Driftless Randonneur Tales: Breaking out of a funk

As I said previously, I've been in a bit of a funk of late. In pondering why, I came to the conclusion that I posted earlier: boredom.

OK, I freely admit I've got a lower threshold of boredom than many (most?) other people. I have friends that ride 10K miles a year on the same roads, over and over. I just can't do it. It feels to me like I'm on a 40 mile long treadmill.

Most years, this isn't a problem. The year generally breaks down to: three months in Texas, my brevet series with various national and international brevets spread throughout the year. As a consequence, I'm typically only riding at home 3-6 weeks at a time and the rest of the time I'm doing something else, somewhere else.

In thinking about it further, I concluded that:

The majority of my rides are 40 miles or less.
They all start either at my front door (solo riding) or a few miles away (the brevets I host).

As a consequence, I see the same 10-15 miles of road a lot. There are only so many ways in and out of the Big City so regardless of whether I ride a loop or out and back I'm still on the same roads for at least 20-30 miles of every ride.

It gets old fast. At least it does for me.

So with that in mind, what is a Coronavirus restricted cyclist to do?

I decided that I would periodically throw the bike in the car and start my ride from somewhere else.

My first foray at this was yesterday. I drove down to Blue River which is about 15 miles away and then did a portion of my Fennimore 200K from Blue River to Fennimore with a different route that took me back to Blue River. Just under 50 miles total.

The day was hot (near 90) and windy and, being a loop route, the piper is gonna get paid somewhere and I paid him. There were lots of places where I was sailing with the wind and lots where I was grinding hard to go 8 MPH on level ground.

I also did something else that I never do: stopped and took pictures. I generally hate stopping. On brevets, I never stop unless I have a mechanical (rare) or am at a control (or need a bio break). Stopping to take pictures just doesn't happen. For years, I carried a very nice, small, waterproof point and shoot camera. I never used it. I did all of LEL with it in my jersey pocket. Didn't take a single picture.

So part of the "do things differently" ethos I'm trying to adopt is to stop and take pictures, or even turn around (!), when I see something worth a photo.

So here are the results. Hope you enjoy the photos. And yes, the ride did help me break out of the funk so I'm going to do it again.

Between Blue River and Boscobel

The self-proclaimed "Turkey Capitol of the Midwest". When turkeys were introduced into Wisconsin, the state biologist at the time said they'd never survive the winters. There are tens of thousands of them.