Oh, what a beautiful day! Today we rode from La Crosse, WI to Dodgeville through the driftless region, the area of Wisconsin (Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois) that was not flattened by glacier. While that means lots of beautiful hills, valleys, creeks and rivers that also means lots of hills on the roads, as well.
Lon was nice to us and kept us on county roads and off of any of the named roads like “Something Hollow” (which translates into..a really steep descent, a pretty flat section and then a crazy talk climb back out again). Still that does not by any means translate to flat, nor does it mean we didn’t see some steep sections; just that we didn’t see the 16-20% gradients that the backroads are “famous” for.
It is hard to imagine the human and I rode a 250K in this area before the Southern way back when. Today we were much slower, but….how can you complain about speed when the scenery is so nice? Oh, sure, maybe I’m a bit prejudiced, but I think the driftless ranks up with Whidbey Island, the river rides in Washington and Idaho, the rides in western South Dakota. OK…maybe it also has to do with so many days of hot, flat, not very interesting corn, soybeans and CAFOs that we just came out of before hitting the Minnesota driftless region. Naw….that can’t be all there is to it…
But, today, I’m back in the hotel room….and, guess what, Dear Reader? Yep….I’m once again a clothes line. Sigh….is there no place else to dry socks than my top tube?!?!?!?!?
Details 76 miles, 3888ft climb, 14.4 strain
Reading List Darwin’s Ghosts Rebecca Stott Evolution of the theory of evolution…ok, the history of evolution starting with the works of Aristotle and Arabic scholars up through Darwin.
Travels With Edwina 