I often say entries will be brief but this one will probably actually be that way.

A beautiful send off this morning at Trinity put me in a great mood to get out there and ride, but also to keep up with the discussions etc. I don’t know how many people I spoke with but did give out a dozen little cards with more stats and a web address. Anyhow, the reasoning: Aaron spoke of the fact that we’ve got unfinished business in this world while we’re still here. That while he biked home yesterday he still has 2.5 weeks left. Similarly when we reach New Jersey we’ve not yet finished addressing the issues of poverty that surround us.

We rode through Roseland this morning and stopped at Roseland Christian Mission. When I have an internet connection that can upload YouTube I’ll have another video and will comment more then. I also got a comment about “great legs for a guy” from a guy named Jim and promised I’d mention the fact of my first compliment on my blog tonight. In case you check I did keep my word.

We rode a good section of bikepath after a lunch stop at a CRC church though the trees… beautiful once again and got to spend some time on the beach and climb a dune this evening. Photos from the day are in the gallery for this week but aren’t linked from right here… sorry.

I registered for all my courses for next year tonight on the computer while uploading a few videos. That means I’m going to cut the typing short and let the other evidence speak for itself.

We rode a 60 km section along a bike path today on what I guess is towards the western edge of the greater metropolitan Chicago area. It was nice not to be on roads and deal with traffic for a good portion of the day but those paths aren’t terribly efficient in letting you maintain your speed so it took far longer than anticipated to cover the distance. That combined with a later start (stayed up late to try and watch the meteor shower last night) and a few long breaks to rest Stephanie’s knee and all told we didn’t arrive in camp until past 4 pm. So first… a couple videos from the bike path.

Following that we had some city riding to do and I feel like we must have hit every stoplight along the way. Progress once again was slow but that was a good thing for Markus Lise who had me behind him when he ran into tyre trouble today only 10 kms from camp. Markus rides a Long Haul Trucker which in the world of sweet touring bikes is really quite something. You could easily go on a bike trip to Yellowknife on that bike in January, it’s a beast and can handle anything. Anyhow, when he had a big gash in his tyre and the patch wasn’t holding on the tube things weren’t looking good. The option of catching a ride into camp wasn’t very appealing so we decided to do what we could and that was replace his tyre (36 mm wide) with my spare tyre (23 mm wide). The rim quickly got the nickname ‘behemoth’ and when the tyre was loaded onto it you could see rim on both sides which in case you were wondering is not normal at all. Anyhow the tyre held and he was able to ride all the way to camp on it. Photos of the patchjob and a video of the success:

From there on in to camp we rode through the thick of Chicago rush hour traffic combined with a bit of construction. One road was standing still on new pavement so Kevin and I decided to race… the obvious thing to do when all the cars on the road are parked right? Anyhow, Kevin rode up the white line and I rode up the yellow line going 40 kph up the hill for maybe 3 kms shouting at eachother over the cars as we went, whether or not it was the actual highlight of the day is up for grabs but it definitely had the highest levels of adrenaline!
A photo from the start of the race when we were both still on the white line:

Trinity College has been a great stop… as I’ve said pretty much every time some group goes out of their way for us. It really doesn’t grow old, I ate dinner with Louis (another rider) and a family from just south of here. It’s fun to give insight into what it’s like to be on the tour to people who don’t have it all straightened out exactly. Their eyes really grow wide. Oh, and Louis’ group managed to find a shortcut today when they got lost. That wasn’t the case for most people, plenty of riders did extra mileage, some as much as 25 extra miles today just getting misplaced at various spots along the bike path.

We rode again mostly through Wisconsin today, one thing I notied while on the road was that it seemed like the immigrants to this area made a more intentional effort of maintaining their bits and pieces of European herritage than was the case in most of the previous states. Often along the road there’d be homes and farms with what I’d consider a distinctive style. Even a few patches of cobblestone here and there. The fields are smaller on average than anywhere else we’ve been and the patchwork of forests and fields is all jumbled up and follows contours in the hills rather than a big old boring grid. It seems more welcoming, more like these communities are nestled in here for the long haul. They brought bits of Norway, Germany and Sweeden (the ones I could pick out today) along with them when they arrived.

In some sense the ruggedness and barrenness of some of our earlier weeks in the mountains display a certain beauty. This landscape on the other hand displays another and I might even like it more. While the vastness of the mountains and the naturalness of the Cascade mountains shows God’s glory in one way, the development here in Wisconsin displays another, the way we as God’s people continue to shape the earth. While I’ve experienced alot of “God is evident in the wilderness” comments in the past few years God’s handiwork is also seen in the earth as it has been subdued and sculpted. While scripture does begin in a garden it ends with a big city and there’s something to be said for that fact as well.

So… the ride? It was two sections of 80 kms for myself as I stretched it out into a full century. We had lunch served and hosted by a local CRC church at the midway point. I also drafted behind a garbage truck for a few hundred yards. I gave up because it stank but did snap a picture of what it feels like to draft a big truck.

My derailleur hanger stopped chasing me across the country today. After missing me by about 8 hours in Sioux Center on Tuesday morning it hitched a ride with someone from town to Madison this morning who was attending the celebration service and finally landed in my hands. I’ve covered more than 2500 kms on my bent hanger and finally it got to be replaced. Now you might think that something that can last 2500 kms when nearly broken wasn’t all that close to being broken and in some sense I do agree with that notion, but every person in every bike shop who saw it cautioned against riding on it more than I had to. Every SeatoSea cyclist who looked at the stress marks on it thought it was probably going to give out in a few days. Not so, you can call it luck, you can call it misdiagnosis, call it what you want I’m calling it God providing a way when there seemed to be no way. Take a peek at some of these photos, it’s not kinda bent it’s really bent.

So I’ll quote from Exodus a story that’s kept me trusting that fiddly little piece of aluminum to get me through a new day when I was sure going up plenty of hills that I was sure it wouldn’t survive. (Yes sure is in that sentence twice on purpose, I would put it in there 3 times if I could do so in a grammatically correct manner but I’m an engineer and getting it in twice was tricky enough.)

Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”

The Lord’s prayer reminds us to ask daily for our daily bread, that God provides enough for each day and that’s enough for me. If you would have asked me any day between Craig Colorado and Fennimore Wisconsin (Friday’s stop) whether or not I’d make it Madison with that hanger my answer would probably have been no. But ask me each day if it would last the day and my answer would be (usually with a lump in my throat) yes. But that patch of Moses’ story doesn’t end there, it ends with the important part and because time is short tonight that’s where I’m going to leave it for this evening as well:

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD”

So with this good internet connection I had the chance to finally get some videos online after a bit of a hiatus. Those videos include this one from last week Wednesday morning. If I were to post it with the associated day’s journal it would never be found by most people because it’s buried way back there so I’m posting it at the top of the stack:

People were making me laugh prior to filming so I’ve got a stupid grin on my face, deal with it.

Saturday are great

• We wake up and the kitchen staff always cooks us pancakes and bacon on Saturday mornings. They make sure we’re going to have a great day.
• The kitchen staff often cooks too much bacon and by the time we’re allowed to have a second go round at it all of the early risers are already an hour down the road. Anyhow that means those of us still bumming around camp get to have a dozen pieces of bacon and put it on our sandwiches.
• We don’t have to ride the next day so no-one complains about going a little faster on the road or having a few more sprint races along the way.

I left camp just as the rain for the morning was slowing down with Nick Ellens, Steph Webb and Katrina Miller. We rolled along clocking a good pace for the first 30 kms and the rain finished up. Nick and I contested three city line sprints within the first hour. Each one played out slightly differently but each was great here’s the inside scoop. Hopefully it’ll give you a little taste of why we love these little races, there’s alot of strategy involved:

1. Long gradual uphill to the finish – The sign was obviously placed and Nick and I discussed whether or not we’d be sprinting today. After we agreed yes I pulled out from the back of the paceline and went to the front leaving him 3 people deep so I could keep an eye on him. He decided to go for it about 150 yards out and I have no trouble catching his draft as he moves by. We accelerate to ~55 kph and I have to debate whether to jumpt one or two more gear to go for the pass. I luckily choose to gear up double with 30 yards to go and win by a wheel length (finish speed 64 kph).
2. Long downhill with a kink uphill to the finish – Nick has been first in the paceline and we crest the hill and see the sign. He opts to back off the pace and tries to let me pass. I refuse and pull up next to him instead watchin if he’ll put on the brakes as an indication for me to go for it. Nick knows this trick and just coasts next to me as he selects his gear. The finish line is getting painfully close and he begins to accellerate and tries to box me in. I cut across to the other side through his draft at the bottom of the hill and pass him to the other side. It’s mano-a-mano to the finish and I was probably better rested as I had been drafting him. It’s only a half wheel length but our finish speed was still 55 kph.
3. Blind finish over crest of the hill – I’m leading the paceline this time and we see the 1 mile marker, I note the mileage of the finish for my odometer and assume that Nick has done the same. 400 yards from the finish he begins to query me where the next water stop is and I’m sure he’s trying to plan a sneak attack. With one eye over my should I check my cue sheet as he moves out of the paceline alongside me but seems to still be pretending he isn’t going to race. With 200 yards to go I decide to just go for it and sprint over the crest of the hill, three in a row! Whether or not his strategy was planned or not is still an open question because he left Steph and I in town when we stopped for water (Katrina had dropped back by this time) and he didn’t need anymore.

The rain had stopped by the time we got aboard the local bike path that I understand is built on an old railway bed. It’s called the “Military Ridge Trail” or something similarly nondescript but it was really really beautiful. A tree lined path that we followed for about 13 kms through trees overhanging the curvy route thrugh the forest… anyhow, I’m lousy at decribing this so I’ll just post photos and a video instead:

I don’t know if you can understand the video but we’re discussing that the rain was probably a good thing as it meant we were not subject to a massive dustbowl riding down that trail.

The trail spit us out onto a weaving road through rolling hills surrounded by bits of forest and crops… again super beautiful. This road spit us out into the town of Mt Horeb which was, of course, super beautiful as well. We pulled over at a little sidewalk bistro flying a dutch flag where a dozen other SeatoSea cyclists were stopped. Someone ahead of us had stopped in for coffee and the owner decided that all of those cyclists needed a few treats. Muffins, cookies and banana bred were on the house and we sat curbside with a bunch of cups of fantastic coffee and shouted “free goodies” to the rest of the seatosea-ers who were riding by.

From there on in to town we were riding the coffee buzz and hummed along some more spectacularly paved roads into Madison and caught a bit of familiarity with the local bike scene in Madison. This city loves bikes and is proud of it, the riders we talked to all spoke highly of the cycling community here and are proud of how cycler friendly the layout of the city is.

Prior to our arrival in camp cyclists gathered at a local park and proceeded to ride in to the church together. Again… descriptions are lousy compared to videos so here’s the footage:

Our reception at the church was great. There were women here willing to cut hair, there were those tubs that bubble and shake that you put your feet in (I’m sure they’ve got a name, I just don’t know it) and people were getting massages. I did the foot thing while waiting for my turn in the haircut chair, I don’t think it did much for my feet but the haircut is a good improvement, no curly mess above my ears.

Thursday morning arrived early as usual… actually the earliest day yet in my experience I agreed to wake up at 5:30 if you believe it. Steph was going to try riding the whole day and wanted an early start. So I crawled out of my tent and had it packed away by the time breakfast was set to go, it was weird having all the selections remaining in the breakfast line and for packing a lunch.

We were out of camp at 6:50 am. Now as impressed as I was at being on the road before 7 there were still probably 50 people ahead of us. The sun wasn’t exactly “just rising” as we left but it was awfully close. The breeze was from our left as we rode and while it was a cold departure (required arm warmers that morning) I didn’t want to carry a jacket and all the other junk because I’d just need to carry it for the rest of the day. So off we went and the miles ticked by riding two abreast when heading east and then Steph drafting off me whenever we needed to head north into the wind.

About 50 kms into the ride we were greeted with a Hsssss and a tyre change was in order. Steph’s time was only 8 minutes, much much better than Hilena’s 37 minute tyre change a couple weeks ago. No problems though we were back on the road and the miles continued to tick by until Rockford. We ground to a halt and found some shade in the park and just sat down. The problem with sitting is that you don’t stop sitting. Some endurance sports enthusiasts will know the motto “beware of the chair”, it’s something you hear now and again. Basically no matter how slow you’re riding your bike or are running you’re moving alot faster than when you actually take a seat because you’ll be there for a while. Well those sayings don’t start without reason because once we sat down in the park it was a long long time till we got rolling again.

The final 50 kms wasn’t terribly quick but we were “wary of the chair” so to speak and continued along without another big break. Some more windmills graced the horizon (which was pancake flat for a good portion of the day) and a few calculations and estimates measured the tip speed of those big long blades to be 120 miles per hour. That’s fast!

The arrival at our destination in New Hampton did eventually occur and instead of pulling in and setting up camp we went off in search of ice cream first. Well, there is no ice cream shop in town so we had to stop by the grocery store and buy a whole half-gallon. We came back to camp with that half gallon of ice cream and 5 lbs of ice for our knees and parked in the field. Aaron helped us with the ice cream but that was mostly a 2 person affair. I ate 1100 calories of Blue Bunny goodness all by myself.

Friday was another 100 miler, the third in a row, and while I had done 6 in a row last week this one would prove to be the toughest one to date, but I’m giving away the ending so I’ll start at the beginning. It was a damp morning and I felt like I had paid my dues as far as waking up early was concerned for the entire week so slept right till 6:45 and snuck into the breakfast line just before 7 am when it was going to be packed up. I had to dig around camp for a spare map for the day as mine had gone missing and was nearly the last person out of camp besides the sweep team at 7:45 am.

The road started out rough but the hills were rolling and the sky was blue and there were loads more trees than I’d seen in two whole weeks so I wasn’t complaining. I caught Steph and Justin quite quickly and let them draft me to the 40 km mark. From there on out they were interested in longer stop than I was and I continued to work my way “through the pack” so to speak.

I was making good progress and was on track for a quick ride above 30 kph while riding solo. The miles ticked by and I caught up to Art Smit who was driving a support vehicle in one of the towns. I high tailed it down mainstreet and was able to catch the draft of his 10 passenger van as he left city limits. For the next 3 kms I stayed in that draft doing between 60 and 70 kph up and down hills until we needed to pull over to let a silo on top of a flatbed semi-trailer pass us in the other direction. From there on though Art accelerated too quickly and I lost him.

My sandwich consisted of two meatballs each the size of my fist which I proceeded to eat at my “time to eat reminders” at about this point. That meant however that I consumed zero carbs for about an hour and a half three hours into my ride… hold that thought.

We descended into the Mississippi valley down a big hill and I videoed the occasion.

Following our arrival in Wisconsin I needed to climb back out of the valley. The climb was a great grade and I was till feeling relatively strong at around the 130 km mark of the day and decided to really hammer up the hill. My arrival at the top greeted me with a bit of lightheadedness. I continued to roll along for a few more kilometers and I was getting dizzy. I started to eat and drink, I took in some salt pills not exactly sure what was going on. I then started to get a bit shakey now only 20 kms from camp and decided I’d better have a seat and let my body catch up with me. The meatballs although they tasted great weren’t getting processed in my belly as I rode with the intensity I was riding with. That meant I might as well not have eaten anything for the past couple hours. My glycogen levels were down and my body was telling me to stop so I did. Only 4 more people were ahead of me at this point in the ride and I parked in the ditch and fell asleep under a tree. An hour later I woke up when someone decided to take my picture. I still wasn’t 100% and went back to sleep for another half hour. I stole this photo from Pete Vannoord who snapped it as he rode past, quietly of course allowing me to sleep right through.

By the time I did finally wake up and finish off those final 20 kms more than half of the riders had passed me again and camp was a bustling city upon my arrival, everyone also felt the need to ask me how my nap was.

Today was my most intense experience of “bonking” (cyclists speak) or “hitting the wall” (runners speak) ever and it wasn’t a ton of fun. I guess it did teach me though that while meatballs are wonderful they’re probably not a good idea to have as my sole source of food for such long portions of a ride.

Here’s the newsletter from SeatoSea communications headquarters: The link for end of week 6!.

Since my last writing… Dordt continued to treat us like kings and queens, fried chicken and pizzas for supper. Home made pies for dessert, and I do mean pies in the plural, there were so many pies there that we sampled a bunch of varieties each, myself: apple, peach and key lime. Key lime was the best by the way. Now if you think that’s not quite a cyclists diet you’re right but I was trying to drown my sorrows away as I had just had an opportunity to weigh myself on the first accurate scale in more than 5 weeks and the results were not good. I am down 6 whole pounds, that’s bad news for someone who was hoping that he could crack 200 lb for the first time in his life. I guess the upper body is really really gone, I haven’t swum in months nor paddled a canoe for a bit.

Well, or a more positive note the celebration service last night was once again a real blessing for us. To see so many people come out on a Tuesday night from North West Iowa and check up on us was encouraging right off the bat. The speakers then really re-enforced that idea with their words, thanking us for being a reason to re-think about poverty, something that doesn’t always seem terribly close to home in this rather affluent part of the country. These communities have been following along closely as the tour progressed, they spoke of their excitement as we grew nearer, how the news from the tour is a common topic of discussion amongst the people in town. While it feels a bit odd to say this, not like I know the minds of everyone in Sioux Center it did come across as though the tour had re-focussed attention and re-excited a community about being God’s hands and feet to the poor. Plus, singing “Be Thou My Vision” in a room with such beautiful acoustics is a treat unto itself.

We woke up this morning to a downpour. It was raining and raining hard! Within half an hour the rain had slowed from deluge to steady rain and by the time I had eaten breakfast it would probably be most accurately classified as light rain. It was one of my earliest departures to date 7:05 am. I rolled out of town in the midst of a bunch of people unsure of who my riding group would actually become. Within a couple kilometers though Hilena Zylstra, Eritia Smit, Nathan Beach and Katrina Miller had hooked up behind me and we were rolling along between 26 and 28 kph. Two churches from the area had set up support stops in town parks 25 kms and 50 kms out of town. The first had donuts and water that was so cold that it didn’t exactly feel good to drink when we were already on the chilly end. I guess it was the thought that counts and with all the discussion of heat they did have their heads on straight. The next stop had Protein Plus bars which I gave a big thumbs up to and gatorade. more smiles. We also joined up with Steph Webb here as she got a ride out a ways as she didn’t want to try and ride the whole day because the knee is in recovery mode. Anyhow we were now six.

From then on we proceeded to have a fantastic day, the rain grew lighter and lighter as we progressed and eventually stopped. The tailwind grew stronger and stronger and we found ourselves flying along in the upper thirties (kph) with no effort at all and really enjoying our day. The roads were paved very nicely and the sun eventually started shining and the discussions were great to boot. Before we knew it we had passed the 100 mile mark and were into unknown territory for a few riders as we pushed on to 114 miles. Just as were approaching Algona Marc VanOtteren and John Vanderveen came past. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity for a city line sprint to finish the day I went with them. The final hill into town found us rolling along at 60 kph… uphill. But no sign was to be seen.

Evening entertainment included a serious amount of fooling around on the slackline and some stargazing as the sky was clear and Algona was rather remote so the sly was dark.

All the slacklining pictures are of me because when I gave Hilena the camera she didn’t take any others. Maybe she was mesmerized by my beautiful new jersey?

If by chance there are any Dordt Grads reading this blog… be proud of your alma mater. Their reception for us here has been fantastic. We’re staying in the covenant center which has air conditioning meaning there are no tents to set up. All of our meals have been donated by locals for our stay here and they’re putting on a church service tonight as well.

There was also a local CRC (in the small town of Ireton) that hosted us for fruit smoothies and root beer floats at the side of the road today around the 45 mile mark of today’s 60 mile ride through rolling hills. We gained 2700 feet of elevation today which is considerable compared with even some days in the mountains. All of those little ones add up over the course of the day. Oh yeah, back to the hosted rest-break. They had enough chairs set out in the parking lot that all 150 cyclists could have arrived at exactly the same time and all had a seat it was great. The number of members of their church who were there to greet us was also exciting. Huge thanks to them for the rest-stop, and for at least giving us the option to be healthy with the fruit. Most of us ate ice-cream anyways as well.

I’ll keep this brief because I’ve got the rest of the bustling metropolis of Sioux Center to explore before dinner.