Travels With Edwina

Would you believe, dear reader, that the human and I are being accused of being fast? Heehee…makes me laugh just thinking about it.  But, yep, on this trip, we’re fast!  Hard to believe, but, it is all relative.  Traveling with PAC Tour, we bring up the rear; travel with this group and we (sorry, hard to type this) we have to wait and give the rest a head start and we still finish an hour ahead of them.

But it is a good group of riders with us on the trip.  New riders that don’t give up — and that is really neat to see.  While we’re out toodling and enjoying what for us is shorter rides, the others are seeing a challenge and, best of all, meeting the challenge.  They also thought Minnesota would be flat and easy….but we’re seeing some good-sized hills, even on the bike trail.

Which, brings me to the trail…so, what do you do when the iron ore is gone and your landscape is blighted with open pit mines and tailing piles?  Apparently, you reshape the land, bringing in top soil, planting birch and aspen.  Then you pull up the rail beds and put in bike trail, but to make it interesting, sometimes you take the trail up, over and around the tailing piles.  Tailing piles that have been shaped, topsoiled and planted so that unless the rider looks closely, they don’t know it.

Swing that trail through as many little towns as you can along the way and what do you get?  130 miles of paved bike trail that winds through forest, past lakes (some built by Mother Nature; some the result of mining) and, surprisingly, absolutely gorgeous.

What is it with this rain thing?  We can travel for days with PAC Tour and nary a drop of rain.  But, join up with Timberline?  Watch the rain fall.  What?  Don’t they like me?  Do they think I look better with a coat of mud?  Seriously?  Hrrmph….

Needless to say, today we got wet.  Not wet enough to bother the humans, but wet enough to bother *me*.  And what is more important?  The humans?  Or me?  Hmmmm….?

Heck, it was so wet that I picked up a leech.  Gross, eh?  Little thing, probably got tossed up when the human rudely rode me through a puddle.  Turns out the little suckers will travel on land, but it could just as easily been a descendant of one that traveled by deer.  Who knows.  Didn’t bother me (not much blood in my steel) but it freaked out Edwin’s human — that was pretty entertaining to watch!

Despite the rain and gloom, it was a really nice ride…lots of that awesome Minnesota bike trail…twisty, turny roads just for me.  Of course, now that I’m save and warm in the hotel room, the sun is out.  Oh well.  Glad to be indoors tonight.  Overnight temp is to be 38.  Fall does come early here.

Silver Bay to Ely.  Northern Minnesota.  Glaciers.  Lots of glaciated land.  Should be flat, eh?  When they use terms like “mountains” they’re just using affectations to make it sound like you’d want to come here, right?  You know, like Rib Mountain in Wisconsin?  The hill that never will be a mountain?

If so, then, please explain to me why we rode uphill for 20 miles!  Twenty continuous miles of uphill!  Granted it wasn’t Rocky Mountain climbing and there were a few, short downhill reprieves every now and then, but sections of 8-10% and 2000′ of elevation gain and long sustained sections of 3-4%.  We worked!

OK, not really.  We toodled and enjoyed the scenery.  Another absolutely gorgeous day.  As we got closer to the Boundary Waters, more and more streams, rivers and lakes.  And a lot more rock formations and sparser trees.  Tonight we sleep with the canoers looking to set their boats in the water.

But after all that work today was I treated with respect for hauling my human up the hill?  Nope.  We pulled into town early so the humans decided to check out the town, see all the canoe outfitters and, of course, stop at the local brewery.  Which meant leaving Edwin and I behind.  In the hotel room?  Nope.  Stuffed under a staircase.  Oh, the indignity.  Sigh….I sure do hope the humans thought that beer was worth it (editor: Boathouse Brewery’s Basswood Brown Ale is very good and Edwina was dry and out of the rain).

Ah, to ride…finally, to ride.  And a loverly ride it twas.  We left Duluth and headed northeast up the coast of Lake Superior.   You couldn’t ask for nicer riding weather — high 60’s and a tailwind.  Even with my out of shape human we just flew up the road.  Heck, we traveled so fast we just had to stop for chai and cookies (such horrible punishment, eh?)

About a quarter of the time we were on bike trail.  First, coming out of Duluth and then through Split Rock State Park.  Now, lest you associate bike trail with those straight, flat spoke numbing rails-to-trails freeways for bicycles, this was not the case.  We twisted, we turned, we went up and we went down, prairie and woods.  Such a pleasant ride it was, we completely missed the turn to see the lighthouse…the “iconic” lighthouse that you just “must see”.

But, you know, we so enjoyed that ride, that it just didn’t seem important and we just continued on, enjoying the day.  Further down the road the humans went poking around a locked parking lot and found the dive start for the Madeira, a schooner-barge that sank in 1905.  Twenty-nine ships went down in that storm, after which the lighthouses were installed.  At the dive start you could see the point that took out the ship as well as the point for the Split Rock Lighthouse, that quintessential Minnesota lighthouse.  So, in the end, we saw the lighthouse after all, just not from the standard vantage point.

For a lake with a horrible reputation, in the last 3 days, we’ve barely seen a wave.  Hard to imagine that this placid body of water can generate 30 foot waves and see winds in excess of 50mph.  <shudder />  I’ll take placid.

Finally!  Finally, the humans came and let us out of that *&^$^! car.  They made it up to us by giving us a nice, fresh coat of chain lube and even polished us up (we are, after all, set to meet some new friends tomorrow and need to look our best).

So then we toodled down the lakefront.  It was a lovely day and the lake was so pretty you had to wonder why Superior has such a reputation.  But, we watched the aerial bridge go up and headed down to the end of the isthmus.

Duluth has a very nice bike trail along the lake, so after lunch we continued our toodling and went north until we ran out of bike trail.

So, then the decision was….take to the road and go further or chill on a park bench and just enjoy the afternoon?  Now, I’m sure you think that I’d vote for ride, eh?

Nope.  After living in an abode under construction, it felt good to just chill under a tree.  Ah…the fresh air….the breeze…

This is getting ridiculous.  I am a sleek, beautiful touring bicycle.  It is bad enough that the human has not taken me on the road for a month.  The humans have been taking Galanas and Blue for rides while Edwin and I have sat in the garage loft trying not to get drywall, wood and tile dust on us.  And, given the state of construction of the human’s abode, not an easy task.

But, Wednesday we headed out for a vacation.  Well, the humans said it was a vacation, but so far, Edwin and I aren’t seeing it.  This isn’t a weekend trip out of the house, so we needed to transport to the start of the ride.  Fine.  I’m itchin’ to get into my travel box and go somewhere.  So, did we?  Nnnnooo….

Instead, they took off our wheels and squeezed us into the back of a car…a compact car.  For the last 2 days, I’ve been squished under a camping mat and Edwin has been jabbing my head tube with his pedal.  Ouch!  The *humans* say this is better because the start is only 7 hours away by car.  Maybe for *them* but this is not quality travel for a bike.  It has been 2 days!

Stupid humans didn’t even do the drive in a single day.  No, they wanted to “play” and take it easy.  Wednesday they stopped in Plover to eat at their favorite Asian restaurant, Bamboo House, and then went and had a flight at the O’So tap room.  This beer thing makes no sense to me, but the humans think it is fun.  No, fun is not trying the different beers and picking out the best; no, fun is riding their bikes.  Now??!!?!?!

So, Thursday we got our hopes up that the humans would take us out.  They drove into Duluth, parked the car, took out their bags and checked in.  Edwin and I were giddy over the thought that we were going to get to toodle along the lake.  Wheee….

….and then the humans left us behind to take a walk.  A *walk*?!?!?!?!  Sigh…and, along the way they stopped at another brewery…Canal Park….had another of those silly flights and dinner and then called it a night.

Hello!?!?!?  We’re still in the car!  Any time you want to let us out…….hello…??..??

Pathetic.  Seriously.  My human is pathetic.  Since Tucson we’ve gotten out for only one long weekend!  Just one!  It is the end of June!  Sure, the human takes my ridiculously pampered and built for speed sibling bike Galanas out for a fast spin regularly and my other sibling bike Clyde gets to go to and from work every day, but me?  Me! I expect to get out for a weekend every now and then.

I mean last year by now we had a lots of weekend adventures.  We’d been to Door County, to Sheboygan, heck, even to New Glarus.  But this year?!?!?!  This year we got all the way to Whitewater.  Shhheeez…55 lousy miles one way.  OK.  Maybe it was a little hot and maybe the wind was a little strong, but, dear reader, please recall we rode in 104 degree heat in Arizona and suffered sustained winds in Mississippi that were stronger than last weekend’s gusts.  But the kicker?  The human was trashed when we were done.  Embarrassing.

Yes, my human is out of shape.  SusanN is looking for interest for next year’s Southern.  I keep reminding my human we have a bone to pick with those 114 miles we failed to ride last time….prodding…reminding….but how the heck am I going to get the human back into shape!??!?!  A bike has just got to ride and it isn’t fair to me to keep me locked in the garage!

New Mexico is taunting me!

Turn out the lights
The party’s over
They say that all
Good things must end
Call it a night
The party’s over

What a rip roarin’ way to end the week.  Finally that tub o’ lard human propelled me at a speed commensurate with my fine, steel heritage.  At one point we had a sustained 30mph for over a mile as we tooled down the freeway.

“Wait!” you say?  “How can your human sustain 30mph?”  Well, let me tell you.  Mother Nature was amazingly kind to us this week.  For the most part she chased around southern Arizona with a tailwind.  Oh, sure, we had an occasional headwind, sometimes a rather stiff headwind, but that was just Mother Nature’s way of making sure we knew how pleasant it was to ride with the wind at our back.

And ride we did.  Every one of my gears got used at some point — the easy ones as we climbed the passes; the big ones as we tooled along the 1% down hills with the wind at our back.  Wheeee….

But, alas, dear readers, for us the party is over  All us bicycles must find our way back into our boxes for the long trip home where some of us will have to sit on the shelf awaiting the spring thaw.  But, for the PAC Tour crew, tomorrow a new week begins, tomorrow starts the same old thing again.

Eight years ago, my friends, I arrived in Tucson a fresh, new and naïve bicycle.  My human had never ridden with PAC Tour and I had never ridden on a road.  We pretty much took the same route then as we have this week, but then….oh, then…we did grind up the hills.  And Mule Pass out of Bisbee?  Oooo….the complaints from the human….egads…they ground my gears and torqued my chain.

Today, however, was a different story.  Today, we gently spun up to the top of Mule Pass as if it was just a little hill (well…it is…it is pretty wimpy as passes go).  Even Edwin’s human who doesn’t ride well in the desert spun up Tombstone Canyon to the top of Mule Pass.  Amazing what 8 years of training can do.

And the descent?  Ha!  We headed down, topped out at 40mph and when we got pushed by the crosswinds we just took them all in stride.  No freaking at all.  Wheeeee…..

From Tombstone Canyon we headed down the old mule train route where the copper from the mines travelled past Tombstone and out to Kartchner Caverns where many of our group went underground to see the caves — again, while us bikes baked in the sun….sigh….

But I’d wax at length about the gorgeous day of riding, with the tailwinds and the blue skies and the cacti, but….that has been the story of the week.  Never, ever have we come down her and had perfect weather where the winds chased at our backs.

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

Boy!  When Mother Nature extracts a toll, she does makes sure she gets her money’s worth!

Yesterday, we ended our ride in Tombstone.  As the day got longer, the winds got stronger and stronger.  Many of us were a little worried about today, but…we had just finished two nice days so a little head wind as we travelled down Charleston Road wouldn’t be too bad a price to pay, right?

But, this AM, we woke up to calm.  Total and complete calm.  Spooky calm given yesterday’s howling gusts.  So we all did a little happy dance in the parking lot thinking it would be another great day for riding.

And, great, it started out.  A small climb and then a decadent downhill and a lovely meander down some farm roads with the special ride along the riparian area.  Lovely.  As we made the last turn into Bisbee, even then we had, at most a cross wind, and often a tailwind so even the incline into Bisbee was still a pleasant ride.  And then…

…whump!  Going around the Lavender Pit mine where…heehee…the porta potties are purple — get it?  lavender pits at the lavender pit? — heehee…ok…bicycle humor…but us bikes think it is hysterical….but where were we?…yes..as we came around the Lavendar Pit mine, where the road kicks up a bit for the final push into Bisbee…whump…the wind did howl…tears in the humans’ eyes as the wind whipped up everything imaginable and pushed us back….whew!  It was only 2 miles, but you would have thought the entire work of today’s ride was in that 2 miles…..yep…Mother Nature may have given us 2 1/2 of the nicest riding days, but when she puts up a toll road, she expects to get paid….