October Monsoon

Iowa radar on Saturday morning. It rained heavily across the state all evening Friday.

I posted about my fat biking experience earlier in the week last week and told you all about how dry we'd been over the Summer and into Fall. We hadn't had a good rain since July and only one decent rain at all in August. Dry atmosphere was also an issue. Typical humidity here wasn't oppressive in August as it usually is. In fact, outside of a few weeks this past Summer, it has been rather pleasant here in Iowa.

But that which is great for cycling is bad for the land and that affects us all. The Black Hawk Creek was one of many indicators that we needed some rain badly. Well, we got it! In spades. It started on Thursday, but Friday was a day where it rained hard off and on all day and most of the evening. Saturday morning it continued. Some spots in Iowa were to receive well over 4" of rain during this period. It was like going from 0 mph to 100 mph in 3.5 seconds. Weather whiplash! Holy cow!

And of course, this happens right when the Spotted Horse gravel race happened. I'm sure the roads were impacted negatively for that event, although as of this writing I haven't heard anything yet. Suffice it to say that the weather over the Summer likely lulled riders to sleep in terms of wet weather preparations. Scrambling for the wet weather gear was probably a common theme amongst the riders going to that event.

Black Hawk Creek is hopefully filling back up with the latest rains

But we needed this rain so while it threw a wrench into those rider's plans and basically hampered any cycling related activities for me as well, I am okay with that sacrifice if it means restoration of water levels to a bit nearer to normal around here. Honestly, I was rather concerned that we were heading for a severe drought, and really, we still could be. We're going to need consistent moisture until it freezes otherwise this will only put off things for a while. Of course, Winter snows and whatever happens next Spring could put all of this away as a distant memory.

But that's the future, right now, this is a good thing. Even though I had planned on doing a bit of Trans Iowa recon. There is no sense in slugging it out on saturated gravel roads in a steady rain when next weekend may present drier, more favorable conditions. Of course, looking at any dirt roads would be quite out of the question as well. So, I will be puttering around the basement Lab and tweaking on some rigs. I have a couple of things coming in for testing/review for "Riding Gravel" and I want to be sure I am all ready to go when the components get here. Stay tuned on that.....

And speaking of "Riding Gravel", I can always while away the hours by working on the site's calendar of events. Or I could start in on my copy of Nick Legan's "Gravel Cycling", a book I plan to review for "Riding Gravel" and here as well. So, I've got plenty of stuff to keep me busy during rainy days.