My biggest pre-ride challenge was trying to figure out which bike to ride. The Goodrich is dialed in, and very comfortable, but a bit heavy for fast road riding. The Atlantis is a known quantity, being my most-ridden bicycle, and my default distance-machine, with generator lighting, fenders, and do-anything 33 mm tires. But the forecast called for sun, and the 23-lb pink bike with skinny tires and no fenders seemed like an exciting choice.
Problem is that I'd only ridden Pinky about 20 miles (total), and the new Brooks B17 Narrow wasn't exactly "broken in". In contemplation of this possibility, I took Pinky for a 30-mile ride on Friday. The bike was fine, but my right knee twinged a bit toward the end of the ride. I lowered the saddle a quarter-inch, and kept my options open. Finally, Saturday afternoon found me outfitting Pinky for a really long ride, including charging batteries for the lights I'd be using.
I pre-mapped the route for this ride, and tried to spice it up by using some unfamiliar back-roads rather than busier highways. This mostly worked, and we generally enjoyed quiet country roads all the way.
Our first few miles out of Winona was up a long hill, with the midday sun beating down on us. I was starting to have some doubts about whether the back-road route was a good idea.
I knew very little about some of the roads, and it turned out, for various reasons, that some gravel roads were on the agenda:
I'm not accustomed to 25 mm tires or 100+ psi under even optimal circumstances, and initially the gravel was pretty unpleasant for me. But once I found my stride, the pink Univega handled the gravel just fine. It definitely takes more skill and conscious effort to ride skinny tires in gravel, but it is doable. Little did I know that conditions would eventually get much worse.
Being a Sunday on a holiday weekend in rural Minnesota, we didn't pass up chances to eat or fill our bottles. We simply couldn't count on finding open restaurants in the next town. Our first meal was frozen pizza in a dive in otherwise lovely Elba. Not ideal, but it was enough to carry us on to Plainview, where the group split up temporarily, some to Subway, some to DQ.
Back on the road, we pressed through the big hills on the way to Lake City. By now the group was starting to spread out. We regrouped under a shade tree after a big climb, and rested until everybody was ready to press on. More rolling hills to one of the best descents in Minnesota: CR-4 into Lake City. The pavement on the 2-mile-long grade is smooth, and the view is spectacular. I keep meaning to take a photo of some of the views, but it's hard to do at 35+ mph.
At Lake City, we ate Subway again, and voted to brave the traffic on Highway 61 to Red Wing, rather than take on more hills and gravel along the back roads. We hauled ass. During most of that stretch, my speedometer was clocked somewhere around 20 mph. We regrouped again in Red Wing before heading down the Cannon Valley Trail to Welch. By now, it was getting dark, and we were closing in on 100 miles since leaving Winona. One of our group split off to head home a bit earlier than planned. The remaining seven continued to follow my experimental route-selection. As we climbed an unfamiliar gravelly bluff road in the pitch dark, I started to think about all the bad things that could happen. What if somebody crashed? Or made a wrong turn? Or if we got chased by a mean dog? Luckily, we were soon back on pavement, and I saw some landmarks of the small outpost of Miesville. In no time, we were on the usual route to Hastings.
By the time we got to Hastings, it was past midnight, and no restaurants were open. As we were all starving, we needed food, and fast. We found a 24-hr grocery store and had a strange picnic out in the parking lot. I purchased: a 6-pack of 3-day old custard-filled long johns, a bottle of chocolate milk, and a pack of smoked string cheese. Others bought ham, water, fruit, etc. We camped out on the concrete and had a potluck. More than one of us remarked that the concrete seemed like a good place for a nap.
From Hastings, exhaustion set in, and things got weird. I pointed out something of interest to one of my companions, but he didn't seem to register what I was telling him. Finally, after the fourth time I told him what I'd said, he replied in a dreamy voice, "that's nice." He was mentally asleep, but still pedaling as well as ever. We stopped on the shoulder of the road to regroup, and a couple of my companions fell asleep in the gravel. To liven things up, we discussed the finer points of trimming our ass hair, and pressed on.
In Eagan, we turned onto a road that on the map looked like a nice little shortcut. One of the other guys warned that it was gravel, but he shot ahead anyway as he said, "but it's short." It turned out to be a difficult place to ride. It was a mix of loose gravel and sinusoidal washboard bumps of maybe 3-inch amplitude. It was thoroughly unpleasant and seemed to go on for a long time. Finally we were back on the paved road. My memories after that are a blur, but we seemed to quickly arrive back at HC (around 3:30 AM), and we scattered to our respective homes, etc.
In the end, the mileage consensus was about 145 miles, including riding to the train station at 6 AM. It was a long, sometimes challenging ride, but the company and weather were great.
It was my sixth century of the year. I've done centuries this year on three different bikes. Pinky is a great bike. I was comfortable all day, and the new Brooks saddle turned out to be a non-issue. Before the ride, I was considering selling the pink bike because I'm not a road bike type, but now I think I'll keep it in the stable for rides like this.
9 comments:
Sixth Century for the year??!! I enjoyed reading about this one. You and your posse are an adventurous sort and have certainly inspired me to strike out and expand my horizon beyond the typical loop!
how was traveling amtrak? Were you required to use a box or could roll and ride? Using a box is my biggest deterrent for doing a trip like this.
Nice work and it sounded like fun.
Devin
I have always enjoyed traveling Amtrak.
We had to use boxes, but it really isn't a big deal. The boxes are big enough that you don't need to disassemble the bike. Just take off the pedals and turn the bars sideways. The cost for a new box is $15, but this time they had some used boxes that were free. There's a $5 fee for checking the box.
I should add that most of us rode our bicycles to the train station. If you're going to do it, I recommend getting there 60-90 minutes early, and bring your own tape. Some of the Amtrak employees get stressed out by people rolling up and boxing the bike on the spot, and several have suggested that we box and drop off the bikes even the day before! Nonetheless, it's easy to travel by train with bike.
Oh yeah, just make sure where you're going has luggage service. Not every stop has that feature. You can't check a bike on a trip to Red Wing, for instance.
Yes, that shortcut in Eagan was a bitch. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I'll blame my no-turn-back-no-matter-the-danger gene. It'll get me in trouble one day.
I think you should explain the difference between HC Centuries or whatever you called them and actual 100 mile centuries.
If people can define their own centuries as they say fit I will hereby declare the Daydreamnation Century to be 100 blocks, in which case I'm riding almost a half century just getting to work and back!
In fact, last weekend I think I rode at least a quadruple Daydreamnation Century, and in less than 3 hours!
I am a square-dealer, and when I say "century", I mean it!
Jim -
To avoid the hassle of the train, pool the money and pay someone to give you a ride to Winona. Also, weren't you nervous riding in the dark while under extreme stress from exhaustion/fatigue/thirst/etc?
Anon: If I wanted to avoid the train, I could do any number of 145-mile loops from home, without having to get a ride from anybody.
I don't see the train as a hassle, but as part of the reason to do this ride.
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