I’d much rather live in the boonies than the urban sprawl any day, but it does have it’s disadvantages.
This morning I was up early and planning on joining a roadie group for a century ride. This meant about an hour drive to get to the starting point. Just as I was heading out, noticed that one of the rear tires on my mini-van looked a bit soft, in fact really soft. No problem methinks, I’ll just swing by the only gas station in the village on the way out and get some air. Well damned if the effing air machine is out of order. Broke. Kaput. Nowhere else in the entire village where I can get air.
To make a long story short, since I couldn’t get air, decided to do my own century locally. Turned out to be a very windy day so i cheated and cut it short to a metric century. Other than almost being run off the road by a local billybob in a pick-up on one occassion it was an uneventful ride except for the wind making me work harder than normal, which was a good thing. We have great rural roads in the area with lots of hills and little traffic, so it wasn’t so bad.
Moral of the story? Well, none, except that every once in awhile I think of moving back to civilization. Then I remember the conjestion and frantic pace and realize how great it is being a small town hick, despite the drawbacks.
I agree with you 100%! And I think your local billybob came to my rural neck of the woods to run me and a friend off the road, yell profanities at us and glare out his window - on a practically deserted country road!
No, I think that was the guy last week that yelled the profanities. It really doesn’t happen that much. For the most part they’re quite courteous. The older farmers, etc. are always nice and polite to cyclists, even if they don’t understand us. It’s only ever the young pick up drivin’ rednecks in their 20’s that are A-holes. And it’s not all of them that are like that. It’s a lot more dangerous IMO on urban roads. At least here we don’t have that many UAV’s, rice rockets or soccer moms yapping away on their cell pones.
Yes, we made a 100mile loop through the country side, all very rural, and (mostly) beautiful, and only one redneck, so that’s not bad odds. And you are right - the old farmers are the best, very friendly. We even have an old guy who runs this little country store out in the middle of nowhere, if you call ahead on a day you might be bringing a group through, his wife will make muffins for the group! I love riding here.
Most people here have to pull over to use the cell phone once they are out of the city limits. We have so many mountains and canyons that cellphones aren’t very reliable. You’ll see cars pulled off the road all the time. They’ll get to a raise in the road where they get “1 bar” and have to stay there to finish the cellphone call. Even XM and Sirus Radio cut out in the canyons : )
I like living in the middle of nowhere…the skies at night look like a planetarium. But when I retire its back to a little bigger city then Sedona.
I’d much rather live in the boonies than the urban sprawl any day, but it does have it’s disadvantages.
This morning I was up early and planning on joining a roadie group for a century ride. This meant about an hour drive to get to the starting point. Just as I was heading out, noticed that one of the rear tires on my mini-van looked a bit soft, in fact really soft. No problem methinks, I’ll just swing by the only gas station in the village on the way out and get some air. Well damned if the effing air machine is out of order. Broke. Kaput. Nowhere else in the entire village where I can get air.
To make a long story short, since I couldn’t get air, decided to do my own century locally. Turned out to be a very windy day so i cheated and cut it short to a metric century. Other than almost being run off the road by a local billybob in a pick-up on one occassion it was an uneventful ride except for the wind making me work harder than normal, which was a good thing. We have great rural roads in the area with lots of hills and little traffic, so it wasn’t so bad.
Moral of the story? Well, none, except that every once in awhile I think of moving back to civilization. Then I remember the conjestion and frantic pace and realize how great it is being a small town hick, despite the drawbacks.
My rant for the day.
Sorry to hear your troubles. But I did find it ironic you wanted to go on a bike ride but can’t because your tire was flat on your car???
You have a bike so you must have a bike pump so you just use that.
Next time you could use your bike pump for the tire. Just had to do this on my van. Tire was at 10lbs and took it up to 33lbs of pressure with the floor pump. Takes about 250 - 300 pumps but not bad really.
That’s true. I’m probably the only resident in the area that doesn’t have one, which gives away my identity as an ex city slicker. Guess what i’m buying next week.
I thought about about trying to pump up the tire with my bicycle pump, but couldn’t find the adapter. Probably would have been as much work as the ride any ways.
I’ve been down on the farm for five years now. We just disconnected our dusk-to-dawn security light so we can sit on the patio at night and appreciate the gazillion stars in the sky. It’s beyond belief.
In five years I’ve probably logged 50,000 or more miles on my roads down here. I can’t think of a single incident I’ve had with a “local” driver (and I’m in the rural south). The incidents I have are usually with trucks coming down here for projects on the nearby lake … city folks working out this way through the week. I’m in more danger from wildlife. I’ve nearly had my clock cleaned by deer and I’ve even taken a chicken or two in the face as they flew up from a fence line. One time I started down to a creek crossing and saw wild boar in the road. I got turned around before I got too far down the hill or I’d have been in real trouble. I also learned the hard way that, if you startle a herd of goats wandering in the road, they’ll bolt for home … even if home means running directly into and over what scared them. I sometimes ride in places that are so remote, if something happened to me, the vultures would pick me clean before anyone would find me (and there’s no cell service). I LOVE it!
I just returned from a week-long trip to Louisville where I did a bit of training on the beginning part of the IM course. I’ve read what people have posted about it on here and I had the impression that traffic wouldn’t be that bad and that drivers along River Road were used to seeing cyclists out there. Well … I got passed by more cars on a 90 minute ride there than I normally see in a YEAR down here. And they may be used to seeing cyclists, but they must also be used to darned near running them down. There’s no place like home. I can do a 50 mile ride down here and count the cars that pass me on one hand. They give me plenty of room and a friendly wave.
As another poster said, you have to learn a degree of self-sufficiency to survive in a rural area. I keep a pancake compressor under the carport. It’s handy for a variety of things and it’ll inflate anything up to a tractor tire in no time.
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Pesticides. Forgot about that. I rode by a huge cotton field last week and I could hardly breathe for the chemical stench. We also have a lot of forestry and the paper companies are constantly dusting the trees from airplanes and helicopters. I may have to have a couple of holes drilled atop my LG Rocket for the horns I’ll be sprouting.
Well I live on the urban fringe of Toronto - the Town of Aurora. Where the riding starts to get good, as I like to say. Not sure how people in the city do it or enjoy it. Riding out of Toronto now takes about an hour - so that’s a two hour ride out and back having to deal with a lot of traffic and lights. I am told that many drive out of the city park their cars and then ride. To me this is a triple negative - takes up more time, kinda defeats the whole purpose of riding and finally is not green hosue gas friendly( you are turning a green activity, cycling into a dirty one!) For me it has to be ride from the door, or it’s a bit weird and wasteful.
Rode about 100K yesterday with the club and we barely put a foot down for 3 hours!
