Strada dos

Sunday was the Strada Fango gravel ride.  After the Mammoth I pretty much knew I wanted to try out another long gravel ride so I was pretty excited about checking this out.  After the mammoth Derek and I also got to talking about doing it on the tandem.  The idea sounded fun, but I was initially reluctant for a lot of the obvious reasons.  Despite having this blog I am actually a pretty quiet shy person who values alone time on the bike and does the majority of cycling on my own.  The idea of being tethered to another cyclist for almost 60 miles of rough riding seemed pretty horrific.  Before we made the final decision we went out and put about 20 test miles on just to see how we rode together and it went smoothly so we were on for Sunday.  About as quickly as we could pull the bike out of the trailer people began questioning the plausibility of even being able to do the full route on a cross bike let alone a tandem.   

 Now these doubts were validated pretty quickly.  After the initial roll out and gravel road we hopped onto some ATV trail that really tested everything we put into the bike.  Short punchy rocky climbs followed by sandy descents and plenty of twists and turns was all we saw for what felt like forever.  Regardless we maintained control and pushed what felt like a pretty decent pace through it all.  Eventually we got back onto some gravel and I finally got a chance to take a picture of something other than Dereks back.

 The course was really breathtaking especially early on with the sun coming down.  This area is near my old stomping grounds and it's quintessential Wisconsin wilderness. As one racer said it feels like you should be in a Leinies ad. So at around mile 15 when we experienced our only couple mechanicals for the day (dropped chain and puncture) it was a welcome opportunity to stand in the woods and have a beer.  We gave up about five minutes on the repair and hit the road.  

The next stop wouldn't come until the top of the Category 5 Flambeau climb where we had a welcome beer and some food before bombing the side of the hill into a giant mud pit.  There is a certain point in long distance riding where your brain just kind of shuts off and everything just begins to run from muscle memory.  That point was reached not long after and lasted until about mile 50.  We ended up soloing for a long time until finally catching Riggs in the last section of ski trail to the finish.  When it was all said and done we got about 56 miles in in a little under 5 hours totaling around 4,600ft of climbing.  After the finish I had a couple beers and we packed up and headed out.  After a nice long shower I ate everything in my fridge and hit the sack by 9.  I had no doubt that we would be able to do the thing tandem but I was surprised how wiped I felt by the end.  I'm sure it is the first time a tandem has ever graced any of those roads or trails, but hopefully not the last.  All in all totally fun awesome ride and I am looking forward to seeing it grow and evolve in the years to come.  Great work to the organizers and riders for showing up.