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Today was a return to climbing after a few blissful, even if long, days of riding flat terrain. We had roughly 6 climbs according to Ride with GPS, but Garmin had anywhere from 11 to 14 depending on who you spoke with.
We started out together from La Crosse, sad to leave our luxurious hotel and surroundings. Thankfully, we were fueled by excellent coffee and a delicious breakfast. The scrambled eggs were REAL eggs and cooked slightly soft – exactly how I like them. The bacon was crispy and thick – yum. We had fresh crusty sourdough bread for toast that was delicious even if it was too big to fit in the toaster. Finally, there was what appeared to be homemade granola and plain Greek yoghurt – again, yum!
We started out on our way and hit our first climb at mile 11. it was a decent 2-mile climb. Honestly, I can’t recall the rest throughout the day with the exception of one that caught us off guard. Well, sort of. Going by the Ride with GPS climbs – we had completed our 6 climbs. Later in the day, I was riding with Mike, Ken, and Caroline. At one point Mike noted that we may have one or two spikey climbs left and thankfully left it at that. We had been riding along enjoying relatively flat terrain as a welcome contrast from the hills of the morning when we made a left turn and all three of us gasped somewhat at the hill facing us at the end of the road. It was steep. It was steeper than we had seen on any climbs of the day and was similar to an unexpected nasty steep climb from a few days back. As we continued down the road towards the hill, I was optimistic as it didn’t look as bad the closer you got. There was, however, still a nasty steep portion towards the top. We all made our comments about what faced us. My comment was “Well, at least it’s short.”
I wasn’t wrong. It was a short climb, but it was definitely punchy, and we would feel it roughly 70 miles into a fairly challenging day of climbs earlier in the morning. All we could do was shift into our small rings and start the climb. It didn’t take long to finish the climb, but it was nasty. My heart rate tipped up over 140 for what I believe was the first time in any of our climbs of the day. My quads were letting me know that they were unhappy with the choice to climb yet again today and that this was not what they had expected. We made it up and over the top, quickly caught our breath and enjoyed the reward of the descent on the other side. The climb wasn’t long, but it did hit 16% grade at one point. It was painful for sure.
Once across the downhill, we made our way to the next rest stop and then towards the final rest stop of the day at mile 87. Between the rest stop at mile 71 and mile 87, we hit a snag – construction. We’d been traveling along a road for some time and came across a ‘road closed – construction’ sign at the ‘t’ intersection where we were to turn right. From the location of the sign, the construction didn’t appear to be too lengthy. We also determined that we didn’t have much option because we were fairly far down a road and turning back to find an alternate route would be adding countless miles to an already lengthy day. Riding with just Mike and Ken at this point, we cut across the corner of a cornfield to pick up the torn-up road to the right of the sign. Bulldozers and large dump trucks were encountered along the road, and what we thought wouldn’t be bad terrain that would last too long turned out to be bad terrain that lasted for a little over a mile. We clipped into one side of our shoes only to keep the other leg free to stabilize ourselves should we slow down or get stuck in the sand/gravel/rocks/you name it we would cross over for the next mile. We were surprised that no one asked us to get off the road. Especially at the point where there was an exceptionally large dump truck headed towards us on a single lane road. I heard both Ken and Mike behind me yelling at me to stop and pull over to the side. Petrified of the huge wheels heading my way and knowing they would pass within feet of where I was on the road, I did just that. I stopped and got as far to the right as possible. It was only about a foot or two to the right, but I felt safer staying in one spot. The dump truck kicked up a sizable cloud of dust around us. Once it had passed, we continued to make our way through the site. I followed where Mike had been riding as he seemed to be finding the most compact surfaces possible. At one point, there was nothing but soft and deep sand around us. I had to push hard with my legs to make it through with the bike. In doing so, I accidentally clipped my right cleat into my pedal. I began to slow down with the resistance of the sand but was having difficulty keeping up enough speed to keep moving and unclipping at the same time. I yelled for Ken because I thought he was nearby and may have had one foot unclipped so I could possibly grab his shoulder to keep upright. I yelled to him “Ken, I’m going to fall over!”, to which he replied, “Unclip your shoes.” Clearly, I hadn’t made myself clear. At that very moment, I was able to unclip just before I was going to fall to my right. As I felt a sigh of relief, I looked forward and saw Mike who had the same issue I had experienced but had not been able to unclip and fell over to his right. He was up quickly enough as he had fallen in what was mostly soft sand. We yelled ahead to ensure he was okay and continued to trudge our way down the road. The entire experience seemed longer than it took in reality. We were none to relieved to see the end of the construction and a welcome left turn onto solid pavement ahead. We took a minute to ensure Mike was alright and rinsed him off with plain water from our water bottles. I sent messages back into our group text in WhatsApp letting the guides know what we’d been through. John, one of the other riders, had been ahead of us and had also sent photos. Sadly, he wasn’t far enough ahead of us that we could have seen the photos and avoided the craziness.
As our ride came closer and closer to a close for the day, we rode past Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Taliesin‘ house. The house was beautiful and I’m sure was set in a lovely location before the busy bridge was built.
We had one last little climb before the final few miles of the ride and are spending the night in Spring Green, WI until we head out tomorrow for a shorter 50-mile ride into Madison where we will tour the Trek factory and enjoy a picnic with the Trek crew. The ride, while only 50 miles and welcome for being shorter, is going to be similar to today with a few climbs along the way. We are all, however, happy to make that ride and enjoy the earlier arrival tomorrow and rest day in Madison on Saturday. I have a massage booked as well as a much-needed manicure/pedicure. Self-care has taken a back seat on the ride. It will be nice to have a little rest time. That said, we did manage to enjoy some time in the very large and cool pool in the hotel as well as filling the small sauna to capacity with 5 of us taking the time to relax our aching muscles.
Tomorrow, being a shorter day, has a later start time and while I’m looking forward to it – I’m also wondering about how I’ll get coffee in the morning. Coffee is key and critical these days. The hotel coffee this morning – plus the surprise coffee shop rest stop along the way is the most decent coffee I’ve had in a single day since Rapid City, SD. Am looking forward to more of the same in Madison. Coffee and relaxation… hmmm – not sure they mix, but I’m willing to give it a try.