USNA 1973 Ride-2-Remember

Day 41, 13 September: Iowa City, IA to East Moline, IL

Day 41 of our 63 day journey began a little rough as getting out of Iowa City required a number of quick turns, which can lead to quickly corrected but frustrating wrong turns. Once on the open road we ran into about a 15 mile stretch of busy road with no usable shoulder due to a rumble strip placed in the middle of what little shoulder existed. We managed. No one was pleased, but within a mile of our first support stop traffic dropped off to a volume that allowed both drivers and cyclists a little breathing room. As an aside, I should mention that despite current day route planning tools like Ride With GPS or Komoot, along with paper maps and Google Earth “street view”, route planning remains very challenging. You really can’t judge a route or road until you’re on it. The tools help reduce bad choices, but they are not perfect or sufficiently developed to assist with shoulder size, composition, presence of rumble strips or volume of traffic. Sometimes we nail it… sometimes we don’t.

About halfway through our 72 mile ride I encounter a big dog — unleashed and unattended. He takes a couple of runs at me but I manage to find a new uphill speed sufficient to discourage further chase. By the time Bill arrived a few minutes later the dog had honed his skills and successfully attached himself to Bill’s backside. Fortunately, the skin wasn’t broken and as of an hour ago Bill wasn’t frothing at the mouth, so I think all is good.

None of what I’ve shared so far has anything to do with milestones, but they surfaced later in the day. Milestones are important. They break big undertakings into smaller pieces making the overall objective more achievable — little victories that keep adding up. One type of milestone that we’ve celebrated on a few occasions is crossing state lines. Today was another such day as we bid adieu to Iowa and welcomed Illinois. The Western states are big, especially when traversing from west to east. To date, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa have taken 5 to 8 riding days to cross. Illinois and Indiana will take three each. State line milestones are about to pick-up steam.

Whether traveling by air, train, auto, or foot, crossing the Mississippi River is a special landmark and milestone. We departed Iowa halfway across the Mississippi on the Iowa/Illinois Memorial Bridge. Two big milestones with one pedal stroke! We also had a great final 10 miles on a seldom used road and dedicated bike paths, all hugging the Mississippi, first on the west side through Davenport, IA and then the east side directly to our hotel on the banks of the Mississippi in East Moline, IL. It feels different being on the east side… it feels really good. Forty-one days behind us and twenty-two to go. We also finished Stage 3 and crossed the two-thirds completion mark today… another milestone. Onward to Princeton, Illinois.

Doug Leland