Happy America Day at Citico

AKA Welcome to Citico Creek

Took advantage of the Forth of July holiday to go and explore some more roads down in Citico Creek. I've been wanting to try out Buck Highway since the last time I rode down here since I was told that Buck Highway was another good option to ride. I did some research on the Strava Heat Map to get an idea for connections to Indian Boundary, created a .gpx file and my route was ready in a few minutes (technology is pretty neat).

 Buck Highway starts off with a BANG.  It's really nicely paved and smooth, but it greets you with a pretty stout grade right off the bat (like 20% or something), kinda make you question why you left the nice river grade warm up far below.  Once you get up the ridge, and past the numerous religious retreats that really want to make their message known, you get rewarded with a meandering road that winds up and down through numerous hollers.

One of many old barns 

Rad old truck

A few miles down the road, you drop into Chestnut Valley. The hills spread out and you become  immersed into forgotten rural farm country. Plenty of sights to see, large open fields, old barns and farm houses, an awesome old truck, a bunch of hunting dogs (all chained up, lucky me) The roads vary from asphalt, to bad asphalt, to almost not asphalt to gravel...a fun mix for multi-terrain bikes. Some steep hills, a switch back or two to keep it fun.

America!

Turkey Creek Road

Long creek-side descent on Citico Creek Rd

Shimano hooks up gravel riders (without knowing it)

Frame bags, like the Revelate Tangle,are rad. They allow you to carry all your stuff for long days in the saddle...totally accesable while riding, centered on your frame... great bags,but, there's one problem, they get in the way of your water bottles.

58 cm Tamland and medium Tangle

Carrying stuff is pretty necessary when doing day-long gravel rides, water is pretty needed too. So, what to do?  Camelback? Sure, it works, but all the weight on your back gets kinda old (and hot). Big ol' seat bag? Okay, but not as accessible. Hmmmm,there must be a better way.

Shimano Bottle Cage Adapter, SM-BA01

Enter Shimano's DI-2.
Shimano had a problem, they made this fancy electronic shifting system but they had to find some where to attach a battery to the frame. Somewhere low and centered.  The perfect area would be just above the bottom bracket, but on smaller frames, the water bottle cages were in the way. What did they do? They produced a bottle cage adapter that allows you to shift your bottle cages up and out of the way of the battery.

Here's where it gets really handy: if you flip the cage mount upside down it allows you to lower your bottle cages...just the thing needed to make a little more room to run a frame bag and still have room to get to your bottles. Installation is simple, just screw the mount into your frame, then screw your cage onto the mount. The bolt holes are slotted, so you have some adjustment on how low you want your cage to go (anywhere from 32mm-50mm).  Also, it comes with some spacers to allow the mount to clear the front derailer. It's a simple and effective design.  A little expensive ($20), but we'll worth it, in my opinion.

Plenty of room!

Thanks Shimano, ya really solved a problem.