Sarah and I spent the weekend in Fort Wayne, visiting her family. I set aside some time to ride on Saturday. Initially, I was planning on riding with the 3 Rivers Velo Sport club, who I’ve ridden with before, but their ride was starting at 8:00 am in Roanoke, IN, about a 25-minute drive from where we were staying. After being up late Friday night, I knew there was no chance I’d be getting up that early. Instead, I put together a route south of town. Here’s the route.

In the morning, a few storms rolled through, but based on the radar, it appeared they would blow through, and then the rain would stop. So I waited a while before starting my ride. As soon as the storms stopped, I got ready and rolled out.

It was still overcast and gloomy and the roads were quite wet. I bought some clip-on fenders for the Bianchi but forgot to bring them. Oh well!

After riding on a couple of busy roads very briefly, I was surprised at how quickly the scenery started looking rural.

In fact, within probably about a mile of where we were staying, I found myself on a gravel road.

I have been wondering how the Bianchi would handle gravel, so I suppose it’s just as well. Frankly I’ve been reticent to intentionally take such a nice road bike on gravel roads, but I didn’t hesitate to take the gravel here, that happened to be on the route.

Naturally, the bike did just fine. It sure got dirty, riding on the wet gravel, but that’s OK.

There was even some washboarding and still, the bike did fine. It sure was a rough ride, but I had no problems.

Once I was back on paved roads, I mostly had chipseal to deal with. It wasn’t really much smoother than the gravel.

I crossed I-469.

The roads here are so much flatter than what I’m used to. There were a few small hills here and there, but not many.

The scenery was different from what I’m used to as well. Long flat fields of soybeans and corn, and farms, and a few homes, all laid out in a grid pattern. At home, where it’s hillier, the roads take a much more circuitous path. I prefer my home terrain, but I always enjoy trying to get the feel for different areas.

Soon I reached the small town of Ossian.

It was a cute town, with a nice downtown area.

A bakery, and later a coffee shop, tempted me, but I was only 10 miles into my ride. I kept on riding.

As I left Ossian, I could feel the heat picking up a little bit. It was already quite humid, from the earlier rain. Things also got a little hillier.

And then, I found myself on a gravel road once again.

This time, I was on gravel for a good three miles or so, and a few hills made it a little more challenging. Again, the Bianchi did fine, but I do think that trying to ride gravel with big hills would be a problem, with such skinny tires.

I crossed “Eight Mile Creek” a couple of times.

The next sections of road altered between paved and gravel.

I reached Zanesville, IN. It seemed to be too small to have much of a downtown area. In fact, according to Wikipedia, “Zanesville residents are ineligible for street mail delivery, and thus, must get their mail at the post office.” In other words, it’s tiny.

There was, however, a place called “County Line Pizza & Mini Mart.” It seemed to be part restaurant, part convenience store. It reminded me of Pinnick’s, in Williams.

I stopped here to get some water and have a snack. The lady running the place was very nice and said she had had a few people come through who were riding across the country. Pretty cool!

A little past Zanesville, I turned back toward Fort Wayne. I spent 7-8 miles going due east, on a long, straight road. I am not used to that! It was fun being able to push a big gear for a while.

I passed the small town of Yoder, which seemed to consist mostly of a set of railroad tracks, and a grain company.

Soon I turned back north on roads I had ridden on earlier, including a little more gravel.

This was a fun ride. It was fun exploring a new area, and seeing a couple small towns. I would like to go back to Ossian sometime and spend more time looking around.

On Saturday I was hoping to ride with my friend Dave. We were going to go mountain biking, but we have had so much rain that the trails would be too muddy. We decided to meet up in Yellowwood State Forest for some gravel riding instead. On my way there, I discovered Yellowwood Road was flooded …

… so I went over to Jackson Creek Road instead, but it was also flooded …

The only other ways of getting to where we were going to ride would either be flooded too, or would be far out of the way. I called Dave and let him know … we pulled the plug  on the ride. He was coming from the other side of the state forest, so I think he was able to get to parts I couldn’t. I think he was going to ride back and forth on the parts that weren’t flooded.

I went home, and headed out for a short (21-mile) but hilly road ride west of town. It was hot, very hot … the heat index probably neared 100 degrees. I had a great, brief-but challenging ride. Here are a few photos.

I didn’t do a lot of riding over the weekend. I intended to, but with a heat index of 100+ degrees both days, and some strong storms, I only managed to get out for a 19-mile gravel ride in Hoosier National Forest with my buddy Dave. Fortunately it didn’t storm while we were out riding, we only had to deal with the heat and extreme humidity, and an unusually high number of dogs. We also saw several box turtles and some turkeys. I don’t think we saw a single car on any of the gravel roads.

We did a loop I’ve done a couple of times before. I have done this route in snow, rain … and now heat, too. “What’s next?” Dave asked, and I don’t know, but I’m sure some other condition will come along and I can ride there in it, too.

Sunday wasn’t devoid of bike activity either, I washed the Trucker and did some work on the Bianchi. I ordered some Nitto Noodle handlebars for it, just like the ones I have on the Trucker, and installed them. I did a few test rides around the neighborhood. The Noodles are a big improvement over the old bars.

It was so hot that I was dripping with sweat, just from working on the bike and riding around the neighborhood. I was thinking of a road ride later in the day, but some insane storms rolled in. I’ll ride in most weather conditions, but lightning is one thing that will prevent me from riding.

Working on bikes isn’t a lot of fun for me, but it needed to be done. Hopefully now I’m in good shape for some more long rides. I’m anxious to crank up the mileage again. I’m contemplating RAIN (Ride Across INdiana) on July 17. You ride from Terre Haute, IN to Richmond, IN, in one day — 160 miles. I might need to ride another century between now and then, for training purposes.