101

We rolled out of Pepin and down the Great River Road, through towns crammed between the Mississippi River (and dual sets of RR tracks) on one side and steep bluffs on the other.

There was a chill in the air and clouds that were slowly thickening. It felt like September in Wisconsin, not July. With rumors of rain and my rain jacket packed away, I wondered how I would fare with a chilly rain.

In Fountain City we stopped to visit Brone’s Bike Shop, a place better-equipped than you have a right to expect in a town of 800. He had bikes from Cervelo, Pinarello, Colnago, Waterford, and a Schwinn Paramount. He had a time trial bike. One Pinarello had downtube shifters and C-Record Delta brakes. Had it been there for nearly 40 years, or was there a story behind it?

The other side of the shop sold coffee (from Wonderstate) and ice cream (from The Chocolate Shoppe). We wasted spent a lot of time there before getting back on the road. A couple of people bought helmets. On my way out, as I was taking my cleat covers off, Roberto asked for my help in getting the protective cover off of a new button battery. I set my cleat cover on the stair railing (as I discovered later) rather than putting it in my pocket, and sat down to try to help. When I went to take off my cleat covers later, I discovered one was missing. I searched my pockets, the floor of the store, the porch, the steps, under the steps. I searched a second time. Finally I went back inside and bought a pair of new cleat covers, putting on one to walk back out of the store. On the way down the stairs I found mine, as I was no longer looking down to search. Gene says it’s all Roberto’s fault. I’m sure he’s right. Now I have a spare set.

The healing power of coffee came through. As we left the bike shop, the sun came out. It was a warm and comfortable day with a bit of sunshine.

Quarter barrel mailbox – is this an only in Wisconsin moment?

We continued on down the river before turning inland and climbing a few of those hills. We started on a state highway, spent some time on a US highway with bad shoulder and high speed traffic, and made a very welcome turn onto county highways and township roads for the end of the day. I made a detour to visit the Mindoro Cut.

You’ll probably have to enlarge these to read the signs, or see The Mindoro Cut on Wikipedia.

The detour started out as a gentle climb. There were signs warning of loose gravel. The road was freshly chip-sealed, by which I mean they spread a copious amount of pea gravel on the road and left it to its own devices. Some may get ground into the surface, some will be churned up and spewed around by car tires, some will wash away.

As the climb steepened and the switchbacks began, the gravel thickened. It was clearly going to be a seated climb and a hair-raising (and slow) descent. It was an out-and-back detour, as there were no roads turning east to Sparta after the cut.

Hand-hewn – no power tools, no explosives, just hammers and chisels.

Cut by a whole crew of John Henrys

For those who don’t want to watch a video, here is the Mindoro Cut

The road surface at the cut and through the switchbacks

With the detour, I turned into our destination in Sparta after 101 miles. Tomorrow, on to Baraboo and then Devil’s Lake State park Thursday.

Food!

[Ed Note: This was to be published on July 25, 2022. It is in my “drafts” section, which leads me to believe it was never published (and I can’t find it in the published section) – probably because I forgot to push a button. Here it is, over a month later. Happy reading!]

Our rest day is in Northfield, MN, which feels like a home away from home. My daughter went to school here and we stayed here in 2018 during the coast-to-coast ride.

When my daughter was in school and I came to visit, we always went to dinner at Chapati, an excellent Indian restaurant in the Archer House, a 19th century hotel. Alas, it burned in 2020 and is now a hole in the ground awaiting redevelopment. I was told that plans have been approved to replace it with another hotel with retail on the main floor. I don’t know if the restaurant will return.

With that option gone, I had Saturday dinner at The Ole Store, where I had an excellent polenta with a Spanish red wine and a blueberry tort for dessert. Blueberries and basil pair well together so, if I can still find fresh peaches and blueberries when this tour is over, my next peach/blueberry pie will include fresh basil.

Over dinner we shared storm stories. Some folks only saw it in the distance, some waited out lightning in a convenience store and got great photos and videos. No one saw the wind I saw, which was apparently an isolated event along the ridge I was caught on.

Breakfast Sunday was at the Brick Oven Bakery, a favorite of mine for many years for its excellent coffee, pastries, and oatmeal. I was up at 4 AM due to a series of texts from Scotland. My COVID-afflicted daughter was trying to reserve a hotel room in which to quarantine, and the credit card company didn’t want to honor the charge. Try fixing that at 4 o’clock on a Sunday morning from across an ocean.

I killed time until 6 when the café opened; but they don’t serve breakfast until 7, so I had to be content with a cortado and a pastry for the first hour.

Lunch had to be at Tanzenwald Brewing Company, where I heard live honky tonk with my Sunday afternoon beer in 2018. I stopped at the Downtown Bike Shop (where our mechanic, Anders, used to work), then at another shop in order to replace my cue sheet holder, which had been damaged in the Devil’s Tower windstorm and finished off in Saturday’s windstorm. (While the Devil’s Tower windstorm was pretty impressive, it didn’t hold a candle to the wind I faced outside of Veseli, MN on Saturday, a wind I will never forget.) [ed note: 18 hours later, on a beautiful Sunday morning, it’s hard to believe that actually happened just 20 miles from here.]

I also stopped at the Just Food Co-op, where I picked up some Just Coffee to replenish Anders’ supply – he provides us with Moka Bialetti coffee at picnic. Just Coffee is a co-operative out of Madison, WI, and provides a special blend with the Just Food Co-op label – since Anders and I both have ties to Madison and Northfield, it seemed only proper.

Between breakfast and lunch I replaced my chain and cleaned up the bike after Saturday’s excitement. That, of course, required a ride into town to make sure it shifted properly with the new chain. While I have lived without a chain master link tool for many years, I have to admit it comes in pretty handy. The Park MLP-1.2 is a keeper.

Next week we ride through Wisconsin after losing two riders and adding 11 more as well as a new mechanic. We will cross the Mississippi on highway 61 (where “God said to Abraham, ‘kill me a son’/Abe said ‘man, you must be puttin’ me on’/God said ‘no’/Abe said ‘what?’/God said ‘you can do what you want Abe but/The next time you see me comin’ you better run’/Abe said ‘where do you want this killin’ done?”/God said ‘out on highway 61’” – Highway 61 revisited – Bob Dylan), ride the Sparta to Elroy trail – the first rails-to-trails conversion in the US [don’t tell anyone but I might take an alternate route], ride through the beautiful Devil’s Lake State Park, cross Lake Wisconsin on the Merrimac Ferry, then continue on to Manitowoc where we will cross Lake Michigan on another ferry.

Featuring the great Sam Lay on drums, Mike Bloomfield on guitar, Al Kooper on keyboards, and Bob Dylan on Acme siren. I thought it was a cheap child’s toy, but the Acme version is sold as a musical instrument (and made by the maker of the Acme Thunderer – a really loud metal whistle).

El triunfo

July 19, 1979 marked the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution over the Somoza family dictatorship in Nicaragua. I have to mark this day with “Hijos del Maíz”, by Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy y Grupo Mancotol.

For those who speak no Spanish, the song says that the Nicaraguan people are children of corn, and describes the many influences and uses of corn in their culture.

While in Nicaragua, I had the opportunity to hear his brother Carlos sing. He was described to me as “the Nicaraguan Bob Dylan”. That Dylan lacks a brother like Luis Enrique weakens the comparison for me.

I also have to mention one of my personal heroes. Ernesto Cardenal was born January 20, 1925, exactly 28 years before I was born. There is a 28 year cycle in many calendars, so this might mean something. It might just mean I’m full of myself to think I can compare myself to him in any way. Cardenal is a poet, a priest (who once studied with Father Thomas Merton in Gesthemany, KY), the former Minister of Culture of Nicaragua, and the founder of a communal artistic community on the island of Solentiname in Lake Nicaragua.

He is known mostly for long narrative poems and his poem “Zero Hour” (“Hora Cero”), about US imperialism in Nicaragua and the murder of Sandino, is one of my favorites. I had the pleasure of hearing him read from “Cántico Cósmico”, an epic poem of the history of the universe, beginning with the big bang. Yes, you can be Roman Catholic and recognize the big bang theory and a universe billions of years old.

He also wrote simple and short poems, so I offer this:

        Ésta será mi venganza: /Que un día llegue a tus manos el libro de un poeta famoso/ y leas estas líneas que el autor escribió para ti/ y tú no los sepas.

My own translation:

This will be my revenge:/ That one day a book by a famous poet will come into your hands/and you will read these lines the author wrote for you/and you won’t know them.

(I can’t seem to get line breaks to appear without extra spacing, thus the slashes for line breaks.) Somewhat the reverse of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”.

We are two days from Northfield,  where my daughter spent the last four years at St Olaf College, a running Ole and Lena (or Sven and Ole) joke.

Today’s Ride

We slept in today because it was a short ride. We were headed north-northeast, with a wind from the southeast. During northerly stretches it felt like a tailwind and during easterly stretches it felt like a headwind. We mostly rode north so it was an easy 61 miles. The sun was filtered and it stayed cool. The forecast is for thunderstorms tonight so we were eager to beat the weather into Watertown.

Riding out of town we passed the Wilder homestead where I learned that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter was also a writer and the oldest war correspondent in Viet Nam.

We stopped in Hayti for gumbo, so of course I thought of Hank Williams.

 

Leaving Hayti we rode along a lake, a great change from the endless miles of prairie. There were even trees! Especially welcome was the fact that we rode much of the day on state and county roads, not US highways. In my hierarchy of roads,  town roads are first, then county, then state, then US. We’ve been riding mostly on US highways.

Overheard at the rest stop (from a concept by The Cheeky Cyclist):

”It’s not a pull when  you’re trying to drop everybody.”

I needed to buy a few things and Google Maps told me there was a bike shop in town, so I checked it out:

The owner was surprised to see us. He told us the bike shop in town had closed and he knew the town needed a bike shop, so he opened this place a month ago. He specializes in restoring and re-selling bikes from the 1950s and ‘60s. He didn’t have what I needed but we had a great visit. He is trying to get a contract with Trek to sell their bikes. He currently sells no new bikes. About the only new stuff I saw was a small collection of water bottles. The shop is called simply “The Bike Shop”.

South Dakota has a program to raise awareness of highway deaths. They mark the spot of deaths like this:Some of the signs, instead of saying “THINK!”, say “WHY DIE?”. On a climb in the Black Hills I saw six of these signs at one curve, in groups of three, two, and one.

We are now in the Watertown Middle School. Another in a series of inspirational school posters:

Tomorrow we cross the state line into Minnesota, one more notch in our belt as we leave South Dakota behind. The forecast is for rain all day all along our route, with a stiff headwind. Oh, joy.