FWIW, The ride has grown to two full days of riding, Friday was split up morning and afternoon loops with a return to town for lunch, around 140 miles per day, which seemed a sweet spot for the terrain of small, curvy roads, and some gravel (I would have sworn that there was none, but hey, gotta keep your reputation intact.
).
After leading this ride for 6 years now, it's getting easier in some ways, but it always seems there's a new twist. I guess it doesn't get old that way. The one consistent factor is that it seems when I take more than a 20 second break from my rearview mirror, everyone disappears on me, lol. The big event this year was one of our guys getting into some gravel on the outer foot of the asphalt and instead of trying to correct on the curve, rode into a shallow ditch. Someone else (names omitted to protect the dignity of MVers) had some target fixation practice and rode into the ditch after him. Fortunately minimal damage and we could continue on. Definitely some lessons learned.
Russ Bees rode his Royal Enfield several hours from Iowa, no small accomplishment at 87. He's still got what it takes!
The area is round barn and Amish country, so besides the hills and valleys (coulees), there was some unique scenery. Amazing how many Amish sawmills were in the area, evidenced by some huge sawdust piles.
Stop along the way to the event
Nice old gas station in town along the Mississippi
Scenic overlook on Mississippi
Mindoro Gap, cut by hand...second largest cut east of Mississippi. Cubsking for scale.
Mindoro
Folk art....amazing what you can do with broken glass and cement!
Got to visit FAST Corp's fiberglass molding graveyard. A unique must-see. Yup...Big Boy was there!
JKJ partaking of some ice cream in front of the cheese store
Accident reconstruction at the crash site. Not all that complicated...
The final catastrophe was on the way back....we'd stopped at an orchard and my friend Mike bought a bottle of maple syrup. On the way home, he opened the topcase to find an open bottle and his duffle swimming in syrup. Sigh.
