First 100-Mile Ride of 2024
By the middle of February I was feeling like trying a longer ride. The forecast for Friday the 23rd was for sunshine, although it wasn't going to be one of the very unseasonably warm days we'd had recently. The wind was supposed to be out of the northwest. I decided to do a one-way ride down to Grand Rivers, a little town on the edge of the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area that Joy and I like.
The plan was for me to spend most of the day riding the 100 miles to Grand Rivers. Joy would drive down in the afternoon to meet me there, where we'd spend the night at a nice little mom-and-pop motel that we like.
I took my usual route to Grand Rivers, a portion of which, from Dixon to Marion, follows the TransAmerica Trail.
I was a little aggravated to find that I didn't have the expected tailwind much of the time. The wind seemed to be much more out of the west than the north.
The 22 miles from Clay to Marion, with its big rollers, was especially difficult today, with my reduced fitness level.
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I arrived in Marion hungry, and was disappointed to find that the McDonald's there no longer served breakfast all day. That was a bummer, but the Subway down the street was a good substitute.
The 35-ish miles from Marion to Grand Rivers was on much smaller, emptier roads. The hills were steep but not long.
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9 months ago
As you can see (if you looked at the map on Strava), we live across the Ohio River from Evansville, Indiana. It's much flatter up there than down in the Marion area.
9 months ago
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I arrived in Grand Rivers to find that Joy was already there. We checked into the motel, which wasn't busy this early in the year, then bought some food at the small supermarket down the street and had dinner in our room, which had a kitchenette.
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