Day 34: Algona, IA to New Hampton, IA

These are some pictures from last night. After blogging, I went to a pub, ordered a beer and met some 50 something guys who wanted to know why I was wearing a helmet (sometimes I just forget to take it off). J They bought me a beer and invited me to join them but I choose to have supper first and read. Then I joined them and when I tried to leave I said, “Well I’m off to go find some cheesecake”. They said that I wouldn’t be able to find any cheesecake in this town and proceeded to offer to drive me to a restaurant twenty minutes away to get some cheesecake. I politely said no, but then they said that they would bring me cheesecake at the Elementary school (where we were staying). I thought they would probably forget.

The cheesecake and people enjoying the cheesecake.

Someone sent us a box of lifesavers.

Wrong! Forty-five minutes later, Julie comes up to me and says “There are people in the parking lot looking for you”. Sure enough, there are the guys and they brought me an entire cheesecake, whip cream, chocolate sauce, plates and forks! They said “Thanks again for doing this Sarah” as they left. So we had cheesecake.

Playing Euchre. Art and I won.

Actual Kms: 188 kms

Overkill: 0

Road Things: Honestly can’t remember.

Money Spent: $8 Amazing Beef Philly Sandwich and coffee, $125 batteries, bike lube (the wax kind), two red and black road tires ($60), new chain ($40), and inner tube, $4 ice cream/smoothie.

Interesting Person Pick: Denny O’Flattery…a 66 year old bike mechanic who is short, hard of hearing and a very generous person. He spent 3 hours with me, teaching me about my bike, talking about his biking days, and cleaning my bike with me and didn’t charge me a cent.

Favourite Part of the Day: Cleaning my bike with Denny…see below.

Worst Part of the Day: The middle kms, from 80 to 120 when we were going slow because of Brian’s knees. I wanted to go faster, but I also wanted to wait for Brian. It was just boring…a 40 km road of not a whole lot.

Today I woke up and Brian and I decided to leave around 7…which means 7:30. We booked it, pulling each other for about 80 kms. We did that in about 2.5 hours and it was great. Then we reached Julie’s SAG and Brian said that his knees were starting to hurt, so we decided to take it slow.

There were lots of air turbines in Iowa and Wisconsin.

We both hit the music and rolled onwards at about 23-25 km/h. Then we got to a little town and found the only restaurant open…Zak’s. I had a great sandwich and mashed potatoes, Brian had a burger and iced his knees.

Len, our chaplain in Bill, our motorcycle guy's helmet.

Then we headed out and after about 40 more kms we reached Charles City. We decided to look for the bike shop that the waitress had told us about. It was in a Radio Shack basement and we almost didn’t find it. The bike guy wasn’t there, but I saw some beautiful red and black striped tires that looked decent and matched my bike. I asked the lady at the counter and she said that “Denny” would be back in 10 minutes, so we waited and sure enough, a short Irishman returned and asked how he could help.

Denny helped a lot. First, we decided to put the new tires on my bike. Then we measured my chain and Denny showed me that it was quite stretched, so we put a new one on. We took off the cassette, sprockets and cleaned them furiously. We cleaned the clip on pedals with air pressure and I wiped the entire bike down. Denny was quite excited that I was cleaning my bike because he gets so many bikes into the shop that are so dirty. We spent three hours talking about his racing days, what kind of rides he does now, his bike, our trip and how he is helping some people ein the area with bikes of their own. One gentleman came in to get his inner tube replaced and because Denny was working on my bike, I did that for him. The whole experience was great. When he brought me to the cash register to pay, he said, “And it’s nothing for the labour, thanks for a wonderful afternoon.”

Denny and the other guy (the one whose inner tube I fixed).

So after the cheesecake incident and the bike mechanic blessing, I have to either admit to strangers generousity or my ability to get anything I want from older men. Maybe a little bit of both?

My clean bike. Notice the handle bar tape.

After that, I still had a 30 km bike ride into camp so I booked it and hoped to catch up with the Sweep team. I saw Josh and Gayle in the distance about 10 kms from camp and talked and joked with them until we got into camp at 6:30. Then I got to brag to the entire camp over my very clean, beautiful bike. After eating, showering, setting up the tent and phoning Tim, I went to bed.