Loess for words?! Hole-y Badger Daze!

 May 3, 2026

Good day fellow Earthlings and ETs,

What have you been doing lately?  What’s that?  I CAN’T HEAR YOU!  C’mon!  Let’s make some noise!  Are you READY TO RUMBLE!?

What just happened?  Sorry about that, I guess I got a little WWE-ish there for a moment.  I’m not sure what to say about that other than, now it’s time for THE MAIN EVENT!

As recent readers may recall, I signed up for the Loess Hills Enduro (LHE) (50K version) and the ride was yesterday!  Wow!  That happened fast!  The ride getting here that is, the actual ride was, for me anyway, quite slow.  Here is a summary of some of the main things that I noted/experienced:

• The start was kind of confusing to me.  Possibly because I showed up a little later than most.

• I crashed because I overcooked a turn!  Not a recommended activity.
• By the time I got to the SAG station (km 20 or so, I think?), I saw some cyclers from the 100K route and we chit-chatted a bit.  One of the SAG station staffers said “There’s a blast from the past!” In reference to my trusty steed Shifty.  
• Gravel, loess, concrete, burrows!  Something for everyone!
• Some relatively minor but annoying technical issues.
• Great weather!

So there you have it.  If you are interested in more details, please see below:

This ride featured routes on the Ride with GPS app.  The LHE website stated if you wanted a hard copy of turns, that was up to you.  Fair enough, I guess.  However, I wasn’t feeling up to printing out a map and making a list of turns, distances, etc.  Hell, I barely had time for a fruitless search for my helmet strap for my Sony Action Cam!  I felt pretty good about Shifty, although there were 3 sprockets that were a little jumpy when riding (perfect shifting on the stand, of course).  In addition to assigning homework, the website stated there would be a 9 a.m. start for the 100K and a 9:20 start for us laid-back 50Kers.  However, I don’t believe the race organizers felt they needed to be constrained by their earlier plans and they decided to freewheel forward with a mass start, I think?  It was all a bit of a whirlygig.  I witnessed a large group of cyclists leaving the starting area promptly at 9.  Then I moseyed over to the registration area to sign in.  There I witnessed a man having a temper tantrum about his biking computer.  One of the ride’s organizational staff, I will call him Aragorn, good-naturedly smiled as apparently this just happens with this guy sometimes and they are good friends. Eventually I got signed in, got a number and some swag, stopped at the porta-potty, and hustled back to my vehicle.  By then it was 9:20, but I didn’t see anyone over by the starting line (they had a roll-over strip for chip timing).  I finally made it over to the starting line at 9:23 and talked to some staff there.  Apparently there was a separate start for the 50K but I had missed it.  Oh well, I didn’t really mind and I enjoyed some peace and solitude once I got the app going and started pedaling in the correct direction.  

The Ride with GPS app is pretty good but I didn’t spend the time to set this up beforehand.  Here are a few key things to know:

• There’s a free 7-day trial and then it’s around $60 per month.
• I like the voice prompts and a dinging sound that you hear when you’re supposed to turn
• I was a little confused by the graphics and it was sometimes hard to tell which way I was going on the screen (I think you are going towards the orange and the blue is where you've been?)

In general, I think it’s a good app and a person could get used to it pretty quickly.  However, I don’t think I would use it much so I immediately canceled after the ride.

Once I was en route, I felt sluggish, but otherwise enjoyed the riding and the peaceful landscapes.  The shifting wasn't too bad, I just went through some of the cogs kind of quickly because I knew they wouldn't provide very reliable shifting.  I also tried to use the fine-tuning adjuster up by my shifter to get the shifting dialed in; however, this didn't seem to help and likely made things a little worse later on.  Anyway, I was enjoying a speedy descent on a minimum maintenance road (MMR) (Quigg [looked like Ossig on my phone screen]) and wanted to keeps some speed onto a gravel road (300th Street).  I was feeling pretty good about this idea up until the following:

• I noticed my speed was a little too fast and that I would overshoot the two reasonably good tracks with minimal gravel.
• I tried braking gently before and whilst turning
• I layed Shifty down on her drive side whilst remaining clipped in.

Ouch.  Well, this was not what I was hoping for, but perhaps it was a good lesson that I should have learned earlier:  don’t overcook those gravelly corners, ya damn numbskull!  Here are some of the minor scrapes I endured, along with a torn, long-sleeved Wear Yellow Ride that I was glad I was wearing.

Why is my hand bloody?  Because I took off my right glove so I could turn my screen back on because it was set to turn off after 5 minutes (and I hadn't bothered to change that setting)!  Doah!  So I irrigated the wounds and patted them dry with my trusty, previously gently (now thoroughly)-used hankie.  Then I was back in the saddle with no apparent damage to Shifty other than a bar end that had gotten knocked out of alignment a bit and a slightly bent rear wheel that I noticed later on.

When I got to the Support and Gear (SAG) stop, I had some nice interactions with other participants and adjusted my bar end in a nice shady spot, ate a Rice Krispie bar and a perfectly-ripe banana.  After leaving the SAG stop, I was riding alongside another participant who said, "Wow!  A 26-er!"  We chatted, and he was a very encouraging 100K rider who mentioned that his favourite part of the ride so far had been some deeply-entrenched MMRs with some beautiful loess sidewalls earlier in the 100K route.    I thought that sounded cool and I hoped I would also encounter something similar on the 50K route.  Fortunately, I did find this area just a bit outside of Tabor

that gave me my loess wall fix, along with a happy feeling thinking about the amazing music of Jimi Hendrix, specifically “Castles Made of Sand” perhaps due to the nearness of smaller-grained minerals comprising the loess, which typically only contains approximately 40 percent fine-grained sand, the rest being mostly silt. 

Some of the climbs got to be a little tough.  If I stood, my wheel would sometimes slip unless I kept my weight back a bit which I find awkward.  This would also exacerbate the unwanted shifting between a few of my mid-large cogs on ye olde sprocket.  Additionally, toward the last third or so of the ride, I noticed my tire would rub against my seat stay if I was doing any standing climbing - apparently the wheel was out of true since my crash and possibly getting more so as the ride went on.  

Eventually my lower back started feeling sore so I stopped in a nice shady spot on an MMR, ate a delicious Kate's Real Food energy bar that I had procured from the Trek store a few weeks earlier, and stretched out a bit.  I like to stop for about 10 minutes or so every hour to keep the muscles somewhat limber and minimize the pain.

I saw many animal burrows along the sides of roads, in the loess walls, and several in a specific part of Oman Ave.  Here is a photo I took of this situation that I found amusing.  

There was a bit of a tailwind and some nice descents on the way back towards Malvern and I especially enjoyed this roadside attraction a mile or so from the finish.

When I got back to the starting area I was gifted with a boxed lunch and a beer from Brickway Brewery.  I didn’t stick around for two long, but I did happen to witness another participant with a beer from Infusion Brewery that I thought was perfect for the end of a gravel ride.

I would like to thank all who helped organize this amazing experience.  I enjoyed it, but I feel like I should have done a few things differently such as:

1. Taken a few long rides on pavement and done some mountain biking more recently.  Alternatively, maybe not signed up for a gravel ride this early in the biking season.
2. Replaced the chain and sprocket set to allow me to dial in the shifting.  <— I’ll try to get this done before my next big ride.
3. Slowed down before that turn! (I don’t need extra suffering!)

Luckily my scrapes shouldn’t stop me from doing any of the moderately active things I normally do.  But they should remind me (and possibly others?) not to be a dumb ass.

Not pretty now, but I think it'll heal up just fine, eventually.

Your pal,

BSO