Lindsey Heim

Unfortunately, Thanksgiving break is coming to close, and as with most breaks I have been completely unproductive in the most royal sense ot the term. A nice long run on Friday afternoon coupled with some coffee with High School friends later that night led to some unfotunate incidents at WalMart. My best friend from high school, Kristin, and I ended up reliving 'the good 'ol days' of late night trips to Walmart in High School and sirred up sone shenanigans in the store. (ironically, I now feel badly that I made fun of the crap that they sell when we obviously had so much fun with it).

On Saturday I finally got to get in the long ride that I had been wanting to do for some time. It is one of my favorite routes in WI. The weather was cold, overcast, and there was a mist in the air, but I managed to bundle up and bring the Pod with for some good tunes. I headed up north from Onalaska towards Holmen and turned east up one of the first big climbs up the bluffs. Over a mile long of constant switchbacks, but once at the top, it is several miles of riding along the ridge and one can see all the way over to the Mississippi from the elevation. I love this climb and I always love to do it when I am home as sort of a 'test' of my fitness. Here I am riding along the ridge with the 'non- Mississippi' side in the background. There were also some pretty horses that I took a picture of out right before I got to smell the fragrant aroma filling the air while passing by some apple orchards. This ride also has one of my favorite descents- a long straight descent down the bluff that I always seem to hit my highest speed records on. My record is 55mph, but I only hit 45 this time. I am blaming it on a lighter bike ( damn carbon bike - hehe) After being chased by some dogs, and heading on the rollers through West Salem and heading over to Bangor, I got to my next favorite climb. The sun managed to ever so slightly peek through the clouds right before I headed up the climb- which is the next picture. This one immediately descends down and there is about five miles of rollers to go until Barre Mills. Here is just at the end of the descent- a pretty coulee full of dairy farms below. A really fun ride, but I was definitely glad to be warm inside again after being on top of the bluffs in the wind or sweating through all of my layers on the climbs. It was one of those rides that I needed to push myself out the door to be in that cold, but once out there, I am reminded of how much fun it is to see the world by bicycle even though my legs were screaming after doing my long run yesterday and my tempo ride the day before that. It was some great training and great to get the change of scenery and terrain over the prairieland of Nebraska.