- Sunday, September 3, 2023
- Lake Geneva, WI
- Lodging: Comfort Suites
- Miles: 32.0 @ 9.8 mph
- Total Miles: 1,112.3
- Vertical (from Strava): 938′
- Start: 7:50am. 70°, mostly sunny.
- End: 2:40pm. 93° (indicated, in the shade), 91° (Wunderground).
- Elapsed time: 6:50 (including breakfast at McDonald’s, lunch at the Elk Restaurant, and frequent stops where I could find shade)
Today was just as pleasant as yesterday was unpleasant, despite being a bit warmer.
Two reasons: it was a much shorter day, and I started riding an hour earlier. Those two factors combined to get me to the Comfort Suites motel at 2:40pm, even after riding at a leisurely pace most of the day. I was trying to preempt the heat.
Today, for the first time on this trip, I mounted my cell phone holder on the handlebar. It blocks the paper map, but I’m not using that much anymore anyways. And it’s so convenient to not have to pull the phone out of my pocket when verifying directions. Even with the Wahoo, I often need to refer to the phone, especially when there are intricate maneuvers.
I like to secure the phone to the bike with a lanyard, so if the holder fails, or some other accident, I won’t lose the phone. I used to have a good lanyard, with a good clip at the end, but I couldn’t find it before this trip began. So recently at a Walmart, I found this orange whistle lanyard. It works, but I have no clip to attach it to the phone, so it’s very inconvenient to connect and disconnect. That’s mainly an issue when I want to take a photo.
I was out of the motel this morning before 8:00am, and rode directly to McDonald’s for breakfast. That had me on the road for real before 9:00. A good early start for me.
It was 70° before I started riding. I wore my sun shirt, which as usual, is almost too effective below 75°. But it warmed up nicely, and by mid-morning it was mid 80s.
At one point, I stopped next to the base of a cell phone tower, next to some trees, to take a break, mainly because it was the only shade around. It was adjacent to a soybean field. I was able to examine the plants closely. It looks sort of like string beans. At this stage of its development, at the beginning of September, the beans and pods are well developed, but covered with fuzz. I don’t know when they are harvested.
Lunch came early, around 11:15, in the town of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, at the Elk Restaurant Cafe. This place was classic. I expected a line, but there was none. However, the waitress warned me that she had a table for me to sit at, but the food would be at least 45 minutes. I said “no problem!” After all, it was nice and cool in here, there was an endless supply of Diet Coke, I had a book to read, and only 10 more miles to ride for the day. I ordered a vegi (sic) scrambler, which as predicted, came an hour later. It was a great lunch break!
I got to ride 3.5 miles on the unpaved White River Trail, which was very similar to yesterday’s Glacial Drumlin State Trail. I wish there had been more.
The winds weren’t bad today, with about the same for and against. If it had been a longer day, I probably would have thought that there were more headwinds than tailwinds. That’s what the forecast called for, anyways.
Here are some more photos:
Tomorrow is supposed to be another hot one. I’m agonizing over where to head to. I want to be in Chicago in two evenings, which means I need to find a spot that’s sufficiently close without being too big of a day tomorrow. I think I’m going to end up in Lake Zurich, Illinois.
We will see what tomorrow brings.
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