Day 33 – 22nd July – La Crosse to Mauston
76 miles ridden - 1955 feet climbed Despite a number of points at which today could have flipped from pleasant to awful I am pleased to say that it was a very nice day. A very big thunderstorm blew through the area last night and although it certainly felt fresher it...
Day 32 – 21st July – Rochester to La Crosse, Wisconsin
87 miles ridden - 2881 feet climbed What a nightmare of a day. The fact that at 6:30am when we left the hotel it was already nearly 27C/80F with 80% humidity was a pretty good indicator that we were in for quite a day. At its peak during the second half of the ride...
Day 31 – 20th July – Mankato to Rochester
100 miles ridden - 2493 feet climbed Well first things first - I have done back to back centuries. 111 miles yesterday and 100 miles today. I must admit to feeling pretty pleased with myself although it was a really tough day. Early load was at 5:50 for a 6am...
Day 30 – 19th July – Worthington to Mankato
111 miles ridden - 1378 feet climbed. What a day. We woke up to a dark, overcast sky. A selection of six different weather report sites gave us six different forecasts all of which included rain at some stage with the prevailing 'majority' suggesting a 20% chance of...
Day 29 – 18th July – Sioux Falls to Worthington, Minnesota
72 miles ridden - 1270 feet climbed Another day and another state. We crossed the state line 25 miles in to our day and immediately fell in love with Minnesota as the road surface improved dramatically the moment we crossed the line. We had enjoyed a beautiful...
Day 28 – 17th July – Rest Day in Sioux Falls
0 miles ridden - 0 feet climbed. Great nights sleep and even though I woke at 5:30 I didn't need to quickly get up and pack my stuff up for early breakfast. I decided that I didn't want the usual hotel breakfast of raisin bran, gloopy yogurt and a semi-stale bagel so...
Day 27 – 16th July – Mitchell to Sioux Falls
73 miles ridden - 1601 feet climbed. Today was a really hard ride. The wind was coming out of the south east and we were heading west with a couple of due south sections so one way or another it was in our faces the whole way. However the temperature was great, the...
Day 26 – 15th July – Chamberlain to Mitchell
72 miles ridden - 1129 feet climbed It was almost cool today. Many had long sleeve tops and jackets on but for me it was a bit like a cool spring day but without any sun. The sun started to show itself around 11:30 and it quickly warmed up to somewhere around 26C...
Day 25 – 14th July – Kadoka to Chamberlain
115 miles ridden - 2864 feet climbed Today was a very long day. Not just because we cycled 115 miles but we started late for such a long ride - 7am - and crossed time zones so lost an hour. Only 2 SAG stops at 42 and 86 miles challenged us all with regards to food and...
Day 24 – 13th July – Wall to Kadoka
58 miles ridden - 2116 feet climbed. I'm not quite sure how to describe what we saw today. I will post some pictures but they cannot do justice to the majesty of the landscape in the Badlands National Park. We spent about 3 hours cycling the 27 miles through the park...