SAGBRAW 2007 – Day 5

People cleared out even more absurdly early today. Anxious to get home, I suppose. We got going about the same time as we had been, meaning we were bringing up the rear yet again. It didn’t bother me, but people at breakfast seemed to be looking down their noses at us for our lazy morning ways.

The first part of the route was hilly, and my front brake had started dragging again. My brakes are very particular — there’s not much leeway between dragging and too loose. Reid adjusted it once or twice and finally it seemed OK. It’s sure a lot easier to bike without that holding you up!

One of the stops today was at Parnell Tower, a 60-foot observation tower in the middle of Kettle Moraine State Forest.

After the tower, the route flattened out, but it started to get hot. There were a lot of complaints from people every night about the heat. Now, some were folks who had traveled from the east coast to get here, but most were Midwesterners... and here in the Midwest, July and August are hot! I didn’t think it was unusual for this time of year, and when you are on the bike, the breeze makes things much better. It was only once I got off the bike and showered, yet kept sweating, that I started to be cranky about it.

We got back to the ski hill for the “celebration lunch”, which turned out to be a somewhat anti-climactic packaged sandwich and bag of chips.

It took a while to get the car packed and the bikes loaded again, and we got to the high school in town just before they were supposed to be closing the showers down, but it turned out to be not a problem.

Then into the car, where we could sit and squirm on any part of our butts we wanted to, and home!

Overall, I would say that the biking parts of the trip were great. There were just a couple of stretches of road that were unpleasant, but it was mostly well marked and the cue sheets were accurate. A.

The food was fine. More vegetables would have been nice, and more variety for breakfast — we had breakfast burritos almost every day, and supper involved a salad one night, but not after that. But the quality wasn’t bad, the price was right, and there was plenty of it. B.

The non-biking portions of the ride were a little terrible. Kathy’s speeches were intolerable, but they were one of the only things bringing comraderie to the cyclists. The theme days listed in the pre-ride newsletter were totally ignored by the staff, and the ice-cream social and talent show were a little stupid. Especially since neither of us is very outgoing, it was hard to meet other riders (we did sit with people and chat at meals). C.

The most important thing was the biking, though, and I give the ride overall an A-. I definitely want to do another ride like this next year. I don’t know if this is the one I want to do, though. The mileage each day was fine, but maybe another day of biking would have been nice. I wonder if Kathy and Eric will get it together next year, or if this is just the way they operate?

The End.

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