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| This is a 20.9 mile ride I did on a visit back to
TREK on April 14, 1999. The ride begins at the TREK bicycle
facility in Waterloo, WI, found at the lower right corner of the
map above. We rode a counter-clockwise loop on a beautiful
day that featured 67 degree weather with virtually zero wind, zero
cars and road quality that would make any Californian drool! |
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| It doesn't take long to leave the city behind and...oh, I
forgot, you were never in a city in the first place! TREK's
Waterloo WI facility is about as much in the country as you can
get. |
Even here you can see that it's not really flat... lots of
rolling stuff. Deceptively nice road surface too (even
though it looks a bit choppy here, these roads are very
smooth). |
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| Somewhere along Canal Road with Karsten Hagen, John Krawczyk,
Chad Price and Dean Gore (TREK & Fisher product people). |
Definitive midwest. Missile, er, I mean farm silo, barns,
brick foundations (tornados, not earthquakes, frequent this part
of the world!). |
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| Closeup of what TREK's competitors really fear...the contents of
that silo! When people say TREK blows away the
competition... |
Ridge Road just
past the intersection with Highway T. That's the Widowmaker
"mountain" range in the background. |
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| Fear &
loathing in the pack as it contemplates the evil Widowmaker.
Is it the grade (5%?), the climb (100 feet?) or the altitude (200
feet?) that makes this climb so tough? |
But this descent makes the pain worthwhile! Long, gradual,
smooth as glass...maybe this is where Consumer Reports ought to do
their silly rolling-resistance test? |
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| 67 degrees, just a few wisps of clouds in the sky, this was a
wonderful day to be on a bike! |
Silo, water tank and a brick-foundation barn. Yes, it does
look like a postcard! |
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| Of course, there are times where you see the water towers in the
distance...and they seem to stay out of reach forever. In
this case we're looking towards the township of Marshall. |
Note the agility of TREK product
people...if you don't blink, you might catch their toes touching
down in that split second in which they go from 25 mph to 0 and
then back to 25 again! |
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| Almost home as we cruise along Highway 19 back to TREK. |
20.9 miles and 55 minutes later, time to get back to work.
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Comments
from a friend of mine from Washington (state) who viewed these
photos-
Thanks for the great bunch of pics!
And thank gawd you finally completely
dispelled the notion that WI is flat,
straightroaded, and mono-scenic. Hey, I
saw at least ONE turn, even if that was at
a stop sign. And hey, can you
blame the guys for chancing a ticket from a cop
hidden behind the rugged
terrain features, versus the one opportunity for high
speed cornering in all
of WI? Ok, so maybe I exagerate. They have to have at
least one more turn at
the other end of state to create the "inter"state
road
system.....
ahh...They weren't all taken at the EXACT same spot
were they?......
:-)
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