2007 Double-Century Picture Gallery

from left to right is Kurt, Matt, Larry, Joe, Louie, and Peter. A pretty motley crew, if I have to say so myself.

Louie topped us all in terms of the "pro-biker" look. A far cry from last year when Louie went on his first ride with us. He has taken to biking like a brick to mortar and is now leading the pack when we ride.

Usually, the training rides shake out all of the odd little quirks and tweaks we have with our bikes. The first few rides are typically filled with noisy gears, flat tires, and such. However, on this ride, we had our fair share of mechanical trouble.

Here we are passing the Zion nuclear power plant. That was good for about 15 miles of "glowing in the dark" jokes and chides for everyone.

Water was a problem on this ride. My route had some logistical mistakes including not having

adequate stops for water along the way. It is hard to remember that 30 miles between towns on a bicycle is an hour-and-a-half of hard riding instead of 20 minutes in air-conditioned comfort of a car. This was a perspective we were reminded of several times along the way.

Joe was the big motivator of the ride. The general consensus is that Joe will talk to anyone anytime and if there is no one strange around to talk to - he will pepper the other riders with questions, jokes, and comments.



Peter is still smiling here as we enter the part of the route we were not all that ready for. Most of our training was within 50 miles of Chicago - probably one of the flattest spots in all the mid-west. A "hill" to us was going over a major road on an overpass. Once we got about 50 miles west of DeKalb, the hills started... and kept going and going - just continuous rolling hills. Some of them pretty substantial. After a few miles of this, we knew we were in for an interesting afternoon.

And yet another flat tire. This one was more serious and actually ruined the tire rather than the tube. We were prepared for blown tubes - only Peter was prepared for a blown tire and had an extra. Points for Peter...

We called Joe the "Energizer Bunny" but he was out cold on this rest stop. We were at the 80 mile point and waiting for my son, Chris, to show up with more water - we had run out.

We figured we had another 20 miles to go, but another unfortunate aspect of my route was that it was actually 114 miles to our destination instead of 100. Good thing we didn't know it at this point.


Entering Savannah was a relief. It is hard to read, but the first sign we saw as we rode into Savannah was "Poopy's - Motorcycle Parts & Service" and if that wasn't enough, Poopy's also offered "Live Entertainment," "Free Tent Camping," and, of course, "Tattoos."

We were darn tired at this point, but we still had another 6 miles to go to the other side of town and our hotel.



This is the picturesque view from our motel. The proprietor wanted to make sure - after she heard what we were doing - that we had a great view from our room. Of course, this had to be at the top of a steep hill! Our last after 70 miles of hills. More than one of us walked up (I won't tell which ones.)

As picturesque as this was, there were trains about 100 yards away that leaned on their horns all night making getting a good night sleep a challenge for some of us. Not me - I sleep through anything.

The next day, we took an alternative route home which Joe said had no hills. We'll...he was wrong. Still, we made it back minus a couple of riders who took their leave a little earlier in the ride.

Submitted by Larry Wendt

Labels: bike ride, double century, picture, syscon

posted by Web Master at 5:33 PM