Me and Chuck

"Rainwater blowing up under my hood,
I knew that was doing my motor good."
Maybelline by Chuck Berry

With the first two days of the tour ridden in early-July heat, it was a relief to start out in the coolness of this July 5th morning in Lanesboro, Minnesota. Early in the ride, Chuck Berry's rendition of Maybelline was wandering around in my head - (where it had a lot of room to roam. Possibly because it was RAINING. So, while I couldn't see so well with the water collecting on my glasses, I was comfortable as the rainwater did, in fact, do my motor good.

The weather also played a role in another aspect of the ride. I was following the popular Root River Trail yet, after passing two groups just out of Lanesboro, I saw only two lone riders on the remainder of the ride to Houston. The one in Minnesota.

It is quite a nice ride on the flat, paved trail that follows southwestern Minnesota's Root River, mostly tree-line with an occasional break showing the river of looking out over fields of corn or hay. Early as it was, I was looking forward to peddling into Whalan to visit the Aroma Pie Shop, the self-proclaimed home of "World Famous Pies." Closed. Oh well, a bit more riding and I'd be in Rushford where I could check out The Creamery where I was told I would find some mighty fine ice cream. Closed. I'm going to have to have a long talk with my router about proper scheduling.

A few miles out of Houston, it looked like the trail just suddenly ended in the woods. It did not take much longer to realize that I was looking at the main part of a large tree now resting across the trail. With absolutely no way over it, I had to take myself and bike around what had once been the top of the tree. As I pushed through the weedy undergrowth I began to sense a tingling sensation in my legs. Stinging nettles! Years ago we were in France with our daughter (four at the time) when she walked through a patch of nettles and shortly thereafter told us, "My legs are all sparkly." As good a description as I've ever heard for what I was experiencing.

By the time I got back up to the trail I was itching like mad. I rode on for a minute or two until I found a puddle in the road and washed my legs as best I could. That and the passage of a bit of time took care of the issue and I continued on without the sparkly.

The rain would abate from time to time and I took advantage of those times to take a few pictures and wipe off my glasses - I had the presence of mind to pack away a few paper towels in a plastic bag for just this purpose. The trail ends at Houston where I stopped at a coffee shop and enjoyed a brief respite. The ride from Houston to the Mississippi carried me along very scenic roads which were, as was the trail, mostly flat. Shirley went by in the car when I was about 15 miles from La Crosse. We had discussed signaling so when she passed, I waved and she kept going. Had I raised my fist in the air, she would have stopped. I think. But I wasn't going to run the experiment.

I rolled into La Crosse, stopped at the Subway near my house to pick up lunch and finished the tour a few minutes later. And, speaking of Subway, did you know that a 6" sub fits just perfectly in the rear pocket of a cycling jersey?

And there you have it. A semi-supported tour in which I rode 224 miles with 6,875 feet of climbing (only 943 feet on this last day). An enjoyable weekend that re-enforced the view that this area is a great place for cycling.

60.4 miles
943 feet of climbing

Merrily We Roll Along...

Not. A. Clue. Roads that I've not only not ridden, I'd never driven the roads on my route today either. And that's what made it so exciting, just like a REAL tour. The first potential challenge was crossing the bridge across the Father of Waters, an appellation applied to the Nile and Irrawaddy rivers as well as to our own Mississippi. It was a challenge not realized, though, as light traffic and a wide shoulder presented no difficulties at all.

After looping through Marquette, Iowa, the road rolled at the base of a rock face with trees on both sides providing shade and thinning out occasionally for a glimpse of the river on my right. It was still windy and the wind was out of the south which suited me just fine - I was going north today! The route took me around Effigy Mounds National Monument then turned west and up. I didn't know it at the time, but I had already seen the last stretch road with any shade on it and I still had over 60 miles to go.

It was a long pull west with the cross wind not helping so much. Still, I knew at Decorah I'd turn north for the a 40 mile run with the wind. When I entered Decorah, I stopped and called Shirley to find she was only a few miles behind. We had lunch in a small café where we waited for about an hour - something the waitress told us to expect (a big crowd had just ordered) and something I was not too upset about. It was considerably warmer and the break, I reasoned, would do me good.

Turning north around Decorah I encountered two long hills - not big enough to be climbs, but just a little too much to be called rollers. My opinion at the time, at least. My thoughts ran along the lines of "if this keeps up I'm dead!" But the track turned to gently rolling and I had the wind at my back. This, it turns out, did have a downside as it was blowing at about the same speed I was riding meaning there was almost no breeze helping to cool me down. Did I mention it was getting warmer and that there was NO SHADE ANYWHERE?

A good ways out of Decorah and a good ways to go before Lanesboro, a Cenex station emerged like an oasis in the desert. My only shot at filling the water bottles. And getting a very large ice cream sandwich. I finally crossed the Minnesota sate line and after a 3 mile westward ride to Canton, turned north for the final run in to Lanesboro. Just out of Canton, I could look out on the road ahead and take in a long-range view: a series of ever higher rolling hills going as far as I could see - the last one at the horizon looking more or less vertical. Sheesh! And, there was NO SHADE ANYWHERE. Well, at that last hill, I did find about 10 square feet of shaded grass and sat there a few minutes just for the unusualness of it. A few miles later and I was rewarded for all of the ups and downs (each up more up than the last up) with a long descent through a series of big sweeping curves down to the Root River and Lanesboro. Shirley was out for a walk and waved me in to the Stone Mill Suites. Just as in the old west, I had to take care of my mount first and Stone Mill has a convenient storage room behind the main building. The bike safely put away, I could now look forward to a shower and, tomorrow, a day off in scenic Lanesboro!

This was so much fun. Even though there was NO SHADE ANYWHERE.

84.2 miles
3420 feet of climbing

Pictures from day 2 of the tour






A Lot Better Than Uff Da Drive:




Big Rollers North of Decorah:


On the Prairie for Sure:


Never Ending Rollers:




Inn at Last:

Bridge Out

There certainly was nothing to complain about when I left home at around 7:00 a.m. to start the SPOTUM Tour. Right away I can tell you are smitten by the catchy name; sort of rolls off the tongue, so to speak. SPOTUM stands for, of course, Small Part Of The Upper Midwest and should never be confused with sputum. Anyway, after a short stop at the local Kwik Trip, I headed south. That is to mean "I rode in a direction more or less opposite of north" as opposed to "things started to go bad." Sorry. Another digression.

Blue sky and deep green wooded hills in the early morning light made it about as good as it gets around here. Ten miles in I made my first climb. County O eventually turned abruptly east, dumping me off on County K which I rode down into the river town of Genoa, declaring it self, quite proudly I think, as being on America's Original West Coast. It was not a whole lat* further when I turned off of the highway again, this time to climb up above Victory. Right from the start, this was not looking too good. As soon as I turned off I went by a signs declaring Road Closed and Bridge Out. I decided to ride on anyway (it was only 0.8 miles to said out bridge) to see if it would be possible to get my bike across, but that was not to be.

* lat; that's either a misspelling of "lot" or a reversion to writing "Southern," as in, "that's a whole lat o' collard greens you put in my bowl." I'm not so sure which myslef.

Riding along the river was certainly not a penalty although the wind was picking up. Say, did I mention the wind? Well, it was out of the south and already brisk when I left home. And it only increased in intensity as the day wore on. It was a factor, to be sure. Lunch was in the small town of Ferryville where a sign on the gas station/convenience store I stopped at declared "Ice Cream is Back." I had no idea it had gone anywhere. Perhaps it was out with the bridge? I was, nonetheless, glad at this happy turn of events. Not far from Ferryville I turned towards the hills again, eventually climbing County UU up to Mt. Sterling before battling the wind to get through Seneca then down again to the river at Lynxville.

By now it was what you might call "very warm." You might add "very windy." And you might call it a few other things which I won't mention. Furthermore, it was obvious that while the railroad had invested heavily in laying out a very flat roadbed, the highway department had not. The road started to increasingly undulate. Not that the ups were like climbs or anything, but combine them with the heat and wind and I was beginning to appreciate the bridge that fell into the creek at Victory. Not taking that loop saved me about 5 miles and 600 to 700 feet of climbing. And then I had a flat, maybe five miles from Prairie du Chien, courtesy of a small piece of wire that was certainly just a bit of the blown-tire detritus that litters the shoulder. It was a quick fix, but I was now ready for Prairie du Chien and the Country Inn and Suites Hotel. I wasn't up and running but a couple of minutes when Shirley drove by and waved. As I waved back, I realized we hadn't discussed the difference between waving, which means "Hi; things are good; I'll see you later," and raising a clenched fist in the air, meaning "Please stop because if you don’t stop, I might just cash it in right here." We did get that straightened out, by the way. It was a long five miles.

We ate an early, light post-ride (for me) meal at the hotel then went to a movie in town - Knight and Day. Afterwards it was a late, light meal to end the day.

79.5 miles
2,812 of climbing

Along the river and above Stoddard on County Roads O and K:




My favorite road sign:


Genoa to Ferryville:






Genoa to Prairie du Chien:


My sentiments exactly