Country roads like this are not unique to America, but they are a primitive art form in our country, especially to those who run and ride.

By Christopher Cudworth

Friday afternoon on the bike I did not want to take any of my traditional routes. So I wound my way up the spine of Kane County and came to a country road that looked much like the one pictured above. (That is in Iowa, by the way.)

The road was dirt. Gravel covered dirt. Recently softened by rain and smoothed over by a road grader. So there were hardened tracks in the road surface, but also deep pockets of soft, sandy material.

My road bike was twitchy on the country road. I knew it would be. Usually there is a washboard pattern in the road I rode last Friday. On a road bike that means a butt-shaking, teeth-chattering ride that makes you grateful when you reach the asphalt again.

But that’s the point of riding or running a country road. “Got to get back to the land…set my soul free…” (to quote CSN.)

It takes a bit more pressure on the pedals and a firmer grip on the handlebars to ride a good, dirty country road. That’s true whether you’re on a road bike or a mountain bike. Fat tires are no guarantee that you won’t hit the dirt on a country road. All it takes is hitting the edge of a tire groove a little too fast and suddenly you’re in Swerveville.

It keeps you honest, in other words.

I’ve ridden and run the country road in the picture above probably 100 times in my career. It sits about 3 miles into a key loop that we often trained on in college. That road never looked the same way twice. The surface was always changing due to weather, precipitation and farm traffic. It led from a heavily trafficked Highway 52 north of Decorah, Iowa into the valley of the Upper Oneota River, a national wild and scenic river, ringed by 75-foot limestone chimney bluffs and thick stands of dark cedar.

The area around Decorah is full of such country roads. Cyclists on mountain bikes and cyclocross bikes ride them all winter, cruising down the snow-packed surfaces at risk of biting it at any moment. The distance runners from Luther College also do their miles on these country roads, which provide pretty good training conditions year round.

I’ve lived in the city and know how thrilling it can be to train among the skyscrapers along Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I’ve run in San Antonio, trotting down the Riverwalk at 6:00 to meet up with other runners staying out of the sun. I’ve cycled and run through Madison, Wisconsin, and raced the streets of Miami in January with thousands of other runners.

But for sheer benefit I’ll take a country road like the one above any day, with the sun just hitting the ridge tops and the air still cooled by the night in the valleys and canyons on either side.

There is a fine art to country roads because they are always changing, like great art always does.

Think about the art of what you do next time you run or ride down a country road. It’s worth capturing in that camera in your mind.