Wow.  Yesterday was a long day.  Brad met me in Madison, and we figured there was no sense in doing anything but GTFOOWAM (getting the fuck out of Wisconsin and Minnesota), so we slabbed it.  HARD.  700 miles later, and we’re in Grand Forks, North Dakota, better men for the ride.  And after a great dinner at the Tilted Frog (Twisted Frog? Tainted Frog?  No clue.), we’re all good.  The second bottle of wine was unwarranted, but we’re not here to make good decisions at night – we have to do that all day.

Rockin it out.

As we left Madison, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the city had that unbridled early morning promise of the green new student untouched by reality and experience.  Ah, the bliss of new beginnings.  This bliss carried us for about 100 miles until the heat hit.  Had we been out for a nice leisurely ride, I wouldn’t have noticed it, but 9 hours of 85 mph+ into a headwind in 85-90 degree weather wore on me.  It reminded me of the heat at the Turkish / Russian bathhouse as Boris blasted heat into me with huge palm fronds on the top row of the steam room.  Of course, any day you end up drinking vodka with 20 naked Russians at 10 am can’t be all bad, but that’s a story for another time.  For now, just think of sticking your face in an oven with a huge fan pushing hot air into your face.  I looked like a raccoon at the end of the day.  Good look for me – it highlights my German nose, which it does NOT need…

For the first day, it was a good one – sort of like the prologue to the Tour de France – just keep the GC riders safe and out of trouble till we get to the mountains.  A quick stop in Minneapolis at Bob’s Java Hut (a motorcycle freak hangout), and we’re back on the road aiming for Fargo or farther.

Wags in front of Bob's.

Brad doing his thing in front of Bob's.

Passing Fargo a bit too early to stop, we pushed on to Grand Forks, where we were all high fives and feeling good about putting in some serious miles.  At dinner, we were patting ourselves on the back and looking at the map of our route we’d done for the day feeling pretty accomplished.  Then we zoomed out to see the whole route to where we’re going.  Then we looked at each other.  Then back at the map. Then back at each other.  Then back at the map. Wow, that’s far.  I mean, that’s really, really far.  Apparently it’s way easier to TALK about riding to the Arctic than actually DOING it.  Who knew.  But, as we’ve been saying the whole trip – how do you eat an elephant?  Only one way to attack this.  Then I made the mistake of zooming way out and realizing that as the crow flies, we are actually closer to Greenland than where we’re going.  Daunting.

The Blog at the Frog.

So we ended the night with a couple bottles of wine and plans to get up early.  Seeing that it’s light out till 9:45, we’ve got a long day of riding for Day 2.

To new beginnings…