Friday, July 27, 2018

July 27, 2018 Beaver Dam to Plymouth WI








After a great breakfast at Wayland Academy featuring French toast Ed, Auzzie Bob and I rolled off.  Wayland Academy was such a nice place. I had always wanted to be born rich so that I could have attended such a place but somehow it just never worked out.  The French toast was such a welcome change from the “egg casserole” which is the normal fair.  Every one of the caters say we are featuring our special egg casserole as though it were a new idea but in reality we have only had it 36 times in the last 36 days.

The wind had been forecast to be out of the WNW but was more out of the north and our route was a series of north and east steps.  This should have given us a quartering tail wind or a quartering head wind but was more of head wind or a side wind.  In the early morning it has been typically quite calm but today it was already 10-15 mph when we set off at 7:00 am.   This stiff breeze was coupled by lower temperatures of only 62 F.  I did not put on arm warmers and only had a jacket with me and I was kind of wishing I had dug the arm warmers out. 

The route took us down a lot of back roads which had very little traffic on it.  However you have to pay for the lack of traffic with much steeper hills and much rougher roads.  If fact I would estimate that of todays 68.4 miles 50 of those miles were heavily cross cracked.  I would also estimate that there was a cross crack every 30 feet. This gives you 8800 chunk a chunk as you bike hits the cracks.  The much trumpeted new pavement was all of 1.3 miles long.  

The hills were really steep and one of the riders was saying that his Garmin showed an incline of 24% on this one climb.    About 3 miles into the ride I realized that yesterday’s fun climbing the hills had taken their toll as I just had no strength so the only way up the hills was going to be just through grinding up them.  Nevertheless picnic did show up and ED was back at work so Bob and I continued on. 

We had the ride done and we were sitting in a diner having burgers and beer by just after 1:00 am.  Although my face feels badly wind burned and my joints ache.  Nevertheless not bad for a 68.4 mile day with a 2240 feet climb.

I found a scale in the locker room today and it looks like I have lost 14 pounds (after burgers and beers). 

Tomorrow we take the Badger across Lake Michigan.
Terry hot biker

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hard time on the hills? Joints ache? Lost 14 pounds? Terry, you're not eating enough!! Time to stop skipping dessert!! You'll have a bit of a break Saturday; the longest shortest day.

Canada Ken C.

Jurg said...

Terry
I just caught up with your last days blog entries. I love your photos and enjoy your texts!
Sound like a good week, starting with a nice rext day! (Always!?!) tail winds. Ice cream (every !?!) day. Not bad.
Thanks for your little technical lesson: If ever possible always take new spare tubes and tires with you and assure that the tubes fit the tire, ha, ha…. -> makes life definately easier, unless you prefer to creat you own «adventure tour»
Hope you have more good days
Swiss Jürg

Jim said...

Great pictures today. Amaized you lost 14 pounds with all the descriptions you give of breakfast, picnic, lunch and dinner. Drink more beer😊

Gail said...

Fourteen pounds on a French toast, brat, beer, ice cream, apple turnover, roller dogs and beer diet? Oh, and then there are those daily miles ridden, hills climbed and of course the rough roads and wind. What a recipe for weight loss, but it looks like it is working well for you. Keep riding, writing, barking and taking the great photos. Happy to follow along (and not do the heavy work).

Unknown said...

Holy crap. 14 pds. That's a lot of weight. Just shows how hard you have been working.

Unknown said...

14 pounds! Now that will make a difference to your run times. I'll be the one saying - slow down Terry.