This post could also be entitled "The Recycle Bike Shop Epic Century" as well as quite a few other things, but I figured I would save the epic-ness for the actual post instead of just the title. A few weekends ago, the guys from the shop as well as Josh and myself set out to ride our bikes down the Wabash trail from Council Bluffs to Shenandoah. The goal was to ride the 45-50 miles out, camp and cook out, then ride back the next day.
The Wabash is a beautiful trail and we had experience with the first 15 miles of it from the Taco Ride last summer. This being the first bikepacking trip for all of us, we were pretty stoked.
It was also Baby Jayne's first time out of the garage since last year. We got a bit of a late start, but headed off, enjoying the weather, the scenery and our company.
Pulled off at Minneola for a rest break. Minneola is the home of the famous Tacos for which the Taco Ride is named after. Pushing past Minneola, the trail became much less traveled. Eventually it became so sandy there were a few times we had to get off and push the bikes while leaving footprints in the sand.
We did get a few hours of nice weather and lovely scenery. Then, about the time it got dark it also started to rain. We struggled on through the ever increasingly muddy trail and the last 12 miles took us almost 2 hours because of how horrendous the trail had become. I was never so happy to see the lights of a city as I was to see Shenandoah rise up out of the darkness about midnight.
Rolling into a very asleep town at midnight thirty, soaked to the bone with no idea where the campground is always makes for good times. We found this shelter (which turned out to be where we were supposed to camp anyway, we just didn't know it) and moved the picnic tables to set up our tents. Of course there was no grilling out during a downpour, so we did our best with cooking over our little camp stoves until we all ran out of fuel. With the food we had managed to cook settling in our bellies, we crawled into wet sleeping bags and conked out.
Josh and I had to leave earlier than the rest of the group the next day because I had to be at work by 3. After our experience with the trail and the rain the night before we decided to take the highway back. We got directions and a very hazy map from a gentleman in Shenandoah and gave it our best shot. The awesome thing about the highway was that it was paved, so we could make much better time and not sink in like on the trail. The tough thing was the hills. Baby Jayne (like a typical tandem) really grinds her way up hills and we used our granny gear more than once. The rolling hills and the fog made us think of what it would be like to bikepack in Ireland or Scotland.
We met up with the trail again at Silver City and did the last 15 miles back the way we had come. Sure was nice to be on flat again and once we got within 5 miles we could almost smell home and put the pedals down. Literally. My phone was pretty fogged up from all the moisture it had been through on the trip, hence the fuzzy pictures. We counted it up and between riding out and back and a few little side tours, we went 100 miles. My legs were pretty sore, but it was a blast. I knew I had lost my mind when, while struggling up a hill, I heard my own voice saying, "You know, we should bikepack through Ireland sometime...." Many thanks to Mike Turman from Recycle Bike Shop for taking the awesome pictures (the not blurry ones)!
