Day 6 - A Father's Day Homecoming to remember
16/06/13 19:18
The last day turned out to be the most eventful.
Starting from the Missouri side of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, the first stint was supposed to be an easy ride along a bike trail that led all the way down town to the Arch.
The attraction of the trail was that it ran alongside the Mississippi River. Unfortunately there had been so much rain recently that the river had been at flood stage, and what looked like harmless specks on the trail way turned out to be incredibly sticky glutinous Mississippi Mud left there by the receding water, great for farmers but not good for cyclists! Scarcely 100 yards into the once flooded area and the mud had so clogged the rear wheel that it was literally impossible to pedal. I had to walk the trike back out to the road, remove the rear mudguard and spend half an hour scraping mud off everything.
Clearly using the trail was out, so the road it had to be. Bridget worked out a route, but was concerned as it took us through some of the less desirable areas of the city. Adding to the adventure was intermittent heavy rain, which did at least provide ample justification for having bought Goretex rain gear for the trip, and for ordering mudguards to fit on the front wheels. Disc brakes allow one to ride through puddles without losing braking efficiency, and the water was very welcome in gradually washing the mud off. Fortunately it was Sunday morning, and the commercial operations along the road were all closed and there was little traffic and few people, and with Bridget staying ahead of me, but always keeping me in sight, we reached the Arch without incident.
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We stopped for lunch at a McDonalds once we had safely traversed the Saint Louis University / Grand Avenue area. I had been thinking how well the tires had held up to the pounding they had taken over the 300 plus miles, which jinxed things, as the front left tire was flat as we moved off from lunch. For simplicity I changed the inner tube for a spare and we were off again fairly quickly, only to have the same tire go flat again within half a mile. I had checked the inside of the tire for anything poking thru at the first stop, and checked again now, but still couldn’t find anything. Probably there was something that was embedded in the tire that only protruded when it was put under load. Fortunately I also had a spare tire, so after doing a puncture repair I was able to change to that and after a much longer delay we were back on the road again.
Downtown to Wildwood may seem pretty flat in a car, but on a tricycle it is anything but. The rain held off, but the heat was exhausting. Bridget would go on ahead and wait for me to catch up before advancing again. At times I would have been happy to have stopped behind her, but she would move off just before I reached her. It felt very much like being the greyhound chasing the mechanical hare, which allowed you to get tantalizingly close but always stayed just out of reach!
In Ladue Bridget attracted the attention of the local police as she waited pulled up on the sidewalk for me to catch up. As it happened I wasn’t far behind and rapidly swept by to lend credulity to her explanation to the officer that she was acting as a support vehicle for an idiot on a recumbent tricycle.
Down the hills was fast and fun, but uphill was slow and tedious, but even a plodding pace gets you to the top eventually. The final stretch is mainly uphill, but the knowledge that it meant a successful end to the trek made it easy, and the final turn into our driveway was very satisfying.
The GoPro on the front of the trike took some 53,000 photos on the way from Chicago to St. Louis and I’ll put up some short time-lapse movies of the more interesting parts of the trip in the next few days.
Starting from the Missouri side of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, the first stint was supposed to be an easy ride along a bike trail that led all the way down town to the Arch.
The attraction of the trail was that it ran alongside the Mississippi River. Unfortunately there had been so much rain recently that the river had been at flood stage, and what looked like harmless specks on the trail way turned out to be incredibly sticky glutinous Mississippi Mud left there by the receding water, great for farmers but not good for cyclists! Scarcely 100 yards into the once flooded area and the mud had so clogged the rear wheel that it was literally impossible to pedal. I had to walk the trike back out to the road, remove the rear mudguard and spend half an hour scraping mud off everything.
Clearly using the trail was out, so the road it had to be. Bridget worked out a route, but was concerned as it took us through some of the less desirable areas of the city. Adding to the adventure was intermittent heavy rain, which did at least provide ample justification for having bought Goretex rain gear for the trip, and for ordering mudguards to fit on the front wheels. Disc brakes allow one to ride through puddles without losing braking efficiency, and the water was very welcome in gradually washing the mud off. Fortunately it was Sunday morning, and the commercial operations along the road were all closed and there was little traffic and few people, and with Bridget staying ahead of me, but always keeping me in sight, we reached the Arch without incident.
,
We stopped for lunch at a McDonalds once we had safely traversed the Saint Louis University / Grand Avenue area. I had been thinking how well the tires had held up to the pounding they had taken over the 300 plus miles, which jinxed things, as the front left tire was flat as we moved off from lunch. For simplicity I changed the inner tube for a spare and we were off again fairly quickly, only to have the same tire go flat again within half a mile. I had checked the inside of the tire for anything poking thru at the first stop, and checked again now, but still couldn’t find anything. Probably there was something that was embedded in the tire that only protruded when it was put under load. Fortunately I also had a spare tire, so after doing a puncture repair I was able to change to that and after a much longer delay we were back on the road again.
Downtown to Wildwood may seem pretty flat in a car, but on a tricycle it is anything but. The rain held off, but the heat was exhausting. Bridget would go on ahead and wait for me to catch up before advancing again. At times I would have been happy to have stopped behind her, but she would move off just before I reached her. It felt very much like being the greyhound chasing the mechanical hare, which allowed you to get tantalizingly close but always stayed just out of reach!
In Ladue Bridget attracted the attention of the local police as she waited pulled up on the sidewalk for me to catch up. As it happened I wasn’t far behind and rapidly swept by to lend credulity to her explanation to the officer that she was acting as a support vehicle for an idiot on a recumbent tricycle.
Down the hills was fast and fun, but uphill was slow and tedious, but even a plodding pace gets you to the top eventually. The final stretch is mainly uphill, but the knowledge that it meant a successful end to the trek made it easy, and the final turn into our driveway was very satisfying.
The GoPro on the front of the trike took some 53,000 photos on the way from Chicago to St. Louis and I’ll put up some short time-lapse movies of the more interesting parts of the trip in the next few days.