Zwartehond Voyaguer

Zwartehond and I went a-travelling last Sunday. While my daily commute takes me to the west, and I have also gone east and north to a degree, I had not yet made a trip down the length of the Cedar River trail.  So I gathered my things, strapped my newly waxed pointer chore coat onto Zwartehond's Carradice bag, and struck out west-ward to get onto the trail.  The sky alternated between grey and threatening - with a few warning drops, and periods of soft sunlight.

Powerplant and Kruisframe

 I ended up not needing the chore-coat, but the trip was good, as it assisted with further airing and curing of the otter-wax applied the day before. It now has only the faintest of scent, before, it smelled strongly similar to pine-sol, like an entire bottle of pine-sol emptied onto the floor of a room. About like that.

I stopped at a Dairy Queen for a frozen confection, but the line inside was interminably long, and I grew nervous for Zwartehond- chained up outside and gathering a bit of a crowd- it seemed as one individual was ascertaining the resiliency of the fencing to which it was secured.  That had me return outside and huffily set forth onto the trail again.  Maybe I was just paranoid.

All was not lost, ice-cream wise- for a mile or so down the trail was a walk-up ice-cream place, one that had formerly been a Tastee-Freeze. So I did get my small chocolate dipped cone, feeling safe being 10 feet from Zwartehond with the cafe-lock deployed, and what seemed like a more amiable atmosphere.

Finishing my cone, I continued my sortie down the trail, listening to WIRE's Manscape, as the ugly industrial infrastructure side of Starch City sprawled wide across the flat stagnate waters of Cedar Lake. Eventually I rolled through the quiet weekend streets of downtown, and guided Zwartehond through alleys still familiar from my days of working in the city.  Lunch at a favorite cafe. I locked Zwartehond up outside- there was a squad of firefighters also dining at one of the outside tables. The big kruisframe gathered quite a few long glances from them as they left. An older couple stopped to look at the black beast as well, the gentleman particularly spending a minute or two looking it over.

Black Dog Big City

 There is not too much more to tell perhaps.  I took the same trail that I had ridden about a month before on the Felt Cafe3. Maybe going at a more leisurely pace, although the big bike gets going quite speedily.  Twenty miles down, Twenty miles and five back, as I stopped by a friend's house. Fourty-five miles even, in no great hurry and under six hours.  This is the equivalent to mileage to day seven of Ragbrai, which I hope to bike this summer. I probably won't do it on Zwartehond, but it is nice to know I can cover some distance on such a big bike.  Twenty more miles, or a hundred kilometers, with a morning start would've been no big challenge.