Girl's Ride June 19, 2004 [Ride Reports]

The morning temperatures were brisk, in the mid 50's... Babette, Jenya and myself met at the Bartlett Starbucks before 8:30AM. The high temperature for the day was supposed to be 70 degrees with clear skies, but it would take a while to warm up, as we headed North in to Wisconsin. At 11AM it was still only 58 degrees.

We stopped for lunch at around 12:30PM in Argyle, WI at a place called Irma's Home Cooking. The #1 special of the day was already erased from the board, Jenya and myself ordered #2...chicken strips, mashed potatoes and gravy... yum, home cooking... Babette ordered a burger. She said it was very good, I told her it should be, they probably just killed the cow today :) By the time we finished lunch they only had one slice of pie left, and as three bicyclists walked in and set down, they were already erasing the #2 special. I guess they were not prepared for this influx of tourists today.

After lunch we headed West and stopped on County G and Bethel Grove for pictures. We never made it to the rest of the A,B, C roads A detour on 151S forced us to travel on 80 to Cuba City, where we stopped so I could figure out how to get us back to those roads. Just before 4PM we made it to Dickeyville, WI. I've passed by here a few times before but never stopped to look at the Grotton, so we did - it's pretty cool. Reminds me of Barcelona, Spain and the architecture of Antonio Gaudi, my favorite is Parc Guell... I digress...

By the time we got to our bikes it was just past 4PM, we were a rock's throw from Iowa, so it would take us four hours to cross WI and get home, so we turned back.

Gassed up in Beloit, where Babette jumped on I-90 and Jenya and I took back roads home. We arrived in St. Charles at about 8PM, a few minutes later we parted ways.

The route today was experimental, although I know many good roads in the area, I wanted to try some that I haven't been on yet. My favorite from today was 81 from Argyle to Darlington, this road was under construction a couple years back and it's finally finished. Blackest black, shinny pristine asphalt that curves like a giant serpent through the hills, turns are posted at 40MPH but can easily be doubled...very nice... the county roads are as I remember, G for instance had gravel in almost every turn and debris in places left by farming equipment. Oh yeah, farming equipment... I lost count after the 10th tractor. Although we were on many different roads today, there was hardly any traffic on them, all day I think I only passed 5-7 cars. I forgot to keep track of the mileage for today, but I think we put on well over 400 miles.

Great day, let's do it again!