Pedaling Pilgrim Blog Home

Miles to date: 2,481.2

Tomorrow we ride to Woodstock IL; the following day we leave Woodstock and we will ride separate ways towards our respective homes. So today was the next to last day we’ll ride together; tonight is the next to last night we’ll lodge together; we lunched on our next to last PBJs together. As celebration of the momentous day, it seemed fitting that we celebrated with a couple rounds of High Life and really bad tavern pizza while watching the hapless Packers forget how to coach and compete in the 4th quarter.

We a slightly off path lunch stop in Madison and an extra 2 miles for dinner in Mills Lake, we ended up covering 111.8 miles today. We were in the saddle for 8 hours and 18 minutes; we averaged 13.4 MPH; we climbed about 4,000 feet. It was a challenge, but we felt good throughout. The weather was nearly perfect, though we were hit with something between a sprinkle and a drizzle for about 20 minutes. The “sprizzle” was inconsequential, and it served as a reminder of what great weather we’ve had.

This morning it was 48 degrees when we started off at 7am. Fog was rising off Dutch Hollow Lake, and several miles into the ride I felt the morning dew collecting in my beard. In past days I’ve caught a lot of gnats in my beard; I’d like to think I could live off of my beard by squeezing out water and combing out gnats, but I don’t think I collect the 6 liters of water or catch the 6,000 calories of gnats that I need most days.

As we neared our first saddle break at 8:15, I received a text from my son-in-law Jacob wanting a quick FaceTime call. He just want to show Lecy (fellow Packers fan) that Judah was ready for today’s season opener.

Around the 75-mile mark we had a lovely lunch with Lecy’s nephew Will who is a sophomore at UW in Madison. Will served us a couple New Glarus recovery beers that were left over from their Badger football tailgate. We had a great visit, and 75 miles before lunch felt like a great accomplishment, but we still had over 36 miles to go.

Of course, just before Madison I got another flat. When I get back to Batavia I’ll be installing new tires. Then, just after Madison Geeto’s rear tire finally gave out. He bought a spare tire on the way to LaValle and the old tire when into a nearby residential trash bin. Flat scores – Gypsy: 8, Geeto: 4, Lecy: 4.

Tomorrow the three of us will ride together for the last time: 71 miles to Woodstock IL. It should be a relatively easy day, though it looks like the specter of headwinds will return. Day 34: Jefferson to Woodstock

I’ve got two songs to add tonight. The first, as our mornings get colder, I suspect I’ll have more instances of a wet morning beard (and much to my wife’s dismay, I plan to keep the beard through my journey). I’ll think about this JJ Grey & Micro song: Dew Drops

And this… I thought of this song which repeats the line “how many miles ago”… 111 miles is quite a few. But actually I think the song is more of a love song… how many miles ago did I leave my darling? Inept Apollo