awhile there I wasn't sure I could even bring it to Tucson this year due to a grievous frame injury. Last May we rode the recumbents pretty hard on a loaded ride down the hilly northern Pacific Coast route. There were multiple brake repair episodes, gear adjustments and a broken chain. I knew my bike needed a thorough going over and some serious love before going out on any big tours this year. So in December I brought it into Big Shark, our LBS, for the holiday special dunk & clunk tune-up.
A few days later the mechanic at Big Shark called to tell me that sadly, they wouldn't be able to do any work on it due to the hole in the frame. Whaaat?
Sure enough, there was a hole going halfway through the frame tube under the seat, with sawtooth marks. I just use a cable lock with this bike so this made no sense to me. If you want to steal the bike, it's a lot easier to just cut the cable. And why go halfway through? Sabotage? Grrrr. I hate to think it, but am also remembering the time my rear brake fell off the bike north of Bodega Bay on the California trip and we couldn't find one of the screws. How often does that happen? The frame cut could have happened around then; this was after I took it to a shop in Eureka CA to replace the chain. Surely the guy at the Eureka shop would have seen the cut if it was there.
Whatever, these are unknowable things. The important part was to get the bike fixed. Chris at Big Shark assured me the hole was repairable and referred me to Matt LaBerta, who is widely acclaimed as the best frame builder in St. Louis. Matt has worked on this bike before. He did a fine job of fixing a broken derailleur drop-out on it a couple years ago. That time it took a few months because he's such a popular guy for this kind of thing and had a lot of work already stacked up. It wasn't at all clear to me he could fix this hole before we left for Tucson. Still, he's the best so I took it in, pled my case and three weeks later he called me to say he'd finished the repair. Yippee! I still had enough time to get the deluxe treatment at Big Shark. I even got in a few chilly rides before we left to be sure everything was functional. The shifting is smoother now and the braking better than ever. All's well.
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Back to the present, it's a gorgeous day and the trail is a peaceful place to ride. It will surely be lovely in the spring when the wildflowers come out. Now however the limestone surface is getting softer, sandier and harder to push through. My Wahoo says we've logged 6 miles so far and I'm making about 6 miles an hour. Barry patiently waits a little ways ahead. I'm pining for the gravel bike again; this would be a great ride for it. We don't really need to get 30 miles today and neither of us wants to wade through much more of this.
We bail at the Carlyle trailhead, riding east to US 169 and then south back to Iola. The highway isn't very busy and it has the widest shoulder I've ever seen - looks like 7 feet wide outside the rumble strips. This is easily the best part of Barry's day on his favorite bike.
So there's been something for everyone today. I got to play in the woods and Barry got to blaze it on the road. We've had enough exercise to tide us over the next two-day drive to Socorro New Mexico. The plan is to take an extra day there to ride along the Rio Grande on the Socorro Valley Bosque Trail. Will report back with any news.
Today's ride: 23 miles (37 km)
Total: 23 miles (37 km)
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