Day 4 - Sauk Centre to Monticello - It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon...

September 1, 2022

Day 4 - Sauk Centre to Monticello

I knew today was going to be a hot one. The heat originally was supposed to hit Friday, but forecasts change. This one just happened to change at an inconvenient point. Tomorrow was supposed to be cooler. Now it looks to also be hot. sometimes lick just does not go in your favor.

I woke up around 5am and seriously considered packing up and departing. At 6:30am I decided I really would get packed up. And then I discovered my tent flysheet was covered in condensation inside AND out. I am opposed to packing up a wet tent. It is contrary to good camping practices and I know I am way too lazy to set it up later for drying. I went back to sleep.

At least the sunrise was nice. I’d stay in the Sauk Centre campground again. Nice people. Nice park.

I woke again around 8:30 or 9 when some sort of construction vehicle or garbage truck made an almighty clank. My flysheet was still wet as was the velomobile cover. I laid both out in the sun to dry along with my damp laundry and tried to get everything else organized and packed up. It took awhile in the sun, but everything did dry sufficiently for packing. By the time I packed everything and ate my breakfast, it was past 10am. So much for an early start.

Deep down I wanted to get all the way home today. Velomobile touring was novel the first couple days, but with the sun beating down on me and the heat, it hasn’t been fun the last couple days. In fact, I was in a pretty foul mood most of today, so much so, that I did not even bother to set up the GoPro to film. It’s not like I didn’t film this stretch in the other direction monday and Tuesday.

I was expecting higher speeds today headed in a more favorable direction. It definitely was better than Tuesday, but my body is also stuck in long-distance touring mode. I have power meter pedals, but every time I look down and see how gently I’m pedaling and put the hammer down, I just end up back in touring mode. The trails are rough enough and the roads strewn with enough gravel and junk, that I can’t watch the display and where I’m going so I’m just stuck pedaling gently. While my speed hasn’t been overwhelming, my legs have definitely held out very well despite the high mileage.

I ticked off the towns to St Cloud in reasonably quick order. I only stopped in Freeport where the gas station provided me with essential things like a bathroom, two bottles of Gatorade, an ice cream bar, a refill of ice cold water, and chapstick. My lips got pretty badly burned yesterday. I spent the next several miles hugging a bottle of cold Gatorade, at least when I wasn’t drinking the bottle of cold Gatorade.

Here is an exciting photo of downtown Albany

I saw hardly anyone on the trail until I got closer to Avon and St Joseph. Either everyone is smarter than me and opted to stay in out of the heat, or not much anyone actually uses the trail. That’s been the case on most of the trail. It would partially explain why it has been allowed to decay as much as it has. I almost wonder if it is mainly used in the winter for snowmobiling. That’s pretty hard on the trails.

In St Joseph I made a rather long stop. When I arrived there was still a remote chance I could make it home before dark. Truth is, even with the cold bottles of Gatorade I was really struggling with the heat. Velomobiles are fast, but they are also incredibly hot in this type of weather. All the body heat gets trapped by the shell. Mine does not have any air intakes. Even with my two computer fans mounted on the seat back, it’s still just too hot inside. Wrong tool for the job in this type of weather. I just parked in the shade and sat down and ate a power at and some banana chips as lunch. I was too exhausted even to go the couple blocks to get a proper lunch. For awhile I laid on my worthless camping pad under a tree to cool off. I don’t know how long I spent there, but I needed it. Around 2:30 I finally got back into he trail.

The next mission was making my way through St Cloud. I was still in a bad mood from the heat and not at all eager to find my way through a larger town. Leaving the end of the Lake Wobegon Trail, I encountered further Lake Wobegon trail signs. I ended up following those to the Mississippi River and the MRT route. This route goes much more north than I’d prefer, but it turned out to follow shady residential streets, a huge bonus. Signage was largely good, until I got to the river.

Some old train cars along quite possibly the only decent rideable bit of bike trail in St Cloud

MRT is a somewhat new route running the full length of the Mississippi River. I think. At least I believe that is the intent. The first obstacle was construction, because of course. Unfortunately this came at the bottom of a hill. Having already had to walk my velo up a series of sharp switchbacks to cross a busy road, I was not especially thrilled to have to push the thing back up the hill is just come down. Back at the top, I had to figure a way to reroute. Because I opted to take a different route back than I did in the way up, I did not have a route loaded in my gps. This was a mistake. The signage for MRT disappears when you get around downtown St Cloud. It does not reappear until you get to the St Cloud State campus. I would like to pause here to thank the courteous drivers in St Cloud who did not honk at me or try to run me over when I periodically stopped to try and find my way. Generally folks up here are pretty courteous and patient. Bless their hearts.

I thought there might be a bathroom here, but instead all I found was this fountain. St Cloud also has hardly any porta potties in their parks. There were, however, two college girls that thought my bike was cool.

The Beaver Island Trail starts on the south end of the college campus and follows along the river to the very south end of St Cloud. My expectation was this would be a much better route than the one in. I was wrong. Nearly every trail in St Cloud needs repaving. The creak in my velo is now louder than previously (I think it’s the seat and I blame the rough trails.) That I managed to traverse this trail with all teeth and body parts intact is a small miracle. I will give it credit for having a randomly placed porta potty (remember those two bottles of cold Gatorade I drank?), and lots of tree cover. Oh, and no cars. I have concluded that there is no good way to get through St Cloud on a bike and I’m sticking with that.

I stopped at a subway for an overpriced pile of vegetables on bread, and headed back on road for the next 30 miles. Being largely downhill now, I made much quicker progress. The route here is signed better and somewhat familiar, having ridden that way Monday and Tuesday. I stopped at the little park on the route in Clearwater and ate my sub. Then I phoned the closest hotel to my route in Monticello and reserved a room. I have showered, I have air conditioning, and I may or may not have had to kill a grasshopper that jumped out of the velomobile in the foyer where the velo is sleeping for the night….

Tomorrow I make the final ride of the tour back to my house. The first part will probably go quickly being signed and mainly on roads. Once I hit the cities, progress will slow. The trails are in rough shape (is this a Minnesota thing?), and I’ll have a lot more trail users to contend with. However, I know the route well and will have the incentive of my own bed, my own shower, clean clothes, way better food, and two lonely cats to drive me onward.

I would include in this report the further interactions with people curious about the velomobile, but there’s only so many times you can relate the same scenario. Did you build it? Does it have a motor? How fast does it go? How much did it cost? I never seen such a thing. And then the two kids who must have seen my gps mileage who told their grandma at subway that I must be drunk to ride that far. Not drunk. Just kinda stupid.

This is the most optimistic report I can offer of today. It wasn’t until I got out of St Cloud that I even remotely enjoyed any of the experience. It mostly was just turning the pedals wishing over and over that I was home in my cool comfortable house not stuffed in a steaming hot velomobile bumping down the road with an annoying squeak. Cycle touring is not all puppies and fairy tales. Sometimes it just plain sucks.

P.S. sorry there’s hardly any pictures. I just wanted to get it over with. You’ve also seen this part before. It looks the same, just hotter.

Today's ride: 75 miles (121 km)
Total: 285 miles (459 km)

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