M.S. Ride Recap

Saturday it was up early to get to the M.S. bike ride start. The roll out was to be at 7 AM. Per usual form, this was a “ride to the ride” scenario.

Arriving early, I snacked on fruit and had a bit of coffee. As rollers started showing up I passed out the clothes pins and playing cards. Baseball cards are somewhat hard to come by these days so our “brapulators” used playing cards. I could stand mine for about ten (10) miles and then it had to come off.

But, I digress…..

In an act of complete dumb-assery I neglected to bring my camera.

Nearly five-hundred (500) rollers signed up for the ride. We began somewhat all at the same time bound for glory and / or Madison, SD. The route was mostly to the north and the wind was fairly brisk from the south.

This ride is set up to be one-hundred-fifty (150) miles total. Some roll an equal split, some roll the one-hundred (100) mile option the first (1st) day followed by either seventy-five (75) or fifty (50) the next day. It was my choice to do one hundred (100) miles on Saturday.

The route to get to seventy five (75) and one-hundred (100) miles was a twenty five (25) mile rectangle after reaching Madison proper. Remember that nifty tailwind I alluded to earlier? Well, it served to be a pretty respectable headwind for a least part of the rectangle.

For this ride I opted to go single speed. At seventy-two (72) gear-inches it was about right to cruise along nicely but not have to work overly hard on the hills. However, the second (2nd) lap on the rectangle to get to one-hundred (100) miles for the day seemed like work. Nothing like a twenty mile per hour (20 MPH) headwind to really make a dude sweat.

Sunday the heat and humidity kicked it up an extra notch. Given the weather conditions and my Saturday mileage, I opted to roll a nice easy fifty (50) miles back to Sioux Falls. After the ride and home ready to shower, the Weather Channel told me the heat index was one-hundred (100). This was at 11:00 AM.

All in all, and despite the weather, I had a great M.S. ride. A big thank you to all that supported my efforts through your donations. The final tally was not in for the banquet on Saturday night. But, almost five-hundred (500) riders and over two-hundred-thousand dollars ($200,000 +) in donations was noted. Not bad for a regional fund raiser ride.

Next up, we’ll, I don’t know what’s next up. Maybe a little bike camping? Maybe an organized ride? We’ll see. I do know there’s a little wheel building instruction with Atom on Tuesday. I’ll see if I can coach the erstwhile fellow into building a wheel correctly.

Ride On.