BrianT USA 2013: Stage 4 Sioux Falls to Manitowoc (Lake Michigan)

Total Distance ridden so far: 4227 kms

Ice creams eaten : losing count I think it's 45 including rest days

Last 6 days of this week we rode 910 kms

Sioux Falls was a great rest day, we watched Froome win on Ventoux then we went down town. Sioux Falls has a population of 160,000 and looks like a nice town. The city centre is very small and as it was Sunday almost everything was closed til noon. Many of the buildings are built in a rose granite which is quarried from very close to the falls themselves.

Just across from our hotel was the biggest single level mall in the USA. We didn't even bother to go in except on our way to dinner one night. It was 9.00pm on Sunday night when we passed back through and all the shops were open but there was not a soul in sight shopping.

First day out of Sioux Falls we rode to Worthington in Minnesotau yeeha another new state. The first 16 kms were through the green belt bike path which lines the city and down to the actual falls! It was a really beautiful.

roads have been fantastic here so far. Very smooth and wide too.

Next day we rode 189 kms to Mankato a glorious ride through corn fields and more corn fielda and yet more corn fields. It was a green day out there which made a very nice change from the last two weeks of brown fields. The entry to Manakato was down a 15 km rail trail through the woods it was fantastic.

Apparently it's getting very hot !! Today's ride to Rochester was 181 kms and there was a heat advisory issued - WOW the temperature rose to 31c !!

Riders were complaining about the extreme heat, some struggled all day and were concerned because tomorrow it may get as high as 34 or 35. WTF gives ??

HEAT ALERT - HEAT ALERT !! Last day in Minnesota and we rode 156 kms to La Crosse in the state of Wisconsin. Today would be one of my favourite days of this trip so far. There was a lot more variety and less straight line farm edge riding. The scenery was spectacular with rolling hills around every corner and it was pretty hot too the temperature rose to 38c about noon and the humidity was 90%. I guess we are used to the heat but the wingeing from the Americans was very funny. We had a very steep 2 km hill at the 110 km mark it was like someone had folded the road up. 10 - 14% the whole way from a flat start. Almost like riding up a wall. Part of today's ride was along a Rail Trail a disused train route that went through a beautiful Forrest

La Crosse is on the banks of the Mississippi River and feels like a really nice town.

Day 5 of this stretch was to be 144 kms, it should have been a fantastic day as we had 60 kms on a bike path. We had been told that under no circumstances were we to ride through the 3 long very dark tunnels. Sure !! We rode through he first tunnel and 1/2 way along passed one of the staff walking. Damn and they were shitty too. We just rode on and later in the day I spoke to Jeff the ride director and he was cool that I had spoken to him about it.

Tunnel photo - ( walking haha )

We arrived in town after a big detour which increased our distance by a lot of kms only to be told that the hotel we were booked in had been sold and we no longer had any rooms. Shit the staff had to work like crazy to get us accommodated in 5 separate motels all over town. Lucky we were in Wisconsen Dells which is like a poor Disney land town with many hotels and thousands of accented tourists from southern USA.

Last 2 days we rode on towards Manitowoc on the edge of Lake Michigan. Two longish days with a strong headwind.

That means we have now completed stage 3 yeeha !!

THEFT We have been warned that from here on as we travel east we need to lock up our bikes or there is a good chance they could be stolen.

The night we stayed in Rochester, Mitch ( one of the fabulous five - our riding group ) took his clothes to a laundromat adjacent to the motel. When he returned in an hour his clothes were gone. They stole his F'ing Lycra - very funny !! I wonder what they thought when they opened their bag.

A Few random photos

sandwich with a small amount of Beef and it was not the "Max Version "

Refer to me from now on as " The Thompson " or " The BT "

At dinner today I told the table that I thought I had found Adolf Hitlers son living here in Manakato. They looked bewildered so I showed them the photo I took of the restaurant manager. Well apparently nothing you say about Hitler is funny. It seems to be considered not funny to mention Adolf at all.