Proto Cima

At least twice a year I end up at the Lake of Ozarks for a meeting or simply for a vacation.  This past weekend was one of those times.  I had not been to the lake since last spring, and with the trees looking wonderful, thought this might be a good time to take a couple of days and stare at the water.  I found a nice rental with a good view of the lake at a reasonable price, and headed that way.

It did have a nice view of the main channel.  The trees were a little past peak, but very pretty. 

Normally when I go to the lake I have a meeting to attend, or family members with the desire to accomplish certain things.  My schedule gets bent around these requirements.  This time there was little to accomplish other than eat, read and take a few bicycle rides.

Each time I go to the lake I try to make it across the toll bridge to ride my bike around the high end comunities on the other side.  One of the main ones is Porto Cima.  This is not a high intensity ride.  If I work the different loops correctly I can make about an 8 mile loop with several significant hills and lots of beautiful views.

 

 

There is no traffic.  Everyone is very friendly, I suspect because they think I live there.  

 You see lots of very expensive homes. 

 But mainly you get to have a nice road almost to yourself

 Over the years I have seen quite a few houses build, but there are many more lots available.

I generally ride the loops several times, then make it out to the main road to ride around some of the other developments.  I can remember when I would ride this road before the toll bridge.  Now MM is very busy and not for the faint of heart.  Still by taking some of the side roads you can get a reasonable ride in that include some significant hills, something I do get closer to home.

In this whole trip I did not get a single BBQ meal.  My wife went with me and she had other ideas.  That just means that I need to schedule some BBQ trips in the next few weeks!

Anchor City BBQ Contest

 I have only attended a few BBQ contests.  Notably the Roots and Blues and BBQ Festival in Columbia and the Anchor City BBQ Contest.  They seem to be very popular, and I see many advertised.  The first time I attended I thought that there would be a variety of different BBQ available to try.  Turns out there are very limited BBQ options.  Lots being cooked, and the judges get to sample some excellent variations, but they are not available to the public.  Usually there are no vendors selling BBQ, and those that are not generally of very high quality.  Hard to maintain a high quality with limited heating, cooling, and serving options.

 The KC BBQ Society is the organizing entity that has decreed no selling of the contestants product.  There are a fair number of people that are walking the aisles looking at the large variety of cookers and apparatus. 

 Anchor City had 33 contestants this year, as well as a variety of other venders selling shirts and crafts.  They had a nice blues band playing while I was there. 

October in Missouri is a Great Time to Ride

It has been a great fall for riding a bicycle.  After a long hot summer we have moved into a warm fall with cool nights and dry sunny days.  My father always held to the fact that fall color was associated with cool nights, warm days and dry conditions.  I think this fall is proving him correct.

Of course I am not much of a photographer and, and it is particularly hard for me to take reasonable pictures of the fall colors that end up representing what I see with my eyes, still it brings back the colors in my minds eye.

These are the real colors of fall in my neighborhood.....the green of John Deer and the Red of Massey Ferguson....Unfortunately the long hot dry summer has not been conducive to a nice fall for the farmers. 

Long Hot Summer

It has been a long hot summer!  Not much BBQ and not many bike rides.  We did get my wife a new bike.

She has not been much of a bike rider over the years.  Her favorite bike for many years has been a late 50's early 60's single speed BF Goodrich, but even it has not been ridden in several years.  She expressed interest in riding on the KATY trail early in the summer so we rented a bike at Rocheport and took a nice ride.  We took a vacation to Colorado, and rented a bike in Glennwood Springs that was enjoyable. So when we got home I started to look for a reasonable bike that we could purchase.  We looked at the new bikes, but none really seemed to meet her needs.  Actually several would have been good bikes for her, but she expressed interest in such a wide range of bikes, I was not sure that if we picked one she would like it over time.  I decided to try the used market, and buy something that she could ride for a while and then she would be able to compare to new bikes that she tried. Ultimately I found a nice older comfort bike for a reasonable price.

She has ridden the bike almost daily, mainly around the house and up the road.  We have taken a couple of rides around Centralia, Columbia and Mexico.  We purchased a new bike seat, and changed the right shifter from a thumb shifter to a twist shifter.  She seems to like it a lot.  The previous owner had put on fairly wide tires, and they provide a very stable ride for her.

We took a couple of tours early in our relationship.  We rode a week long tour down HWY 19 through the springs and then west to Table Rock Lake.  Our honeymoon was a two week ride of the then relatively new rail-trail conversions in Wisconsin.  I am glad she is coming back to bicycling.