October 18, 2022
Day 27 - Wright City, MO (Super 7 Inn) to Louisiana, MO (River's Edge Motel)
Uphill, Against The Wind - Baby It's Cold Outside!
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Statistics, Useful & Otherwise;
Elevation Gained Today; 3,534 ft Cumulative; 57,622 ft
Roadkill Seen Today; Raccoon (2), Possum (4), Snake (4), Owl (1), Bird (1), Unknown (4) Cumulative; Hawk (3), Raccoon(14), Possum (26), Mouse (1), Squirrel (12), Armadillo (9), Bird (3), Coyote (1), Deer (5), Snake (12), Skunk (5), Rabbit (1), Turtle (4), Owl (1), Unknown (20)
Found Money Today; $0 Cumulative; $1.50
Lodging Cost Today; $81.39 Cumulative; $1,932.20
Bad Drivers Today; 0 Cumulative; 13
Dog Chases Today; 0 Cumulative; 20
Confederate Flags Today; 0 Cumulative; 6 (plus 30 little flags decorating confederate soldiers graves on the Natchez Trace)
Average Speed Today; 8.8 mph Cumulative; 9.77 mph
Summary of Today's Ride; Cold and miserable in the morning, uphill against the wind all day, but otherwise a great ride!
"Your credit card is cold!" exclaimed the motel desk clerk. "Yeah," I thought, "no kidding Sherlock." Today was about getting it done and surviving it. I knew it would be hard due to the cold, wind chill, headwind, and hills. The weather was about as cold as I can handle, primarily due to the headwind/wind chill. Tomorrow will be worse and I need a better plan to tackle it - but let's talk about today first.
I left Wright City at 07:30 after a leisurely breakfast of instant oatmeal and yogurt in my room. The actual temperature was 27 degrees and the wind chill made it feel like 22 degrees. I didn't want to leave in those conditions, but I had a hard day ahead of me and I needed to get going. I planned to stop at a cafe in Troy in 15 miles for "second breakfast," so I figured I could make it that far and then thaw out. For the first time on this journey I wore my leg warmers. I swapped my wind jacket for the rain jacket cause it's warmer. I wore the silk balaclava underneath the hoodie of the fishing shirt I wear for a biking jersey. I wore the cotton "gripper" gloves underneath the leather work gloves.
Everything was warm enough except for my fingers. They were about frozen in the hour and a half it took me to reach Troy. What was it like cycling in those conditions? Well, as I was laboring up a small steep hill in granny gear, the wind was blasting me, and even though the balaclava covered my mouth and nose , the wind cut right through it and forced salty-tasting snot to drip into my mouth. So it was hard to cycle the 15 miles to Troy, and I didn't stop for some pictures that I would have liked to capture.
I had a good second breakfast at the "Made With Love" cafe in Troy and lingered drinking coffee so I could warm up. The only other folks in the cafe were locals who knew the back-roads well and gave me lots of advice - mostly they just asked questions about the trip and were amazed that anyone would be biking in this crazy cold weather. Yeah, me too, I wanted Fall weather but this is Winter weather. When I was ready to leave I checked the weather app, and the actual temperature had climbed 10 degrees to 37 farenheit. That made a huge difference and I was able to cycle without my fingers suffering - so now I know that with a wind of 10 - 14 mph I can cycle in 37 degrees without my fingers freezing.
Here's a few pics of my ride today in the early afternoon after my fingers warmed up enough to operate the camera.
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I didn't expect any services after leaving Troy until I reached my destination, and there weren't any. One convenience store showed up on the ACA map, but I hadn't been able to find it using Google maps so I doubted that it was still in business. When I reached the location where it was shown, there was nothing at all to indicate that a store had ever existed at that spot. The ACA maps for this route have been the least reliable of any of the routes I have ridden.
I bought a pumpkin muffin for the road before departing my breakfast stop in Troy, and figured that might be my lunch today. I stopped in the village of Paynesville at a little display that is pretty much all there is to the town, and I ate my pumpkin muffin sitting on the wall below. [Special aside to Rob Johnson; a pumpkin muffin is a good thing, it has no association with the pumpkin spice craze]
I was actually pretty worn out by the time I reached Paynesville. It's not just because of today, the previous 2 days have been very hard and the cold weather has really increased the challenge for me. I slowly made my way to Clarksville and the Mississippi River.
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Lock and Dam 24 is only big enough for a half size tow, so it can take 2 hours to lock a full size barge through the lock. If you want to know more, including why there are no lock and dams on the lower Mississippi River, here you go --> Lock & Dam 24.
I just wanted this day to be done but I still had 12 miles to go. State Route 79 has a shoulder that's a designated bike lane and is a part of the Mississippi River Bicycle Trail. It was easy riding the shoulder, and there was hardly any traffic at all.
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My destination for tonight was Louisiana, Missouri - how's that for a confusing statement? It's a nice small town and I'm lodging at the River's Edge Motel, immediately adjacent to the Mississippi River.
I was so tired I just wanted to crash. I walked to the nearby convenience store that has a Charlie's Chicken inside, and took a 3-piece chicken dinner with corn and mac&cheese and biscuit back to my room. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do about tomorrow's ride, and it's not easy.
Once I leave Louisiana I have about 32 miles to ride to reach Hannibal, and there are no services along the way unless I venture to ride off the route for a mile. When I say "services" I'm referring to a cafe or convenience store where I could stop to buy some food and warm up. Almost all of the climbing tomorrow occurs before I reach Hannibal, so it's a hilly 32 miles. And the maximum grades on those hills is 13.8% - that's ridiculously steep! So I should probably leave here prepared to cycle to Hannibal before I can get inside somewhere and warm up. And that's the problem. Those 32 hilly miles will take me 4 hours or more to cover considering the hills and the wind.
I've been departing around 07:30, but the wind chill forecast for 07:30 tomorrow is 19 degrees. I can't deal with that. If I wait until 08:30 to depart, the wind chill is still too low for me; about 21 - 22 degrees. If I wait until 09:30 the wind chill will be around 27 degrees. I might be able to handle that since it will continue to get warmer from that point, but that's a very late start. So I'm wrestling with how to handle the cold weather tomorrow. All I have to do is get through tomorrow, then it will get warmer each day for the remainder of the week. Gee whiz, I wanted some Fall weather, not an icy winter blast.
BTW, if it wasn't for the cold weather and wind today would have been the best ride of the entire journey. There was hardly any traffic at all on the rural roads, and the few miles of State Route 47 were easy to do on the shoulder as was the 12 miles on State Route 79. So there's that - too bad I was freezing half the time and couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have.
Tomorrow is Day 4 of this 7-day run, and it's possibly going to be the most challenging, especially after the last 3 days of hills and yesterday and today's cold weather. If I wasn't so tired I'm sure I would be concerned about it. I'm still in the Ozarks, so here's the Ozark Mountain Daredevils with the other one of their two most popular songs. I'm trying to reach cyclist Valhalla, so maybe I should follow their advice.
Indeed, as I have said before, all the really good music was made in the 70's or thereabouts. Raise a little cain every now and then, but only a little and only when there's a purpose for it (The Meaning Of "Raising Cain"). I'm moving away from the Ozarks tomorrow, but I've got 13.8% grades to deal with along the way - so g'night folks...
Today's ride: 59 miles (95 km)
Total: 1,288 miles (2,073 km)
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