By: Kate Pearce
What a beautiful ride! I stole this blog post from Matt because I was so enthused. A nice 65 mile ride with some hills and also lots of flat terrain, our ride from Farmington to St. Louis was very enjoyable.
For me personally it was an exciting day. Since we stayed for a long time in Farmington (relative to our usual single night stops), I finally got the chance to practice using clip-ins in an empty parking lot. Feeling as confident as is reasonable without ever having been clipped in on the road, I was excited for the ride.
I didn’t even fall! Instead, I saw why people preach the clip-in shoes. I definitely felt more secure and in tune with the bike. At times I had a moment of panic as I struggled to unclip, but eventually things got smoother. Being able to use my hamstrings to pull on the upstroke felt nice. As an added bonus, the slight posture adjustment caused by clipping in seemed to magically erase some slight lower back discomfort and hand numbness issues I’d been facing.
Now that my almost-essay on the joy of clip-ins has come to a close, I’ll actually talk about the ride. The first 30ish miles were really beautiful; it was mostly empty backroads through beautiful forested areas. My catchphrase for the trip has become “Always a little more adventure than we expect!” and that certainly fit. A nice hard-packed gravel road we were riding headed straight into a creek. It was a little bit too deep and wobbly to bike through, so we forged across on foot.
We each took different strategies. I just decided to get wet and walked my bike across. Delia took a more entertaining approach and took off her socks and shoes and carried her bike up high.
Matt kind of took a blend between our approaches, and Lisa and Annie followed Delia’s lead. Regardless, it was nice how we all took the creek crossing as a fun opportunity as opposed to an unwelcome obstacle. Honestly, it was one of the highlights of the ride. Likewise, a closed bridge didn’t exactly stop us either later on.
Spotting a huge ice cream sculpture/sign beside the road, we stopped at Ginny’s to use the restroom and get some cold treats. Delia and I shared a vanilla custard cone. I was amazed- honestly the best frozen custard I’ve ever had! The consistency was incredible. It was so thick and sweet and dense and basically tasted like 10x thicker whipped cream. Matt got himself a refreshing snow cone and then we were off to finish the ride.
We took two “lunch” breaks, although we weren’t sure the second one was really necessary after all. As we pulled up in front of our host’s house, I kind of felt like riding more. It was a fun day, even with the last few miles of incessant stop signs!
Hosted by the Appelbaum family, we were very grateful to get to stay in their beautifully finished attic. Also, their pets were a big hit. With two tiny gray foster kittens to play with, we were pretty darn content.
Relishing the urban opportunity, we headed out to dinner as a team. We decided on Pho Grand for some Vietnamese food. The strong iced coffee with condensed milk was a big hit for those who tried it. I was really pushing for some frozen yogurt, and we wandered down the street and luckily stumbled upon an ice cream/ Italian ice/ frozen custard/ frozen yogurt place. It was quite delicious!
Perhaps caffeinated up for more than a usual Monday night, Annie found a local spot with live jazz/jazz-inspired soul and funk music. She went out to the show along with Matt, Lisa, and Alex. They really enjoyed the impressive live music.
Bethany, Delia, and I hung back at the house, attempting to go to bed early. That plan fell to the side as we lounged on our sleeping pads chatting it up. From talking about journaling to art or perfectionism to bike derailleurs, we definitely kept ourselves amused. Those long conversations after long days are one of my favorite parts of the trip. Ironically, we were all still awake when the concert crew returned, happy about the day and excited about teaching another Learning Festival the next morning!
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