Travels With Edwina

If you’re going to ride from coast to coast you cannot start “near”…you have to visit the beach and today the beach we did visit.  Funny, tho, to be honest it didn’t look much different than a visit to Lake Michigan on a windy day — a big pond of water that says to me, “bicycles turn now or find yourself a boat.”

Still it was clearly different…smelled different and the ride along the waterfront with all the walkers, runners and beach cruisers screamed “You are now in California.”

So, we rode from the hotel, to Dog Beach where I got my picture taken.  I didn’t go all the way down to the water (sand is not a pretty bike’s best friend), but if you look close you can see the little doggie I picked up at Dog Beach and put in my saddle bag!  Ha! Not really, but it looks like it, eh?

So, tomorrow we start the riding.  Uphill.  It is the first big bump on the elevation plot below.  Quite a bump, but they say it is a lovely ride. 

Oh, and since some of you asked…here is the map of the route:

That’s what the human keeps asking, but I have to question the use of “we”….I have been ready since the day I rolled off the production line in Waterford.  It isn’t my fault that the human took the next eight years to try to get ready for this trip.

So, now we shall find out if all those miles have made a difference.  Lots of long days; lots of long days followed by long days; and hills, lots of hills.  But, only in the weeks to come will we find out if the human was ready or…. sigh… we fall of the pace and ride only “most of the way” across the country.

But, today Edwin and I got put back together and the humans took us out to the park.  We all chilled in the shade and just soaked up nothingness.  This was the last chance to do nothing until October.  Just a nice lazy day.

For some odd reason I have been asked about my boxing event.  I found this an puzzling question, so I searched my memory.  The humans often chatter as we roll down the road.  Sometimes I listen (most times I find the conversations rather, shall I say, too human-ish for comfort), but, if I recall much of the conversation, boxing events occur when things of value type are removed from their fast, efficient state and forced to be stored in a distant location, a location where they are less efficient and look like everything else.  The location is called a box and when the value thing leaves the box, the garbage collector comes and takes it away.

Hmmm…I’m of value and I can be fast (if I had a fast human) and I’m currently living in a box where I am slow to access, but….wait a minute…..I’m getting on a plane tomorrow…but what’s this about garbage?…I thought I was good and going to ride…to have fun…not to be thrown into the gar….

[Chill, Edwina…the question asked was how do you get into your box for travel; what do you look like when you’re in the box?]

Oh…sorry…it is a little stuffy here in the box and I don’t think very well.  Well, here I am in my boxed glory.  As you can’t see, my fork, the front half of my frame and rear wheel are at the bottom of the box.  Then the handle bars weave through those pieces, the rear half of the frame placed on top and then the front wheel goes on top.The big white pieces are spacers that keep the edges of my suitcase from pressing in on me.  Then I’m wrapped up in a net so that the nice folks at the TSA can make sure I get back into the box after they inspect me.

It takes the human about an hour to get me into the box and another short hour in San Diego to put me back together.   Sometimes my wheels need a little TLC when I get there, but I’m a pretty experienced traveler now and have learned that after a little discomfort for the trip and then….wheeeeee…miles and miles of riding.  San Diego here we come!

[Note: Edwina wasn’t too far off with her description of boxing events. For a bike, she did pretty good; heck, better than some of my students.]

So, dear reader, my apologies, but it has been a busy 6 weeks.  In that time, the human and I rode and rode.  Then, when we were done riding, well, we rode some more.  Never have my tires seen so much road in in a single year…eeks, and I have another 3000 miles to go before I sleep for the winter.

To summarize, after the last trip, we travelled to the top of Lake Winnebago and back (we meant to go around, but it was EAA weekend) and we did the Dairyland Dare (250K, I tell you…250K of ups and downs, but I think it was mostly ups, steep ups…lots and lots of ups that had little ups and even some big ups inside).  We followed that up an easy a trip to Whitewater, but it turned into a 90 degree slog, and then we had to cancel a trip to Sheboygan (the human got stung by a bee and decided to stay local and monitor — something about allergies, but what would a bike know about allergies).

Whew!  After that, the human said I’d get a trip to the spa for new parts.  You’d think that would have given me time to blog, but..nnnnnnoooooo…before I could even put letters to the screen, I was whisked to the bike shop.  Don’t get me wrong, who wouldn’t want a week at the spa?  But a little breathing time would have been nice.  Still, a lovely week it was.  I went in a tired, disheveled bike and came out bright and shiny.

So would I get a break then?  Nope…human and I were off to the Cream City Century.  Big deal, eh?  What’s 100 miles?  Piece of cake…well…unless you ride to and from the start and turn it into 164 miles.  But, as the final test of our training, even that 164 miles was a piece of cake.  Maybe, just, maybe we’re ready.

So here I sit, all twisted up in my box, frame in two pieces, just waiting to fly out to San Diego.

I’m still parked in the garage “between trips”, but I just wanted tell y’all about the most amazing day I spent parked in the basement.  Yes, really.

So, at the end of our last weekend, the human and I rode directly from Burlington to work.  Normally, riding into work is done by Clyde, not me, but since I was with the human Monday morning, I got to go to work!

And, it wasn’t just a normal Monday, it was Bike-to-Work week Monday.  When we got to work, the basement had about 30 bikes in it; after the human parked me, another dozen or so arrived.

Oh, and the variety of bikes: fast bikes, slow bikes, new bikes, old bikes.  The conversations we had!  But, for me, the most interesting conversations were with the BSOs (Bicycle Shaped Objects).

You may remember me bemoaning getting locked in the shed in New Glarus with the <shudder>BSOs</shudder>.  But, you know what? I didn’t give them a chance.  Here’s what I learned….BSOs get humans riding bikes and they have to work harder than us pretty bikes.

Think of it this way, BSOs are like humans born with bad genes and a lifetime of poor nutrition.  Life is tough and their work is harder.  Heck, I’ve got it easy.  My human is in shape (well, relatively speaking) and takes care of me by keeping me clean and my chain greased.  Some of those BSOs?  Eeks…they have to operate with rusty chains and wheels that go wobble and their human?  Well….at least by riding those BSOs the humans will get healthier and maybe even learn to take care of their bikes.

So, this pampered primadonna owes an apology for the last posting…BSOs are bicycles, too (and better bikes than I).

Well, dear reader, my apologies for the delay in telling you the tales of our trip from Burlington to New Glarus, but….sigh….I got locked in a shed!  Locked.  In.  A.  Shed.  Not just any shed, but a smelly, smoky shed.  Is that any way to treat a bike as gorgeous as I?!?!?!??!

But, let me step back to the beginning.  So, the human and I set out on a long round about early morning trip to Lake Geneva for breakfast.  Edwin and his rider would come along directly later.  Well, true to form, Jeeps didn’t do its job and we got lost.  Twice.  Finally, we rolled into breakfast having travelled up and down some pretty good-sized hills.

After a good breakfast at Simple Café, we headed west to New Glarus with <finally> a tailwind </finally>.  It was a great ride and the hills at the end didn’t seem to affect my human.  We just rode along and clocked in 118 miles.  It was a really pleasant day until we got to the hotel with the anti-bike sentiment.  Just because all those dusty BSOs come in having ridden on the Sugar River Trail is no reason to discriminate against me!  I’m hardly dirty at all!  But, nnnnoooo!  Into the bike shed I went.  Me!  Pretty me, locked up with 8 BSOs.  At least Edwin was there to keep me company.  Hrrmmph.

Today we rode back.  A nice enough ride.  The storms came through early so we managed to stay dry the entire return trip.  Given the weather predictions, we were very thankful.  The human was tired, though, so we didn’t ride as fast today.  But, tonight, I sleep in the hotel room even if I’m a little dirty and am looking forward to a nice bath tomorrow night.

Next trip, we’re going to try for 150 miles!

So, last I left you, we were in Sheboygan.  Well, time has passed.  We made it back to Milwaukee that day, although it was a lot of work.  The winds were in our face the whole time and if we didn’t have a little shelter…..<shudder />…at one point the wind almost held us still.  Very hard riding, but we made it home.

Now, why haven’t I written before now?  Well, I’m trying to be patient with the human, but my site is still….not quite what I need it to be.  I can’t post inline pictures and the style is OK, but we need better.  When I complained to the human, the human pointed out that between the rides with me and the rides with my sibling bikes, the human is spending almost 20-30 hours/week.  That’s a part-time job!  Sigh….ok…so I’ll just have to cope and post without pictures for now.

But!  We’re back on the road.  Just a short Friday night ride into Burlington and tomorrow we head to the hills!  New Glarus is our destination.  And, we got payback on the last trip — tailwinds all the way, with tailwinds predicted for tomorrow.

We have a good thing, the humans and us bikes.  We travel down the road.  Sometimes talking; sometimes quiet; sometimes singing.  OK, the singing would be me — when the wind is just right, the air blows over my drain holes and I can sing, but, I digress….

So, we have this great thing going and then the human has to bring in Jeeps.  What an irritating, whiny little <explicative />.  I could handle its back of the handlebar driving, “Hey! Turn here!  Hey!  Turn there!” but it kept trying to change our course.  And when we told it that it was wrong, it was just like the human’s students, “If you gave me more points to work with I would do better.”  So, every time we entered a city we had to listen to Jeeps, “No, I see a better route to the left!” when we could clearly see the road was missing.

And, don’t get me started on its behavior on the bike trail.  Thru Manitowoc there is this nice little bike path that parallels Hwy 42.  It is, what, maybe 15 feet off the road?  And the whole way, Jeeps is going, “No! No!  Turn right!  Turn left! (which, btw, would have put us in the lake!)  Give me more points! Points!” Whine, whine, whine.

I sure hope Jeeps settles down.  Apparently much as I would like to dump it, the human wants it along and promises that soon it will stop being so darn whiney.  Well, it better! <whine />

It is about time, but the human finally got in a full century.  Apparently the human has been out riding with my sibling bike, Galanas for the last month.  Well, not always Galanas.  Apparently, Galanas is too fragile for the first portion of the ride, so the human rides off on Surly or Clyde for the first 30 miles, then comes home, shoves an unbelievably large bowl of oatmeal with a whole vineyard’s worth of raisins into the engine and then picks up Edwin’s human and they go for coffee.  Hrrmph…they call it going for coffee, but neither drink coffee; they drink “chai” (so much more refined, don’t ya think?…but I digress).

Anyway, they’ve been off riding a “century” every week but that century has been about 95 miles.  Oh, they ride faster than we do, but it isn’t *really* a century, now, is it?

Now *today* we road a century!  Took off from Sheboygan at 6AM for a 30 miler to Plover and back.  My, oh, my, did we have company on the road.  Lots and lots of bicycles of different shapes and sizes.  Then, we came back, picked up Edwin and flew into Algoma. Flew, not because the human was riding very strong; flew because we had 15mph tailwinds.

But, it was a pleasant ride and I steadily got the human back up over 100.  My siblings may have been taunting me for the last 2 months while I sat in a box in the basement and *they* got to ride, but I just want it clearly stated that the last time the human rode over 100 miles was with me. *I* rode with the human for 200K.  Not those pampered bikes that live in the garage, but *me*, break me into 2 Edwina.   Hrrmph.

….it feels so good to be back on the road again…..finally!  I’ve been sitting in my box, impatiently waiting for that stupid human to put me back together again.  I mean, really!  How long does it take?  An hour, maybe?  So put me together already!  Sheesz,  And you know the worst part?  The human didn’t even do it, this time.  I had to suffer the foreign hands of Edwin’s human.  Sigh…some humans try, but they just aren’t quite as efficient.  But….enough complaining.  Today we rode!

We left home this morning around 9:30 (apparently the human played a little hooky), stopped by the human’s office to drop off the computer (where I got visit Clyde’s home away from home) and then rode up to Sheboygan.  It was a really nice ride….it felt good to be riding again.   Nothing spectacular — just pleasant riding along the lake, stopping for lunch along the way and a scrumptious donut in Oostburg before rolling into town for pizza — wood fired naples-style pizza.  OK, I don’t get to eat it, but the human gushes about it.

Tomorrow looks like another beautiful day, but then the weather will turn….or maybe we can hope…