Distance: 105 miles
Elevation: +1815 / -2388
Temperature: mid 80s
We’ve officially been riding more than a month!
Now that we’ve changed time zones, the sun is just coming up when we get out in the morning. This means we get to see some beautiful sunrises. We were all in bed by 7:30 last night, which made the early morning almost more bearable. Nevertheless, we‘re all looking forward to sleeping past 5AM on consecutive days, because we’re exhausted, no matter how early we get to bed. So exhausted in fact, that we can’t often clearly remember where we were the day before, and sometimes not even where we woke up.
Breakfast was at the Sweet Shoppe in St. Paul, where the owners have over 1,000 cookie jars on display, and they had cinnamon rolls in the oven when we arrived! After navigating a gravel and sand road to get to the downtown, this was just the ticket to get everyone going for the day.
Not far into the ride, we were suddenly on a road that had been armor coated the day before. The crew was out sweeping away the gravel that was laid down over the oil/asphalt, but the dust kicked up by cars and trucks was tremendous. Initially, we had to stop each time a truck went by, because the dust was so thick. On one such stop, we talked with and NDOT worker, who thought we were crazy to be on that road. When we told her we’d been on worse, she was shocked, and we kept riding.
Most of the ride saw fairly steady traffic on 92, although there was minimal elevation gain, so it wasn’t a difficult ride in that sense. We had left the rolling Sandhills of western Nebraska, and corn and soy fields were the main feature, now. There were still some cattle, including some longhorns, but mostly open fields for grazing or corn.
We had regular SAG stops which were most welcome, and we made a few additional pit stops along the way when we needed to eat and drink.
Highlights:
105 miles!
Breakfast at the Sweet Shoppe where the owners had over 1000 cookie jars!
”We can do anything for 18 miles.” Said at mile 87.
Dinner at the end of the day planning our next big rides. Mary Jo has converted us!
Lowlights:
Armor coating
Gravel and sand roads
Headwinds
Rough shoulders on the road
Expansion cracks on the shoulder
No shoulder
Semi trucks
Semi trucks going downhill on the opposite side of the road when you’re trying to ride uphill (the draft is going the wrong way to be anything but a trial)
Semi trucks that blow their horns for no good reason
Semi trucks carrying livestock (the smell lingers for ages): “How much poo do you think we’ve inhaled today?”
