Mission accomplished! I made it to David and Katie’s house. All in all, it was a 630 mile tour with 33,700 feet of ascending spread over 17 days of pedaling. You can geek out on maps and miles and feet in my STL2ATL RideWithGPS collection. Day 14 – Chattanooga, TN to LaFayette, GA Having hauled […]
STL2ATL Day 13 – a Long Long Day from Winchester, TN to Chattanooga, TN
I bedded down at the end of day 12 to a gorgeous sunset over Tims Ford Lake. I woke up on day 13 and headed out with some trepidation. This ride, from Tims Ford Lake State Park in Winchester, TN up to Sewanee, TN had the climb that was going to be, by far, the […]
STL2ATL Days 10-12 – Nashville, TN to Tims Ford State Park
Tennessee is a pretty state with an oddity, at least as far as I am concerned. For the route that I am traveling, southeast from Nashville to Chattanooga, there are often no roads other than interstate 24 and US highway 41. I could have chosen long looping routes to take rural roads but I opted […]
STL2ATL Days 6-9
The next four days took me from Cave-in-Rock State Park, IL, through Kentucky, and into Nashville, TN. Day 6 – Cave in Rock, IL to Princeton, KY I started day 6 in sunshine, liquid sunshine. It poured so hard in the morning that I delayed my start by two full hours. Once the worst of […]
STL2ATL – A Few Photos from Days 1 and 2
I am writing this from Pleasant View, TN after three more days of pedaling. On day 6, I rode from Cave-in-Rock State Park, IL to Princeton, KY. Day 7 was from Princeton to Hopkinsville, KY. Day 8 took me from Hopkinsville to Pleasant View, TN. I will write more about those soon but, since my […]
STL2ATL Days 1-5
I am five days into my bicycle tour from St. Louis to Atlanta. So far, it has been quite the adventure with all of the “issues” not related to the actual bike riding. I am typing this in a cabin at Cave-IN-Rock State Park, IL, overlooking the Ohio River. For those of you not intimately […]
Bicycle Touring from St. Louis to Atlanta
I am two days away from launching on my next bicycle tour. This time, I am riding from St. Louis, MO to Atlanta, GA. You can follow the details of my trip in my RideWithGPS collection, STL2ATL – St. Louis to Atlanta. It has an overview map. It also has the route for each day. […]
Bike Overnight to Cuivre River State Park
![selfie next to a Slow Your [picture of a donkey] Down sign](https://cheerfulcurmudgeon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2023-08-15_10-10-34_v1-340x200.jpg)
Sometimes a guy’s just gotta get away. I had an open 24 hours. The weather was forecast to be cool(ish) and dry for the next couple of days. I had a new Priority 600 bicycle with a Pinion gearbox just begging for it’s first out-of-town tour. During lunch on Monday the 14th, I told Candy […]
SP2M Day 15 – Hastings, MN to Minneapolis, MN
My initial plan for the last day of my St. Peters to Minneapolis bike tour was pretty boring: ride west from Hastings, north past the Minneapolis Zoo (hopefully with time for a short stop), north through suburbia to the bike trails along the Mississippi River, and then finish at the Stone Arch Bridge. I was […]
SP2M Day 13 – Fountain Lake, WI to Lake City, MN
Day 13 started with a flat-ish tire. My patched tube apparently had a slow leak. Fortunately it went down overnight so I got to fix it sitting indoors in my hotel room instead of by the side of the road. I trashed the patched tube and installed my spare rather than continue to mess around […]
SP2M Day 12 – La Crosse, WI to Fountain Lake, WI
Rest Day in La Crosse I spent a day in La Crosse to sleep, do laundry, blog, and (burp) eat too much. Again. But honestly, just because I had already eaten pizza for lunch, how could I possibly pass by a second lunch on the patio at the La Crosse Distilling Co? The glass contains […]
SP2M Day 11 – Prairie du Chien, WI to La Crosse, WI
This was going to be my longest day so I got up and out quicker than usual. I was fed, packed, and pedaling before 8:00am. The good news was that I had half as much gear to shlep so getting going was quicker. Compare this rig to what I had when I left home in […]
SP2M Day 10 – Cassville, WI to Prairie du Chien, WI
I had had one continual problem over the last several days: black flies a/k/a buffalo gnats. I had blithely cycled into black fly season and it was a particularly bad one this year. As long as I was riding and moving eight or nine miles per hour, I was free of the nasties. But any […]
SP2M Day 9 – Galena, IL to Cassville, WI
Fun though it was to laze about Galena, eat too much, and shop more than I oughta, I could hear the Stone Arch Bridge calling me and there were hills to be conquered. I set my sites on Cassville, WI, 44 miles and 2,800 feet of climbing away. It was going to be my climbing-est […]
SP2M – Visiting Galena, IL
I woke up on Friday morning feeling great and mostly recovered from the previous day’s hills and the previous evening’s Caesar salad, pizza, beer, and chocolate (in that order, of course, because the rules of fine dining just cannot be broken). I had a lazy morning waiting for my cousin, Melanie, to drive down to […]
SP2M Day 8 – Fulton, IL to Galena, IL
I left Fulton bright and early because I knew that it was going to be a hard day. I needed to cover 49 miles, one of my longest of the trip, and I also had to climb 1,880 feet. Pretty much all of the climbing was packed into the last 15 miles. First stop was […]
SP2M Day 7 – Moline, IL to Fulton, IL
Day seven dawned with more beautiful weather. I briefly considered delaying my departure from Moline so that I could ride over to the Rock Island Arsenal to see the atomic canon. I lost so much time on the previous day’s flat tire that I had not gotten to see it. Grown up responsibility kicked in, […]
I Did It! St. Peters to Minneapolis by Bicycle
With a gentle right turn onto the Stone Arch Bridge this afternoon, I completed my bicycle tour from St. Peters, MO to Minneapolis, MN. It has been quite the adventure. I pedaled for 15 days and took rest days in Nauvoo, IL; Galena, IL; and La Crosse, WI. I saw the Mississippi River from both […]
SP2M Day 6 – Muscatine, IA to Moline, IL
After two days of cold, grey skies and headwinds, I was singing out loud as I headed northeast out of Muscatine to mostly sunny skies and calm winds. Nothing could possibly go wrong on a day as perfect as this. Temps were cool as I left the hotel but forecast to warm up promptly. I […]
SP2M Days 4 & 5 – Nauvoo, IL to Oquawka, IL to Muscatine, IA
Day 4 – Nauvoo to Oquawka Fun though Nauvoo was, I had to leave and head north or I would never find either Minneapolis or a third restaurant. The day started cold, grey, and windy. Mother nature decided that three days of tailwinds was more than enough (thank you very much) and it was time […]
