After last week’s ride out of New Glarus, this week we rode into New Glarus, out of Belleville. As a teen, I rode here to dive in this lake. Where the building and pier appear in the photo, there once was a diving board.
As a young diver, I was always on the lookout for another board. Our town pool had the worst board in the region, which gave us a home pool advantage when the country club teams came to us. One day on the way to visit my sister in Monroe, we took a wrong turn and drove through Belleville. I spotted the diving board at the lake and made plans to ride my bike down to try it out. As diving boards go, it was nothing to write home about, but the beauty of the lake beat a municipal pool and the smell of chlorine. 25 miles down, a couple of hours in the lake, and 25 miles home left me tired and happy.
Over the years, Lake Belle View silted up and became nothing more than a mudpit. It has been restored, though the diving board was replaced by a fishing pier. This Belleville has nothing to do with the French film The Triplets of Belleville.
But the film does have something to do with bicycling:
As this month features the ridiculously late edition of the Tour de France, Eddie Merckx climbing Mont Ventoux is timely.
It is century season in these parts. Last Saturday was a century for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (led locally by the Lymphomaniacs), Sunday was the Wright Stuff – through Frank Lloyd Wright country (in a pandemic “you’re on your own” edition with very limited support), this Saturday would have been the Door County Century (canceled) and the following week the Peninsula Century (same area, also canceled). We’ll have a report on solo riding on the Door Peninsula soon.
Chip off the old block
My daughter, a newly-minted grad student, put 50 miles on their bike last week getting to and from school and an internship. At 50 degrees and raining, with a north wind, they borrowed a spare pair of my rain pants for the 18 mile round trip rather than take the bus. That’s earl, brother.
Half-fast Cycling Club 