The corn is as high as an elephant's eye.
Hey Robb I think we forgot the bikes!
Shawn, Carolyn, and Kiwi Rick
And they call the Charles dirty!! John Hurley with GLORIA.
They don't get many bikes on this ferry.
It's tractor pin-up day boys and this is only a sampling of the beauties by the side of the road.
Mississippi Queen you know what I mean.
I am fascinated by rivers and always imagine myself piloting them with some kind of craft and traveling to places I haven’t seen. On this trip we’ve crossed some magnificent rivers so it was a real high point to cross probably the most famous river in the country. And we saw her at her powerful best…from the deck of a small ferry when she was 6 feet above normal and moving swiftly towards New Orleans. Amazing!
The staff was nervous about the day because it’s a long day (97 miles) and they had gotten word that the ferry wasn’t running last night so they were scrambling to re-route us to a bridge where they were going to have to shuttle us across in the vans. Even under normal circumstances they have trouble with this day because the riders get spread out on both sides of the river and the SAG vans can’t provide support.
The day started with more of those famous Missouri rollers but it was cool and we’re used to the humidity so we find other things to complain about now. Like the incredibly bone-jarring roads as we approached the river. If I lived in that area I wouldn’t even try to ride a road bike. I had to keep reminding myself that at least we weren’t on the chip-sealed shoulder of the interstate because it was a beautiful ride.
We might have been in New England because it’s similar geography except the hills just come quicker and there are very few level spots. The main differences in riding is that the roads are generally better (except for that shaky section) probably because they don’t get as much frost (?), the drivers are uber polite as I’ve mentioned before, and there just isn’t much traffic anyway. By the time we got to the first SAG we learned that the ferry was running so everyone relaxed and enjoyed the end of the Missouri portion.
As the ferry was arriving Robb realized that he had a flat (his first) so he had to take the next ferry. I crossed and was riding with Don and Joe, one of the new riders. The road through the flood plain is flatter than a tabletop but Don was getting nervous about Robb’s flat back at the SAG. Don is the reigning flat king so, right on schedule; he flatted about 5 miles from the river. This is Don’s 10th flat and I guess he just doesn’t want Robb as a challenger.
We all joined together again with Robb, Lester, and Wild Thing for the final blast into Quincy. Robb went in search of a bike store for a bottom bracket and the rest of us found the local downtown ice cream shop, Scary Ice Cream (VERY weird!). The Main Street is called Maine Street and there are some stately well-maintained mansions so this city (40,000 pop) had some very rich people at some point and there’s still some money here.
I like days like this where the ride has different phases and I particularly like ending the day riding through the town.
Today’s ratings: (the higher the better or easier)
Scenery: 6
Road conditions: 4
Grunt factor: 5
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