Riding the back roads !
 

Was a chilly day (42 degrees) for me, but got out for a nice 15 mile ride around the back roads near The Old Town Center. Was able to keep my asthma in control for most of the ride so that helps. Most of the back roads are in really good shape, but I found one that I haven't been on that had a super ****ty section. Always great to be out on the road and the sun was out so it makes everything feel a little better.

One of the roads on my commute has a two mile section that until recently was dirt/gravel. Then about five years ago, a large housing development was put in with access to that old road. So it got 'paved' by throwing down some tar and stones. No foundation, just tar and stones. Of course with the construction traffic, that old farm road got beat to death. It is murder to drive in a car, much less a road bike with skinny high pressure tires. My only other option is to ride on a 'pedestrian and bicycles prohibited highway. I just have to grit my teeth and hope that nothing gets rattled off the bike. My rear blinky was not up to the challenge, and pieces-parts went skittering into the weeds....

Unfortunately, most of the really pretty back roads around me are unpaved, which also means even more traffic on the main paved roads. That's one reason why my new bike leans toward the gravel bike side of things without being an all-out gravel grinder. I didn't get much time with it this year, but next year I'll have to see what routes it works well on (some of our gravel roads are really rough and best traversed by MTB).

95+% of my riding is on country roads. We live outside of town. Most roads are decent but certainly are not cleared in the winter. I'm enjoying it while I can. I just layer up as needed and ride.

Got a ciff note version of the video? 20 minutes is way too long.

You took this stop sign pretty fast :innocent:

Not the sort of thing you want to advertise on an open forum...
Otherwise, a nice video.



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I ride mostly back roads and most of them are great. Recently hit one I don't travel that often and is one of the few that hasn't been recently paved. It was in fine shape by most standards, but made me realize how spoiled I am in that most all the roads I ride have been repaved, or paved for the first time, in the last couple of years. Had one that was paved for the first time with really rough chipseal, but my disappointment was short lived as they came back within 6 months and did over with good, hard surface pavement. I often feel I have one of the most perfect riding environments possible with almost endless, virtually car free back roads.

Hooray for back roads!

And, with the right bike and state of mind, hooray for unpaved roads!

If you have asthma that badly, you need to see a pulmonologist ASAP. It's possible to control asthma with modern drugs which seem to have no side effects. My wife was once in intensive care for 3 days with asthma because her doctor was a POS. Today she almost never has an episode, no matter what she does, how hard she rides. She only has trouble if she gets a lung infection and even then we have drugs to control it.

my mom is from the generation that believes in a pill for every ill. The doctor can only do as well as you communicate to him. It took several years for my mother's cardiologist to get her blood pressure cocktail correct. Once there, it did a world of good. But not every drug works the same for everybody - everybody does not react the same.

We have dreary weather today. I checked the hourly and decided not to haul my bike into the office for a hookie ride because of the 13 mph NNW.
But most of the winter we will have 60-degree weather. On clear days, often start at 40 and end at 80.
I bike in layers in the winter, and every bike has a place to put them (and swap for shorty socks) as the day warms.

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Where I live, major metro area, we don't have "back roads" per se - but sticking strictly to residential streets in subdivisions, and only crossing, or at most traveling short distances, the primary roads, is basically the same thing. If I do manage to get out earlier some evenings, 8-9, before traffic calms, I often snake through subdivisions and avoid the main roads if they don't have MUPS along them. It's a nice way to ride.

A lot of back country roads riding and mountainous as well but only between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. because more and more commuters are using them as the freeways are so choked! Those roads are narrow very twisty with hair pins and steep and too many commuters will venture on them. I even saw a big 18 wheeler get stuck at the first hair pin and had to go in reverse for over a mile!!!