Wrightstown, WI

Today was another long day, but luckily not as long as it was supposed to be. Rather than going to Winnebago Lake (and biking west) , we stopped about 20 miles short in Wrightstown.

There wasn’t as much climbing today as there was yesterday, but we encountered a headwind, a few ferocious dogs (more on that later on), billions of mosquitoes, and some really gross, unidentifiable stenches. Pace lines were perfected after a brief group conference about how to avoid the “pedal-coast” as Mark calls it, which is when a biker pedals really hard to catch up to the person in front of them, and then coasts a ways to take a break, and then pedals really hard again. In a string of 8 people (including our newest member, Anna), the results caused by a single pedal-coaster is chaotic; the line of bikers ends up looking more like an accordian, rather than a centipede (not my words, I swear.) Unfortunatley for the group, there’s a few of us “pedal-coasters”, not just one, so pacelines sometimes fall apart quickly. But after the talk, we cruised on through the headwind just fine.

With 40 miles left in the day I was in the back of the pace line, singing to some music minding my own business when from the left, I hear loud barking. With images of a dog snarling after my bike, snapping at my legs as I tried to ride, I darted forward “SPEED UP! SPEED UP!” and pedaled as fast as I could away from the feral barking. Finally, feeling safely out of reach (with 6 people between me and the monster), I turned around to observe my predator and was a bit embarrassed to see a small terrier running as fast as his little legs could carry him. Who knew those dogs could run so fast…

A few more miles down the road, Renzo hit his bikers-high. Now, you should all know that this is a very special time of day for us. He usually seems pretty focused on the bike, either listening to some tunes or thinking about something to himself, but suddenly the hands will come off the handlebars, and the head will start bopping; dancing takes on new meaning after watching him lip-sync to whatever’s playing through the ear-bud. Ellie thought that we should capture the special moment on video, so at her code word “WHALE!”, Ellen whipped out the camera and caught some of it. Hopefully it’ll end up on the blog the next time we have decent internet.

Tomorrow is Ferry Day!!

by Sarah