In what surely seems an error in the route, we are heading Northwest, away from our destination of Waterloo (near Omaha). I’m guessing since we started our ride this year more towards the middle of the state and heading North, the route selection committee needed to add some miles to the trip and are taking us a round about, but scenic, route.
Today we traveled 68 miles, 12 miles along the shoreline of the Calamus Reservior. The first 40 miles was a long and steady climb from around 2100 feet elevation to 2600, then a steady drop to 2300 at Bassett.
One of the few drive-in theaters in the state is seven miles west of town. Too bad it is so far, I’d love to take the old Burly bike there and clip the speaker onto my handlebars. But getting up at 4:00 am kind of makes that impractical.
Sorry I do not have more to report, but internet connections have not been good. I have lots of pictures to update, but can’t stay connected long enough or strong enough to upload them to the blog. ( NOTE: Edited on Day four to add pictures. See below.)
Suffice it to say, it has been interesting and one wild ride. I have been plagued with shifting problems all week, and Kelly from the Bike Rack has been really working hard to fix it. He thinks it is fixed now. It was skipping gear so bad today I caught the support vehicle 27 miles from town.
Yesterday I caught a ride in too, but not just for the shifting problems. Temps were in the 90’s and I was really starting to feel it unlike ever before. Drinking water by the gallons and just can’t get hydrated.
Yesterday was in the 90’s, and tomorrow morning is supposed to be 56 degrees. Yep, I must be in Nebraska.
Oh, I hurt all over, ask myself all day why on earth I am doing this, but at the end of the day it is all worth it.
Up at 3:30 this morning and fading fast (now 10:00 pm).
The morning stated off with beautiful views like this as we went around Lake Calimus (but none of the roads had views of the lake)
A video of the same scene will appear here soon. I think you agree the still picture does not do it justice.
As you can see from the flag, we had quite a headwind to deal with all day
Just had to pull off and get a video of these noisy cows.
The very little town of Rose really went all out for the BRAN riders. They built Bike Henge (an attempt I’m sure to out do our states Car Henge) and added a sprinkler head to the top to cool off bikers.
Bike Henge at Rose Nebraska
For several miles outside of Rose there were signs advertising the foods they were offering riders and occasionally would be a site to visit their zoo. They really made it sound interesting, signs promoting their special white bats. Well, the zoo was quite interesting…..
Great! Just Wonderful! What next???
