July 24, 2018 Pepin to Sparta

Today was the longest and had the most climb of any day this week.  It was a total of 91.5 miles and had a climb of 2410 feet.  The hard part of the day was all at the back end when you are tired and the temperature is highest. 

I got out of breakfast in good time and was rolling by 6:50 am.  The route took us in a SE direction along the Mississippi River, for the first 46.8 miles down to picnic.  It was along a kind of busy road with a variable shoulder. Some good sections, some bad sections.  We had been promises a wind out of the NW giving us a tail wind but it had not shown up.  The scenery was few pretty with great views of the river. 

At the 15 mile mark I entered the town of Alma, and as I did a BNSF train of oil cars entered the town from the other direction.  The train was just flying at 40-50 mph (my guess).  So the river is on the south, then the tracks, then the road and finally main street Alma.  I am within 10 feet of the rail cars going the opposite direction.  The wind from the train cars was horrendous.  I would have loved to taken a picture but I didn’t dare stop or take a hand off the handle bars.  I could just see one of them jumping off the tracks. To say it was scary would be a total understatement.    

The wind showed up at about the 35 mile mark and I sailed into Picnic.  Spicy Thai noodle salad for lunch, with a lot of fresh fruit made it a great picnic. 

After lunch I hooked up with Auzzie Bob and we rode along enjoying the tail wind.  There were a bunch of lefts and rights down some busy and not so busy roads.   I think we were averaging around 17 mph. 

After the last water stop which was 15 miles out we had three large hills to climb.  In fact 75% of the daily climb was in the last 10 miles.  The first was really only about 0.3 miles but it was pretty steep.  The second even steeper and about 0.5 miles and the last one was the steepest of the lot.  I got about a third of the way up before I had to walk.  My legs were just rubber. 

In town we found camp and then went downtown and had a milk shake at Ginny’s Cupboard.  It is an old fashioned place where food is made by hand using real ingredients.  Three big scoops of ice cream into a stainless steel cup and then on to the green multi head Hamilton Beach milkshake machine. Wow was it very great.

Great day with a great tail wind and with a great ending.

Terry hot biker