I woke up Tuesday on the northern shore of Lake Minnewashta, water, town, sky all calm:
I didn’t sleep well in my tent—not the lake’s fault, no September revelers pontooning and booming party music across the water all night, just a half-degree slope and me not quite adjusting to my inflatable pillow and sleep pad. I wondered if the lack of deep, steady sleep would affect my ride, my fourth and final day on my trusty Trek 1120 bicycle.
But the waning moon was out and bright, riding in the chariot of Gemini, escorted by Castor, Pollux, and Jupiter (so said my SkyPortal app—just point the phone at the sky and boom! ancient names there immediately in handheld fire, a wonder atlas, Moon, planet, stars, eternity… and soon good Sol. Worry not: strap up and ride.
I knew not where I would end. The plan was for my wife to leave Lincoln later in the morning, drive across Iowa, track me on her phone (another wonder atlas, showing our true loves’ proximity and progress on our handheld maps) and pick me up wherever our paths would conveniently intersect in Minnesota. But variables—her leave time and refuel time, my rest and snack breaks and tired butt and legs and closed roads and gravel of varying quality… when would we meet, and where, who knew?
But with a restful short ride Monday, I felt up to covering all the miles I could. I kept breakfast short, downing just two granola bars and a quart of powdered milk before hopping on the saddle to get as much pre-sunrise riding in as possible alongside Iowa’s Great Lakes.
I stopped for second breakfast, or maybe real breakfast after mere appetizers at camp, at the Burger King way on the north edge of town, in the desolation north of the I-90 exit. “BURGERS FOR BREAKFAST”, the sign tempted, but I opted instead for an Egg-normous Burrito (900 calories) and 5 French Toast Sticks (500 calories). 1400 calories ought to power me until lunch.
I rode calories and wind (four days of south-southwesterly tailwind! Finest weather I’ve ever had for a bike ride!) over a mix of gravel and asphalt through the great prairie grid of crop and turbine fields. I crossed no town for two and a half hours, until inclined by mythological whim, I rolled into Odin, Minnesota.
I checked the radio map in Odin. My wife in the sag wagon was cruising east on I-80 in Iowa, still a good four hours away. I thought about my own road ahead and the tomatoed pep in my legs. Mankato was probably an hour too far, and I wanted time when I stopped to wash a bit and strip my bike pack so my wife wouldn’t have to wait long when she picked up. We communicated, discussed our general directions, and promised updates.
And I started pedaling again.
Maybe it was the purple tomatoes. Maybe it was knowing I could leave all my sweat on the road today and save nothing for another 80–100-mile day of biking. Maybe it was the knowledge of sure snuggling later. Whatever it was, a few miles out of Odin, I felt an unnerving… ease. My legs went round and round, pistons on autopilot, no muscular sense of “oh my gosh this is work!” My tender tush did not snarl at me from beneath the sweaty polyester pad and the always moving seat. (I know, dear reader, enough about my ass, but such are the things that draw one’s attention during a many-day bicycle ride.) My arms didn’t ache, my toes in my sandals didn’t sting. Nothing in my body felt wrong. It felt like I could go all this summer afternoon.
And go I did, knocking down the comfortably spaced towns. I stopped in St. James to wade in the lake and charge my phone. I stopped in Madelia to glance at the newspapers in the public library and marvel at the lucky little boy who ran across the street to his apartment, then ran back across to play more video games on the library computer. I chugged a full bottle of water in each town and topped off my onboard 3-quart capacity.
The last stretch, Madelia to Lake Crystal, was actually the hairiest. I took what looked like the shortest route east, but that was also the route down which traffic was detouring from under-destruction Highway 60. I had trucks growling by me on narrow pavement, with no shoulder, no room for anyone to pull over. After a couple miles of that hazard, I got back onto some safe gravel…
…until I hit the worst gravel in Minnesota, two miles southwest of Lake Crystal. Between Jackson and Madelia, I ridden ten-mile stretches of gravel where I met maybe one truck or car every second or third mile. I had plenty of room to weave across the road, tracking the best lines, maybe the wheel-packed track down the center, maybe the smooth graded dirt along the edge by the prairie grass and little cattails and sunflowers. But southwest of Lake Crystal, I hit the loosest, washboardiest, traffickiest gravel of the entire trip. The county had laid knew chunky grave, a good couple inches that slid around under my tires. The new gravel buried all the smooth patches where a bike can get a sure grip and glide, but it wasn’t enough to smooth out the rough washboards that turn bike packs into castanets and act like a mechanized meat tenderizer on bikers’ butts. And the cars—the cars! Good grief! A dozen plus, more cars in two miles than I saw on all the gravel in Watonwan County, ripping by in both directions, diverting from the Highway 60 construction and not happy to have their dusty detour complicated by a two-wheel dude in fancy duds.
But I reached the paved city limits of Lake Crystal, saw my phone said my wife was just 40 minutes away, and saw that Robinson Park in Lake Crystal was a darn good place to end my ride.
Four days, 342 miles, three states, two fast burritos, tomatoes and mashed potatoes, lots of gravel, and no thunderstorms or blown tires. That’s a nice vacation. Thanks for following along!