Day 16: Worthington to Austin, MN

I woke up this morning feeling great. I got a particularly good night's sleep. I had a massage last night. And it is my birthday today. I felt very strong on the bike today and danced on the pedals for the whole ride.

Yesterday at the end of the day we had to negotiate 6 long miles of a gravel road because of construction. It was quite horrible. I fell once, almost fell several other times, and my bike came to a complete halt in sand upon more than one occasion. So this morning, when the message board announced that there would be a NINE mile section of gravel today, I was not pleased. I worked my way to the front of the pack, and finally met up with Franz, the crew member, and we rode to the start of the gravel. However, they were paving the section, and no bikes were allowed, so we had to do a 10 mile detour. I was actually thrilled to do extra miles on tarmac, rather than have to put up with gravel again. At this point, the clydesdale caught up with us. He must have had some extra oats for breakfast, because he was flying. Unbeknownst to me, he had decided to practice his time trial skills this morning, so he barrelled down the road at 26 mph into a slight headwind, for 9 miles It was all Franz and I could do to keep up with him. He then settled down, and actually faded at bit at the end of the day, but the 3 of us made good time.

More soybean fields and corn fields today, punctuated by an occasional well scrubbed little town, always with a large Lutheran church, a pristine town park, and a well kept cemetery. Despite the monotony, there is something calming about seeing green, instead of the browns of Wyoming and western South Dakota. I passed advertising signs for seed, saying things like "more ethanol per acre". We arrived in the little burg of Austin after less than 8 hours in the saddle. With our detour, we did 150 miles today.

Austin, Texas may have the University of Texas, but Austin, Minnesota has the SPAM museum, owned by the Hormel company. .....something any true trivia buff probably knows. How about that for a claim to fame!?! No, I didn't take the museum tour. The phone number is 1-800-LUV-SPAM (seriously!).

Marc from Belgium also had his birthday today, so the 2 birthday boys ate dinner together. He is a high school math teacher from Brussels, and speaks a zillion languages, like most people from that part of thw world. It turns out that he didn't just participate and finish the Paris-Brest-Paris 90 hour event that I mentioned a few posts ago.....he WON the damn thing!!! He and Caterina are truly world class endurance cyclists.

The EFI group is shrinking steadily; of the 32 or so riders who started, now more than half have taken part or whole days off because of nagging injuries, fatigue, or whatever. Actually, we are all relative wimps compared to another event PacTour does called the Elite tour, held every 3 years. It goes from San Diego to Savannah in just 17 days, or 170 miles per day on average, with multiple 200+ mileage days. 52 riders started this June, but only 21 finished. There were some days when riders spent over 14 hours in the saddle. I'm not sure the human body can secrete enough endorphins to make that ride pleasant!

Tomorrow we dip into Iowa, spend most of the day riding across the northern part of that state, and cross the Mississippi River at Prairie du Chien at the end of the day.

150 miles. 1800 vertical feet.