By Mandy Hansel
Sundays are usually my rest day, but I decided to take advantage of the half-way decent weather and planned to ride my 50k while my husband ran for 3 1/2 hours. Trempealeau Refuge and the Great River Trail were to be the site of my ride. It is mostly wide trails and gravel roads with a short portion on the trail, which turned out to be a bad idea.
I started riding and Bill started running with the plan that I would finish in 3 hours and be back to the truck before he would be done running. Well, that turned out to be completely wrong too! The beginning of the ride was to consist of 3 out and backs to lookouts on the Mississippi River. I arrived at the first lookout and captured some amazing pics of the sun over the river. Heading back to where I entered the trail, I passed Bill who asked if I had locked the truck?? Oh no!!! So the ride was already altered in the first two miles.
Not a big deal. I rode back to the lot to lock it and back out to the trail, adding a 1/2 mile or so. I headed to the trail to the next lookout without incident and had another great view of the Mississippi. Headed back to the trailhead, passing guess who again? Yup! Bill was keeping up with me pretty well....running and I was riding. That tells you how slow my ride was going. Ha! Major miscalculation on my part! He also pointed out that there was a Bald Eagle fishing out on the ice which I got to witness. So cool!
At this point, I figured out I was definitely not going to finish in three hours! I was going to be lucky to finish in four hours if I didn't pick up the pace. I love taking pictures on runs and rides but on the fat bike it is quite the ordeal to stop and take pictures so I had to resist the urge I had every 5-10 minutes to stop and take pics if I wanted to finish under four hours. Off to the next lookout and this one was a super cool spot! It was the base of Trempealeau Mountain in Perrot State Park. I would love to have gotten closer but it is off-limits to the public so I had to settle for a pic of the bike on the trail about 1/2 mile from the base of the Mountain.
On my way out, I witnessed an amazing Golden Eagle take flight from an island and settle into a dead tree on the shore. So awesome to watch them in flight! Headed back to the trailhead and lone and behold, I pass by Bill again! I let him know at this point he would be finishing before me and not to worry if I wasn't there when he got done. Headed onto the roads in the Refuge to connect to the Great River Trail. Started out with some patchy snow and ice, but not too bad. Got about a mile out and there was icy snow covering the majority of the trail.
Time was against me on this ride so I made the decision to head back into the Refuge and finish up my ride on the faster gravel roads. Ended up riding every road in the refuge, in both directions! I knew I needed to be at about 27 miles before I headed back to the parking lot and a warm truck. I ended up being a tad short so I decided to ride the first out and back I did at the start of the ride again on my way back. It ended up being the perfect distance and I pulled up to the truck with 31.26 miles in 3:49:51. My toes were very cold even with two pairs of socks and two pairs of neoprene covers on over my riding shoes. I definitely should have worn my winter riding boots. My upper body was the perfect temp as were my hands the whole ride. My face did get cold from time to time. I really struggle to find a face covering that allows me to breathe easily and blow my snotty nose every 5 minutes. If anyone has suggestions, I am all ears!
Overall, this was a really great ride and I am super proud of myself for committing to the 50k and cranking it out all in one ride.