Coasting UpHill

Overall the trip was a great success! We cycled 315 miles in 5 days in great weather. The bikes performed well and the riders ever better. We saw the humble beginnings of the Mississippi River transform from a stream into a large body of water with industry, transportation, and cities all depending on it for…

Our first day of this ride started in a state park and included almost 20 miles of country roads, a town, and then trails in the woods/fields of Northern Minnesota. By contrast, the last day was going to be all urban riding. We left the hotel and wove our way through Coon Rapids, a suburb…

One of the interesting things (to me anyway) is the transformation of the Mississippi in just a couple hundred miles. When we started at the headwaters we saw a narrow, shallow, clear running stream. Each time we crossed it (12 times thus far) it continued to grow in volume and width. It also began carrying…

When you are traveling by bike for 8-9 hours per day (this includes breaks, lunch, and site-seeing too) your mind wanders. Here are the places my head has gone on the long stretches of riding…solving the world’s problems, reflecting on scripture, engineering some improvement to my bike set up, planning a project at home, singing…

We started our second day in Walker with a planned 63 mile day. We were riding paved bike paths the entire day. These trails (Paul Bunyan and Shin-Go-Bee) are considered part of the national Rails to Trails project. Our morning started with a quick coffee stop, our lunch was at a local burger place and…

We started our first day by driving to Itasca State Park and parking the van. We unloaded the bikes and got everything assembled, loaded up, and ready for riding. Next we found the visitor’s center and the path to the headwaters. It was a beautiful spot! A little stream flowing from a pristine lake. Hard…

Tomorrow Mel and I are starting the first leg of (hopefully) a multi year section by section bicycle ride of the Mississippi River Trail. This trail starts at the headwaters of the Mississippi in Itasca MN and ends at the Gulf of Mexico. While following the river the landscape will change from northern Minnesota forests…

The ride this year felt different in a lot of ways.   I started to notice it during the planning, during the ride, and at the finish.  Couldn’t put my finger on it for a couple days but then I realized what it was.   The trip had all the same elements of the previous 5…

Today we had a mix of everything.  We started with a 400+ foot climb from the river into very rural Amish country.  We descended back to the river and had new roads with extra wide shoulders.  That led us to urban riding through Lacrosse and by the UW campus there.  We then found paved paths…

This trip is going to be HOT! We had a lot of heat day one and that was a short miles day. So we planned to be riding by 6am to hopefully get about 60 of our 75 planned miles done before lunch. We set out at 5:45 and went to the BP for some…