Yesterday I decided to do one of my favorite rides and head over to Lawrence on gravel. I still had the tubeless setup going on my wheels, so it was easy. The river road between Topeka and Lawrence is my favorite ride here. I rode for over 70 miles and only two cars passed me.

I am still pretty tweaked from the cross race last Saturday. I think it is the sprinting/running in the sand. It is mainly my leg hamstring, which I’ve had problems with before and still need to address. Now is a good time to get in some nice riding and not worry too much about form. January is a long ways away.

It is great temperatures now in Kansas. It seems like it just turned to fall almost instantly. Last Sunday, there was just a hint of color in the trees. Then yesterday, I couldn’t believe how many leaves fell on the road between the time I was going to Lawrence and returning. It’s like they all decided to just eject at once.

I feel obligated to say something about Steve Jobs dying yesterday. I have a lot of Apple products and appreciated each and every one of them. He was definitely a visionary. When people share a passion for something, they feel connected, and that is usually a good thing. No matter what the motivate was, his products brought the people of this world closer together. He will be missed by many.

I have to decide about going out to Colorado in the next 24 hours. I’m not going to race in Ft. Collins for multiple reasons. I don’t think the the USGP should be holding a race weekend at altitude. It isn’t fair to most anyone. I wouldn’t race it anyway. But, I’d like to head up to Steamboat to hang with Kent and Katie for a while and get my cross bikes all situated. Fort Collins is on the way.

Okay, I think I’m going to just duplicate my ride of yesterday once again. It is my favorite rides here, so why not.

Most of the ride is along the Kansas River.

This road was nearly covered with leaves on the return.

My bottle ejected on a wash board descent and this was the result. I've tossed a million bottles and am pretty sure I've never broken one.

Titanium is the perfect material for cyclo-x and MTB bikes. This isn't my normal saddle, but the whole scheme kind of matches with the gray Bulldogs.

And, here is an ad from Apple. The Lisa didn’t last long. But, the ad has bikes and dogs in it, two of my favorite things. Kevin is carrying his bike, just okay, but could use some ‘cross instruction.

I’ve been racing bikes for a really long time. So long that I hardly recognize that a lot of the thoughts and worries I have don’t even occur to the “normal” person.

A cyclists life is pretty weather dependent. Maybe it is because I’m out in the weather more than the average person, I don’t know, but the weather does affect what I do on a daily basis and where I’m currently located at any given time.

The weather here in Kansas has been stellar the last few days. October is a good month though. The average high for the month is 69 and the average low is 44. Not bad.

It has been pretty extremely windy the last few days. The highs have been in the upper 80’s, so the wind is coming from the South at 30 mph. I don’t mind the wind too much. I actually like to race in windy conditions. Makes the day interesting.

I did the 70 mile gravel ride to Lawrence again yesterday. This time with Bill. He flatted both his front Tufo tubular and rear clincher, so we had to ride back on the road. The road was so much more exposed and the cross wind made the ride much harder than riding on the gravel.

So, I’m sitting here in super pleasant, fall conditions and am looking at the weather in Colorado and am having a hard time getting motivated into arranging a trip out that direction. In Ft. Collins, it’s supposed to rain/snow all weekend and be in the 40’s. That is cyclo-x racing weather, not cyclo-x watching weather. Well, it is cyclo-x watching weather if that is what you’re really into at the moment, but I’m not right now. And Steamboat isn’t any better.

Today it is crazy windy again. I used to always ride MTB on days like today, but I’m thinking about just riding over to Lawrence again on gravel. That would make close to 325 miles this week on gravel and I still have another day left. There are a couple cross races down in Texas with pretty good prize money this weekend. I doubt I could get anyone else too excited for that. Or maybe I’ll get motivated and head West to watch some guys get dirty and ride my MTB up in the mountains.

It hasn't rained here for weeks and the ground is cracking like crazy.

The ponds out in the country are so low that Bromont comes back looking like a pig.

Steamboat weather isn't much different than Ft. Collins.