September rides, bringing in the fall.

[north woods gal]

Hoping for the best for all those folks in the Carolinas. Not looking good, though.

Beautiful ride for me, today. Sunshine and 80 degrees with a bit of wind, but not too much. Just a great day to be out and riding. Did 22.1 miles on the Log Lady single speed. Even added a mile of rough gravel and sand road for a little variety along the way. This LL is geared a bit too low for pavement work, but it's still doable. Was just a matter of me choosing a very hilly and challenging route to take advantage of this bike's rabbit-like ability to accelerate and climb. Flying down one hill at nearly 30 mph at times and then scurrying up the next hill as fast as I could spin, one hill after another. Talk about fun!

Riding the Log Lady and my other fast single speed, the Gunnar, has changed my riding, radically. It's not just the single speed thing, though that's an important part of the equation. It's also very much the pure joy that comes from riding a very quick, agile, easy rolling, oh so easy to pedal, light weight steel bike. Really makes me dread taking the fat bikes with their big heavy wheels for any long rides, now. They really are collecting dust, especially now that I have the Krampus set up for single speed trail work. Will still need the fatties for my winter riding, of course. You do need those fat tires for snow riding. For warm weather riding, though? Why ride a lumber truck when I can ride a sports car? These two racing single speed MTBs have really put the joy back into my road riding. Definitely one of my best ever biking decisions to try.