Crossing the Illinois/Iowa state line.
Bridge over the Mississippi River in Muscatine, IA
| Day | 18 |
| Date | Tuesday July 10, 2001 |
| Distance | 76 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 12.1 mph |
| Left at | 6:30 AM |
| Arrived at | 2:40 PM |
| Overnight in | Hillcrest Resort Campground near Orion, IL |
| Latitude | 41 d 23 m 19 s N |
| Longitude | 90 d 21 m 48 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 1456 miles |
Forewarned by the forecasters that today would be as brutally hot and humid as yesterday was, I decided to start early and make it a short enough day so that I would not spend the long, hot afternoon riding. Things worked out more or less according to that plan.
The topography got a little more interesting today: there were some rolling hills which were actually a welcome relief from the monotony of the last few days. The wind was back up again, from the northwest and starting earlier in the day than usual (11:30 AM instead of 1:30 PM). There are still endless acres of corn and soybeans surrounding me (about equal quantities of both crops), but there were some farms that actually had livestock today: cows, pigs and even horses. The appearance of livestock is generally interpreted as an indication that the quality of the soil is poorer since grazing animals is not the most economical use of top quality farm land.
I managed to wear almost all the tar off my tires today only to be greeted by yet another tarmac road for the last three miles before the campground. This was at 2:30 PM on a hot, hot afternoon. The tires were quickly coated with tar, and when I hit the gravel road into the campground they picked up enough stones so that the rear wheel literally got jammed by stones caught between the tire and fender. It was a real nuisance. I hope states farther west don't have the same fondness for this miserable type of pavement.
The campground I'm staying at tonight is called a resort because of the two additional facilities it offers: a swimming pool and a golf course. The appeal of the swimming pool is obvious to anyone who was outside today, and I and a large sample of the local juvenile population took advantage of it. The golf course is a little more surprising. Naively, I would have thought that the rugged Illinois farmers would want nothing to do with an idle pastime such as golf, but even on a sweltering weekday there were a good number of them out there. I learned from a local that once the corn and soybean harvests are in, a large fraction of rural population of Illinois packs up and heads to Florida. Apparently they see no need to remain through the brutal midwestern winter while the fields lie idle anyway. So I suppose they want to keep their game sharp until they hit the links in Orlando this winter. Perhaps they are not as rugged as they look.
The campground also has a registry for long distance cyclists, and I found the eastbounders (Idaho to Ohio) that I encountered yesterday had stayed here three days ago. Now I have names that I can put on the caption to the photograph I took of them: Steve and Jake Hill riding from Montpelier, ID to Ohio.
| Day | 19 |
| Date | Wednesday July 11, 2001 |
| Distance | 106 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 14.4 mph |
| Left at | 8:20 AM |
| Arrived at | 5:15 PM |
| Overnight in | Sunset Motel, Wyoming, IA |
| Latitude | 42 d 3 m 31 s N |
| Longitude | 91 d 0 m 54 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 1562 miles |
It was a late start today, for no particularly good reason. The weather was a good deal cooler, as promised by the forecasts, so I had no trouble riding right through the long afternoon. At the start of the day, I rode south out of Orion a couple of miles before turning west, and then I experienced a most remarkable thing. I looked up at the trees beside the road and I could see the bottoms of the leaves. "Good Lord Almighty", I thought, "a tailwind." Sure enough, the wind had changed from southwest (the prevailing pattern in these parts) to due east. Naturally, this change came on the day that my route would turn from due west to due north, so that after the first 35 miles the tailwind became a crosswind in accordance with the Principle of Maximum Perversity. But it was good while it lasted, and I even visited my big chainring for the first time in three states.
I made my big right turn from due west to due north in Muscatine, Iowa, where I crossed both the Mississippi River and the Iowa border. I managed to get a photo of the sign, although it was pretty overgrown so I suspect it will be hard to see the bicycle leaning against it. Muscatine is quite a beautiful riverside town; I had lunch there and then moved on. I was told by the waitress that the RAGBRAI ("Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa" -- a huge event that draws thousands of cyclists annually) is finishing in Muscatine this year.
Crossing the Illinois/Iowa state line.
Bridge over the Mississippi River in Muscatine, IA
I'm running due north now, short-cutting the long meander east that the Mississippi River makes on the Iowa-Illinois border. I'll rejoin it again just short of the Minnesota border at Marquette, IA. So far, Iowa has been all rolling hills, a welcome change from the flat country in Indiana and Illinois, although perhaps it gets tired after a couple hundred miles, too. Strangely enough, these hills seem to be theraputic for the knees; at least, I managed a hundred miles of them without more than the occassional twinge.
I would like to comment on the preposterous notion that the difficulty of a bicycle ride can be measured in miles. Certainly, all things being equal, long distances are harder than short ones, but all things never are equal. Distance is only one of many parameters that affect how hard a ride will be. What direction was the wind? Did you ride round trip or one way? How much climbing? What was the temperature? Did it rain? Did you ride alone or draft in a group? Was the bicycle loaded or light? Were there any mechanical failures? "105 miles" doesn't answer any of these questions, but they are all very important if you want to know how difficult the ride was. Today's 105 miles were considerably easier than yesterday's 76, because the wind was favorable, the temperature was cooler and the hills entertaining without being demanding.
I ran into two eastbounders today, just north of Bennett, IA. Another father and son team, Vince and Vince Suich were riding from Seattle supported by mother Suich driving the sag wagon behind. Vince the younger, a man in his twenties, was riding an upright well in advance of his father, but because it was unloaded I didn't try to stop and talk to him. Vince the elder was riding a recumbant, and he stopped me. He told me his machine sufferred from the same problem all recumbant bicycles have: it doesn't climb worth a damn. He also told me that they had passed a group of five westbounders in Dyersville, IA yesterday. That puts them about 140 miles ahead of me, or about two days. I don't think I can close that gap before Minneapolis, where I am going to layover for a couple of days.
Vince Suich the elder astride his recumbent machine.
I'm hoping to get to Minneapolis on Sunday. My hosts in Minneapolis are the parents of a good friend and coworker, Andrew Howard. Strangely enough, it appears that Andrew will be in Minneapolis not long after I arrive. This has tempted me to violate one of the cardinal rules of long-distance touring: never take off more than one day at a time. If things go according to plan, I will arrive in Minneapolis on Sunday and Andrew on Tuesday early in the afternoon. I would really like to see him, but I don't know how long I will want to linger in Minneapolis with westbounders in sight ahead of me.
I'm in a motel tonight which is just about the only place to stay for 25 miles on either side. It's a small town motel with a sort of faded modernity to it: it must have seemed very modern about forty years ago. For example, the telephone is a great, heavy black thing with a single button and a note which says "to call lift receiver push button". (I wonder when they had to add that note. There was undoubtably a time when this was standard equipment for motels.) If you lift the handset, you don't get a dial tone. I suspect the entire motel shares a single line that is manually switched at the front desk. The owners are a man and wife team who have run the motel since it was built and, sadly, are selling out to retire to a mobile home near Cedar Rapids. I only hope that new owners have some respect for the place.
Sunset on the Sunset Motel.
| Day | 20 |
| Date | Thursday July 12, 2001 |
| Distance | 75 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 13.6 mph |
| Left at | 8:20 AM |
| Arrived at | 4:45 PM |
| Overnight in | Elkader City Park Campground, Elkader, IA |
| Latitude | 42 d 50 m 55 s N |
| Longitude | 91 d 23 m 45 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 1637 miles |
It was a late start again today, again for no particularly good reason. The weather was good, wind from the east again now that it doesn't do me any good. I made a long stop in Dyersville to visit the National Farm Toy Museum. When I saw the sign from the road, I couldn't resist, but I had no idea that it would be as elaborate a museum as it turned out to be. It seems that there are no less than three major manufacturers of farm toys (toy tractors, model barns, etc) located in Dyersville. The biggest one is Ertl, which has been making toy tractors in Dyersville since the 40s. The museum has a huge collection of model tractors of every sort on display.
My campground tonight is in the city park in Elkader. It is an incredibly popular one; I don't think there is a vacant site. It's right on state road 13, which carries a relatively large amount of traffic. The combination is pretty noisy.
Elkader itself is a charming "Main Street USA" sort of town on the Turkey River, which is a popular trout stream. My neighbor in the next campsite gave me a couple of filets that were a nice complement to my otherwise bland (and not too filling) pasta supper. He'll be up even earlier than me to hit the streams again tomorrow.
I encountered another eastbounder today, about five miles south of Elkader, IA. Matt Allen is riding from Huntington Beach, CA to Bangor, ME to raise money for breast cancer research (see http://www.rideforcancer.com/). He's on a recumbant, pulling a BOB ("Beast Of Burden") trailer behind, and having problems with his chain that are forcing him on to the next town with a bike shop, Dyersville.
Matt Allen astride his recumbent machine just east of Elkader, IA.
The county roads in Iowa are surprisingly well made. One I rode today, named "X3C" in Clayton County, was well graded and paved with concrete (as opposed to asphalt or macadam). The concrete was a bit broken up at the south end, but farther north it was essentially flawless. This policy of using concrete for paving county (and some state) roads seems to be common in Iowa.
Elkader, IA with its old stone bridge.
| Day | 21 |
| Date | Friday July 13, 2001 |
| Distance | 95 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 12.9 mph |
| Left at | 7:30 AM |
| Arrived at | 5:30 PM |
| Overnight in | Ranch Motel, La Crescent, MN |
| Latitude | 43 d 49 m 36 s N |
| Longitude | 91 d 18 m 10 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 1732 miles |
A fairly uneventful ride today. I got a reasonably early start, the temperature was moderate, and the wind was against me. I encountered an eastbounder north of Elkader on State Road 13. Michael Murphy is an Irishman who lives in Boston (Dorchester, actually) who flew to Anacortes, WA and rode east. He's headed for Bangor, ME, the end of the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route.
Eastbounder Michael Murphy.
I rejoined the Mississippi River in Marquette, IA and crossed the border into Minnesota at New Albin. Yes, I got my photo; very nice sign marking the Minnesota border on state road 26.
Crossing the Iowa/Minnesota state line.
I had a bizarre conversation with a local in New Albin, IA. It started the usual way with the standard questions: how far are you going? how far have you come? how long has it taken? what kind of work do you do that let's you take that much time off? Generally, I don't tell casual acquaintances like this that I am a graduate student in physics at Harvard, because after telling them that I am riding a bicycle from Boston to Seattle, this makes one too many unbelievable answers and I fear would make my interrogator suspect that I have been bullshitting all along. So my standard answer is that I am "a computer programmer between jobs", which is approximately true (I was once a programmer, and I undoubtably will be again) and if I ran into another computer programmer I would be able to talk a pretty good fight. This guy in New Albin wasn't a programmer, but he did want a website, and he starts asking me a lot of questions about how he should set up his website and his email. I had half a notion to say something like, "hey, I'm on vacation, and if I wasn't, I get paid a lot to answer questions like that", but instead I got dragged into a long discussion which he tooks notes on throughout. Arrgh. Everywhere I go, I am the Computer Guy.
| Day | 22 |
| Date | Saturday July 14, 2001 |
| Distance | 75 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 14.0 mph |
| Left at | 6:30 AM |
| Arrived at | 3:30 PM |
| Overnight in | Hok-Si-La City Park, Lake City, MN |
| Latitude | 44 d 28 m 25 s N |
| Longitude | 92 d 17 m 29 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 1806 miles |
I got an early start today simply because I woke up early and had nothing better to do than ride the bicycle. I was about 10 miles out of La Crescent when I saw signs for a "bicycle campground" in the Great River Bluffs State Park. Imagine that: a campground exclusively devoted to bicyclists. In all the years I've been touring, I've never seen another. Even more remarkable, this campground is not shown on the Adventure Cycling map. I will send them a little nastygram about that.
Like all Adventure Cycling routes, the route along the Mississippi River in Minnesota strives to avoid traffic at any expense: additional mileage and redundant grade included. There is a rapid gain in elevation as you leave the Mississippi River going west into Minnesota, and the only reasonable thing to do if you want to go from one point on the river to another point on the river is to follow the river. Water has this way of always finding the lowest, levellest path. Between La Cresent (where I stayed last night) and Lake City (where I am staying tonight), this means US Route 61 which, along with the Canadian Pacific Railway's Soo Line, hugs the western edge of the river. Adventure Cycling was forced to take Route 61 in some places, but they leave it at every opportunity. Every time they do, they force the cyclist to climb between 300 and 500 feet of elevation only to return to the level of the river a few miles later. That is a textbook example of redundant grade.
There are reasons to avoid Route 61: it has a 65 mph speed limit and heavy truck traffic. On the other hand, there is a wide paved shoulder and if you're going to have to ride it anyway, why go to all the trouble of doing all that climbing just to avoid a couple of miles of Route 61? Anyway, I saw a lot of local cyclists riding on it, so it must be a common thing to do.
The one tricky bit is just a mile west of La Cresent where Route 61 joins Interstate 90 for about four miles. As I discovered this morning, it turns out that the state of Minnesota is on your side. Just at the point where you are about to pass the "Freeway Entrance" sign there is another sign that says "Bike Route" and puts you onto a two mile long path from the interchange to Dresbach, where another "Bike Route" sign guides you onto Winona County road 11 for the remaining two miles before Route 61 leaves the interstate in Dakota.
Not far at all after I had rejoined Route 61 north of Dakota I saw the signs for the bicycle campground. Had I known that only ten miles lay between me and this campground when I arrived in La Crescent last night, I surely would have stayed there instead of in a motel. But Adventure Cycling only shows one campground in the Great River Bluffs State Park, which is accessed by climbing 500 feet on a county road and then travelling 3 miles on gravel. I couldn't see facing that at the end of a 95 mile day so I took a motel.
I hailed another eastbounder today. Justin Kristan is riding from Stillwater, MN to Bar Harbor, ME along the Nothern Tier Route. I encoutered him west of Winona on Route 61; he was on his third day out from Stillwater. That means he's averaging something like 50 miles per day, which is about typical for tourists. He plans to continue from Bar Harbor and do a complete perimeter tour in one year, and he has a website: readingaroundamerica.com. He was riding on 32 spoke wheels, which is really daring even considering that most of his load was on a BOB trailer.
Eastbounder Justan Kristan with my rig in the background.
Not far west of Weaver, MN, I saw a group of recreational cyclists who were dropping onto Route 61 from county road 14. They were a good way ahead of me, so I had to open the throttle a bit to catch them, running a 104 pound bicycle at 18-20 mph for about four miles before I did. I'm glad I did catch them, they turned out to be a pretty interesting group. They meet every Saturday morning at 8:00 AM at a coffee shop ("Eagles Nest Cafe") in Wabasha and ride until noon. Then they do the RAGBRAI every year as a team and have converted an old school bus to be their team support vehicle. I rode with them into Wabasha and had a coffee and muffin at the Eagles Nest, where there were photos on display of previous years' RAGBRAI events.
From there, it was an easy 20 mile cruise up to Lake City. Lake City has two campgrounds, Lake Pepin and Hok-Si-La, although why a cyclist would even consider staying at the former I can't fathom. It's right on highway 61 on the opposite side from the lake, has no detectable shade, and is full of RVs. Hok-Si-La, on the other hand, is set way back from the road, has a beach right on Lake Pepin (actually not a lake, just a wide part of the Mississippi River), only allows tent camping, and prohibits cars in the campground (they have to remain in a parking lot at the entrance). The park used to be a Boy Scout Camp, and the name "Hok-Si-La" is an Indian word meaning "gathering place of immature, homophobic, white males", or so I am informed by the woman at the office.
| Day | 23 |
| Date | Sunday July 15, 2001 |
| Distance | 80 miles |
| Moving Average Speed | 13.9 mph |
| Left at | 9:30 AM |
| Arrived at | 6:02 PM |
| Overnight in | Howard family home, St. Louis Park, MN (near Minneapolis) |
| Latitude | 44 d 55 m 53 s N |
| Longitude | 93 d 21 m 13 s W |
| Cumulative Distance | 1886 miles |
Today was a day of more or less bizarre coincidences. The hostess for my layover in Minneapolis, Julie Howard (my coworker Andrew Howard's mother) was going to spend most of today at a family reunion in Frontenac, MN, just a couple of miles down the road from where I spent last night in Lake City. Julie grew up in Lake City, and the family used to hold reunions at the park where I camped last night. So why should I have been surprised when a car pulled over in front of me on Route 61 north of Red Wing, MN and Jim Howard (Julie's brother) shouts out the driver's side window "Are you Chip?". Julie was sitting next to him in the pasenger seat, so he must have been on the lookout for loaded touring bicycles moving in the opposite direction.
My ride into Minneapolis was not entirely a pleasant one. I cannot really recommend Route 61 north of Red Wing for cycling, although there was a wide shoulder. I thought I could cut a corner and shave a few miles off the trip from Red Wing to Hastings by taking State Road 316. This turned out to be a serious error as most of the traffic on Route 61 thought exactly the same thing and State Road 316 lacks the shoulder that US Route 61 has. At any rate, by the time I reached Hastings I had decided that I would have to rethink my strategy for getting into Minneapolis.
I had the good luck to run into a man who worked for Dakota County and initimately knew the conditions of all the roads therein in addition to being something of an avid cyclist himself. He gave me good advice on getting across the Mississippi River without getting killed, and suggested that I try a local bike shop to see if I could buy a map of the bicycle trail system in Minneapolis. That store turned out to be a waste of time (except that I could fill my bottles there) as there is nobody working in a bike shop on a summer Sunday afternoon except a bunch of pimply-faced teenagers hired temporarily to cover the summer crush. I think they probably all knew how to ride a bicycle, but they certainly had never tried anything so adventurous as riding one to Minneapolis, scarcely 40 miles away.
As luck would have it, as soon as I crossed the river I joined the trail system, and some local cyclists promised to lead me as far as Lake Street, and from that point I pretty much knew how to get to St Louis Park. Unfortunately, the trail system has some places where you must portage your bicycle up and down a couple of flights of stairs. Every try that with a 100 pound loaded touring bike? There was a track on the side of the stairs where you were supposed to be able to roll your bike ... going down my tires slid down the track as I held the brakes and going up I had to push hard to get up a 71% grade!
Then I was faced with the seemingly endless series of traffic lights (practically one every block) between the Mississippi River and St Louis Park. Winding up a loaded touring bike just to come to a stop a block later and do it all over again gets tired pretty quickly. Just before I made the turn from Lake to Excelsior, who should pass me but Julie Howard on her way home. We had agreed to meet there "around 6", and amazingly enough it was 6:02 PM when I rolled onto her driveway.
Now for two much needed layover days. The chain on the Bob Jackson has 1886 miles on it and should probably be replaced before it takes out the freewheel. The tread on the rear tire is starting to look a little bald, so if I can get another one just like it (Panaracer Pasela Compe, 700X35C for you bike nerds on the list) I will replace it. I haven't had a flat tire yet, so I'm really pleased with this make of tire.
I've now crossed seven states (Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa) and have only five left to go (Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington), but the geography of the west is on an entirely larger scale, so as I look as my odometer (1886 miles down) and my maps (2045 to go) I realize that I am not even half way there yet after three weeks and two days of hard riding. I suppose I had better rest my knees and redouble my determination because there's still a long way to go.