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I spent a lot of time on the bike in 2023, riding around 6800 miles, which is over 2000 more than I have ever ridden before. I completed 250 rides, climbed over 400,000 feet, and spent about 400 hours on the bike. One of the reasons for this big increase is that this was my first full year having a bike trainer, and I rode a significant number of rides indoors on Zwift. Compared to infrequent rides on rollers in previous years, this helped maintain my fitness through the winter, leaving me much better prepared for the early riding season, including BCETS and the Dairy Roubaix.

My family is from the Kickapoo River Valley, a beautiful part of the Driftless Area in Southwest Wisconsin, and for my 49th birthday, I went on a long bike ride through the hills and valleys of this amazing region!

Trout Creek

Starting in Soldiers Grove, I headed north on Highway 61 to Trout Creek Road. This five mile road climbs gradually to Sugar Grove, and I felt a strong sense of nostalgia as I passed by the Schoville homestead where my great-great-grandparents settled on a 40 acre land grant following the Civil War. At the end of Trout Creek Road, I turned north onto County Highway X. There are many Amish farms in this area, and I was greeted by several horse drawn buggies filled with men on their way to work. As I climbed a steep section of X, an Amish man was riding a small children’s wagon down the other direction, legs akimbo, smiling, steering with one hand and waving at me with the other. I pulled over on the side of the road to watch, and saw him make it up the next hill!

In stereotypical Wisconsin fashion, our family vacation this summer was a trip to Door County, sharing a house on the tip of the Door Peninsula with some amazing friends. We took the ferry to Washington Island, swam and snorkeled in Death’s Door, and shopped in Sister Bay. A favorite was the Dark Sky Park at Newport State Park, staring up in awe at the Milky Way, shooting stars, and satellites traversing overhead.

Backroads

I was able to get in four bike rides, my first in Door County. The interior roads of the northern peninsula were not very inspiring, being mostly flat and either lined by young trees or fallow fields. On the plus side, traffic was light and the roads were in good shape.

This was my third year of participating in the Horribly Hilly Hundreds, a long, very hilly ride in the driftless area west of Madison. The fide begins in the villiage of Blue Mounds and ends in Blue Mound State Park and is a fund raiser for the park. In order to get ready for this ride, I started riding in March; Saturdays with Bombay Bicycle Club and weekdays on my own. There are three different distances, 100K, 150K and 200K. The weather was perfect, so I decided to ride the 200K.

For spring break this year, we decided to take a trip to Sevier County, Tennessee, home to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and innumerable tourist traps like Dollywood and the Titanic Museum¹. While these things hold little interest for me, I was very interested in the Smoky Mountains, because I wanted to go climb a mountain pass like the riders in the Tour de France.

So, I packed up one of my bikes, a modernized 1975 Schwinn Le Tour. I have lighter and more modern bikes, but this bike is extra comfortable. The steel frame, the suspension saddle, wider tires, and a carbon seatpost dampen the bumps in the road, and the relaxed, upright geometry of this era of bikes means that my hands and back don’t get tired on long rides.

I’ve been interested in Ancient Greece for much of my life. When I was in elementary school, I spent one Thanksgiving vacation copying dictionary entries of the Ancient Greek gods to a spiral bound notebook. I first read Homer in high school, the Odyssey translated by Robert Fitzgerald, which I still have. As an ancient history major¹ in college, I read a lot more including many classical works like Xenophon’s Anabasis and Plutarch’s Lives.