Lakes to Mountains Tour

How Many Bicyclists Does It Take To Replace a Bolt? (4)

Tues May 6: Le Mars to Sioux City, IA: 35 miles; increasing clouds, breezy, 77 at 1:00; 1:00-4:10 -- evening ride: 22 miles; between rainstorms, 64 at start; 6:10-7:15.
Some days are so full, it's hard to know where to start blogging it. Thus, I'll start at the beginning.
My day started at Kluckhohn Elementary, where Renae Buss met me in costume. "Several of us have dressed up as authors in honor of your visit." She took me to the gym, where the third graders had decorated the walls with posters talking about bike safety. Three hundred students (my largest audience in years) listened attentively to my talk, since they had been recently focusing on nutrition, fitness, and literacy.
The school librarian then drove me to Merrill, where Magdalena (the local reporter) interviewed me for the Le Mars paper. When she finished her questions, the schools 120 students filed into the cafeteria to hear me reprise my talk.
After returning to Le Mars, I biked to Bob's Drive-In Cafe, where I met Johnathan, Jerry and Frank from the Siouxland Cycling Club in Sioux City. We ate lunch, posed with our bikes so Magdalena could take my picture, wandered across the street for some Blue Bunny ice cream, and then biked south to Sioux City. Surprise! there is actually scenery in this region! (No, it's NOT flat.) They led me down quiet country roads through the Loess Hills, climbing to the highest point for miles around. The rumpled landscape exploded in shades of green as the long-awaited spring had finally arrived. Above us, dark clouds began gathering.
Halfway there, as we waited for Johnathan to catch up (he rode a recumbent, which is never as fast uphill as upright bikes), Frank noticed I had lost a bolt on my rack. I had a spare, but no wrench with which to tighten it. Frank looked for another bolt while Jerry held his bike, but no luck. Luckily, Johnathan had a zip-tie, which secured it for the rest of the ride.
We left Johnathan to recover from the hills at a tavern, while Frank and Jerry led me along the city's bike path to Albrecht's Bike Shop. After getting a more permanent fix, I rolled over to the library to meet Kathy Kelly, who had worked hard helping Johnathan to set up that evening's talk. Seeing that hungry look on my face, she shared her stash of dark chocolate with me.
It rained for a few minutes while I sat inside; when it stopped I rode the rain-slicked streets across the river into South Dakota to the site of the night's festivities. At 6:00 Ken and Shane arrived, and the three of us took off on a 7-mile ride along the river and up to an overlook. We then rode back, getting back to the lecture room only a minute before the heavens opened up (accompanied by thunder).
Frank and Johnathan and their wives were there, along with Jerry, Kathy, and more. I ended up forsaking the speech I had practiced, winging it with an unrehearsed presentation. After I finished, Frank offered to have the cycling club pay for my night at the hotel, but I turned him down in favor of an offer from Tim Hansen to stay at his house. By the time we got back to his pad at 10:30, I had just enough energy for a shower before hitting the sack.

posted by Glen @ 6:42 AM