Mile 3192.9 – Cycling in the news

Saturday morning, 51 days since starting my trip, I woke up in a dorm room ready for a full day of my college reunion. My first scheduled event was the Alumni Parade at 10:00, but of course I was awake much earlier than that. I grabbed my phone to see if I could find the story about my in the Post-Crescent. Getting to their site, a photo of me popped up with the link to the story. Here it is:

http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20100619/APC0101/6190565/LU-grad-s-bicycle-trek-stops-in-Appleton

It’s a good write up. There are two minor factual errors, The town in New York I ride to is Nyack, I have never been to Niagra, and my friend I’m going to visit is in Wilmington, not Bloomington. Neither of these are worth calling up the paper to get them to fix, though now I suppose part of the public record of this trip is incorrect. I also wish they had included the name of my blog in the print version, though at least there is a link in the online article.

Satisfied with the story, I wanted to get copies of the paper for my mom, my grandmothers, and a couple to send home to Brooklyn. Grabbing Penny, I set of to search College Ave for some papers. When I got to the avenue, I was met by something I did not expect at all: a farmers’ market. That certainly wasn't there when I lived here. I walked a bit through the crafts and vegetables, past booths offering sandwich sauces and locally crafted draught sodas. There was a truck with a large tank on the back, through the window of which you could see trout swimming. I found a booth that had complimentary copies of the Post-Crescent. I looked down at the paper, and there, front page above the fold and in full color, were Penny and me, riding up College Ave. For this day, I was the biggest story in the Fox Valley. I grabbed several copies.

I rode back to the dorm and emptied a pannier. My plan was to go back to the farmers’ market, grab a number of ingredients, then make breakfast with my camp stove out on the balcony of the dorm. I bought no more than two things from any one vendor, wanting to spread the love around a bit. I got oyster mushrooms, spinach, green onions, goat milk provolone and cheese curds (which were fantastic) a draught root beer, a tomato, peaches and some bratwurst patties. As I was walking back to the end so I could get back on the bike, a guy stopped me and asked if I was the guy who had ridden here. We talked for about 10 minutes, both of us leaving satisfied at the meeting.

I needed eggs to complete my breakfast idea, so I rode up to Jacob’s Meat Market and got eggs and rolls. I made it back to the dorm again and gathered what I needed to cook. Heading out to the second floor balcony, I opened the door. This set off a rather loud alarm. Oops. Sorry, anyone who was still asleep. I went down to the desk and they called security to turn it off. I changed my venue for breakfast then, choosing a small, tree lined circle behind the building. The final product was quite good.

The details of my reunion activities are not really germane to the story of my bike trek. I mailed off the copies of paper to my relatives, played a Swedish game called Kubb which involves strategically throwing sticks of wood at blocks of wood, and at the end of the night, was the last man standing when the partying was done.

This actually was a bit of a problem. The sky was getting light and I was not at all tired. I laid down in my dorm room for a bit, but I was still wide awake. So I did what come naturally to me, I decided to take a bike ride. As I pulled Penny out, I waved to the desk worker. Stepping outside, I got a brilliant view of pink clouds lining a deep blue sky behind Main Hall. I went back in and told the desk worker, who seemed to be wasting time online, to come out and look at the sunrise. We stood there for a moment, admiring the work of sunlight brushing across the upper atmosphere.

Across the Lawe St Bridge, there is a trail that runs out to the eastern end of College Ave. Where College turns into County CE, the CE Trail begins, stretching from Appleton to Kimberley. Just as I reached highway 441, the sun broke the horizon. This was a good trail. I didn’t take it all the way to the end, rather I turned around shortly after a bike shop off the trail in Combined Locks. Back into town, I took the Olde Onieda St Bridge back across the Fox River, getting the western view of campus.

It was now 6:20, I had ridden around 17 miles already and most of my peers were still asleep. I was not getting tired, so went to bed. At 8:00 the church bells a few blocks away started ringing and I couldn’t fall back to sleep after that. I got an email from Ian, one of the organizers of the Tour of America’s Dairyland. The event takes place in locations across Wisconsin, and it happened that they were doing a criterium in Appleton that afternoon. He invited me down to meet them, so around 9:20, as they were still setting up for the morning, I dropped in. I talked to them for a little bit and shook some hands. They were clearly busy, so I said I’d drop by again later in the afternoon.

At 10:30 was our class breakfast with the new university president, Jill Beck. President Beck isn’t brand new, she’s now been there for a number of years, but was new since our graduation 10 years earlier. I had planned to bring up expanding bicycle access on campus and the surrounding community, but instead, by the time she got over to our table, I was just tired. Oh well. I’m going to try to plan an alumni bike ride for future reunion weekends, so I’m sure at some point our paths will cross again.

I got back to the dorm and packed up. I had brought all of my stuff down to the lounge by noon and for a little while reworked my day’s route to include the CE trail again. I wanted to get down to Fond Du Lac at least, at the southern end of Lake Winnebago. But first, I had a bike race to go watch.

A crit is a short circuit race. The track they had laid out went four blocks along College Ave, turned up two blocks and turned again (actually at the corner I used to live on) and then a third left turn to get back to College Ave. The course was .8 miles and there were a set number of laps for the different skill rankings. The biggest race of the day was the last one, the professional men’s rank. I came in at the middle of one of the lower men’s ranking, but it was still a great race.

As I stood watching, the guy I had talked to at the Farmers’ Market the previous morning found me. I really wish I could remember his name. He was excited to see me again and introduced his partner. He told me that he was inspired by me and had ridden 20 miles that morning, for the first time in years. He rode out along the CE trail to the bike shop that I had turned around at, got a few new things for his bike and was going to start riding regularly again.

Now this may sound corny or insincere. Standing there in the middle of a bicycle race surrounded by professional cyclists, cycling organizers and mechanics, to be told that I, a lone amateur, had inspired someone to get back on his bike was as proud a moment for me as climbing to the summit of Carson Pass. I have had several people along the way tell me that they want to get back on their bike because of me, this was the first time that I know someone actually had. From this moment forward, regardless of what happens between now and home, this trip has been a success.

I talked with a number of other people in the crowd, one of them even offering me the copy of Saturday’s paper if I hadn’t gotten one. I ended up getting six, so I think I’m covered. One older man, retired military by the looks of him, though possibly a farmer hardened by Wisconsin winters, talked to me for about 20 minutes. He liked to go to bike races and reads the major cycling magazines, though his riding days were behind him. He complimented me on my choice of the Trek 520 and, after a thorough exchange of cycling philosophies told me ‘What you’re doing takes balls. It takes lots of balls. You should write a book.’ Hard to disagree with that.

I met up with Ian again briefly and secured his assistance as I try to set up an alumni ride. There’s quite a bit of the organizing stuff I can do from Brooklyn, but things like finding and marking appropriate routes is better done locally. He again offered to take me out and introduce me around if I wanted to stay until they had cleaned up around 9, but I wanted to get on the road.

I left Appleton at last, taking the CE trail I had ridden 8 hours before. Along the way I passed some bushes full of birds warning passersby to stay away. One of them was flying right behind and above me, calling angrily. Suddenly, there was a bang against the back of my helmet. I was attacked! I was attacked by a bird! Thankfully, the bird didn’t even scratch the helmet. If I wasn’t wearing one, that may have hurt. I rang my bell a couple times and the bird retreated.

I took the trail to its end in Kimberley, then swung south along the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago towards Fond Du Lac. I stopped at a little ice cream shop in Sherwood. The owner, seeing my helmet, asked if I had heard about the guy who had ridden from California to Appleton this weekend. I smiled. Yes, yes I had heard something about that.

As I was approaching Fond Du Lac, the day’s activity was taking its toll. I not only had little energy, but I started to get sleepy on my bike, for the first time I can remember ever in my entire life. I managed to stay awake though. Getting into Fond Du Lac, I found a trail running along the highway that I hadn’t seen on any of the maps. I crossed town and found a room close to the Wild Goose Trail, which I wanted to take south in morning. Shortly the sky was dark, I was fast asleep.


Days 51 & 52, Appleton, WI – Fond Du Lac, WI
67.24 miles in 6:35:35. 3192.9 miles total with a trip time of 261:53:28 and a top speed of 36.1 mph (hit going down the hill crossing the Lawe St bridge)