A Second Cup Awarded!

2 weeks - 200 miles - lots and lots of good ol' Iowa gravel!

GPickle earned his Cup O' Mississippi Mud on Saturday the 29th of September - on a beautiful sunny early Autumn day, when most folks were watching the Hawkeyes loose thier 3rd game of the year, or drinking themselves silly - GPickle was out on the gravel roads west of Iowa City - pedaling his way to the infamous Cup O' Dirt! Below is his story and a photo of his steed - single speed steed! Impressive!

"Yesterday (Sept. 29th) I rode another 100 miles, my sixth gravel century of the year! In order to keep things interesting I rode my single speed townie.


This is my Fuji Del Rey 1 SPEED. I got it at the bike library of course. The fork is not original equipment, it was purchased years ago in an attempt to turn my Bob Jackson into a cross bike. After the failure of that project it did nothing until last fall when I built up this bike. For the ride I swapped the pedals and the front wheel and added the computer. The rear tire is very old, it was also purchased for the aforementioned Bob Jackson cross experiment. I have long been anticipating its death and was hoping this ride would finally do it in so I brought along a spare tire which was not needed. I really hate that tire.

I left early yesterday and it was still cool and not yet windy. I rolled far to the east and south through the greater metro areas of Downey, West Liberty, Nichols and Conesville before heading back west. I passed by Lone Tree and finally took a stop in Riverside. I love Caseys! Back on the road then and I kept going south and west (strong wind out of the south now) and somewhere out past Kalona I was able to turn back towards home and enjoy the tailwind. I loved the single, my gear was 40X18 and at times I was wishing I had the 42 on but overall it worked well for me. Total mileage was 101 and some change with 84 on gravel. I took a photo of the computer total but it has gone missing. I can still get one and maybe I will.

I am enjoying the 1200 mile challenge very much. I have ridden lots of roads already that I never have before and with six centuries yet to do I look forward to more exploring. I am going to take a week or two off now and then get back to it, hopefully with my old Trans-Iowa companion Jim. He said he would like to ride six and I would love to have some company out there! Thanks for the challenge Dave, its been fun!"

ed: Steve, thanks for playing... now, I've just gotta get out there and log some miles!!! -Dave