Wabasha, MN to La Crosse, WI

Saturday, September 13, 2003
Distance Cycled: 64 miles
Total elevation gain: 780 feet
Total flat tires on trip to day: 1

Today was the last day that Barbara, Scott and Ann would be riding with us. Scott and Gary worked on our route for the day and we took several short cuts. First we stayed on Hwy 61 from Wabasha to Winona, MN instead of going off the Hwy 61 on side trips as suggested by the Adventure Cycling Association maps. Second we crossed the river at Winona and traveled on a bike path on the old Milwaukee Road right of way to La Crosse. Our motel for the weekend was on the north side of La Crosse in Onalaska, WI and we had been told that the La Crosse bridge was a very unfriendly bridge to cross on a bicycle as well as being more than 5 miles south of our motel.

As we were riding toward Winona, the tandem suddenly got very, very squirrelly. We stopped and found that the back tire was completely flat. We removed the tire from the bicycle and checked the inside of the tire for anything that could have caused the flat. I found nothing that could have caused the flat tire. We changed the tube and reinstalled the tire. When I checked the disk brake on the rear wheel, I did not have any brake. I adjusted the brake and we continued on our way but the first time I applied the rear disk brake I knew that something was wrong. I was applying metal to metal; there was no brake pad. Since our route was very flat, I did not fix the problem until we reached our motel. A short time after fixing the flat tire, I heard a ping and thought that maybe I had broken a spoke. Later Scott told me that the back tire was no longer true and when I was fixing the brake I found that I did have a broken spoke. By now it was 6:00 PM on a Saturday. Mary Kay called several bicycle shops and was lucky to find one that would be open the next day from noon to 4:00 PM.

I was also having trouble with my digital camera. I was unable to charge the battery. The most charge I was able to achieve was about 14 minutes when a fully charged battery would show 70 minutes. It's a very good thing that tomorrow is a rest day. We continued on and stopped at Lark's Toy Co. They were not yet open but they let us come in and look at all the carousal and antique toys in their collection.

We ate lunch in Winona at a Subway located in a convenience store. The bridge at Winona across the Mississippi River did not look very bicycle friendly but as we approached the bridge on our bicycles, we spotted a sidewalk that went over the bridge. We all headed for the sidewalk and crossed the Mississippi River on the sidewalk of the Winona bridge. We then began to look for the bike path that was supposed to go to La Crosse. We traveled south on Hwy 35 for about 3 miles and saw a sign into a National Wildlife Refuge. We all stopped just past that road and Scott road down it to check and find out if it was the entrance to the bicycle path. He called on the radio and said it was and I started to back up the bicycle and realized that I was bending the rear derailleur because the rear derailleur was not in the same gear and the shift lever. I stopped as soon as I realized what I had been doing and went forward to turn the bicycle around. But when Mary Kay and I started to ride the bike, the bicycle would not stay in the lowest gear but wanted to jump to the next highest gear. Scott found out that we were about a mile from the road that would take us to the bicycle path so we all turned around and continued down Hwy 35 until we came to the correct road. As we went down this road I stopped several times to attempt to adjust the rear derailleur so that it would shift correctly in every gear. I was not successful.

We reached the entrance to the bicycle path and headed toward La Crosse. The weather was fine except that we had a sold cover of gray clouds. The bicycle path was beautiful. However, after traveling for 10 miles those clouds began to very lightly sprinkle on us. As we continued the sprinkle became a very light rain and got just a little harder as we continued. The problem was not the rain but the fact that as the bicycle path got wet it began to get slippery. Barbara was leading with us following on our tandem and Scott was behind us. Two other bicycle riders were coming from the other direction riding side by side on the path. They did not get out of Barbara's way so she moved toward the edge of the bicycle path and suddenly her bicycle slipped and she went down on her hip and elbow. We braked very hard and turned toward off the path onto the grass edge, stopped and also fell over. Barbara was crying and yelling that her leg hurt because she could not get out of her right clipless pedal. Mary Kay jumped up, ran over to Barbara and began to help her. She ignored me. I was not making any noise but I could not get out of my right clipless pedal either. Finally after Barbara was taken care of she came back and helped me get out of my pedal. Then the two of us picked our bicycle back up. After cleaning up Barbara we continued on our way until we reached the first cross street where we left the bicycle path for county roads that were wet but not as slippery as the bicycle path. I immediately asked Mary Kay to stop because the spray off the front wheel was making my shoes wet. I put on my happy boot shoe covers and we continued on our way.

We continued on our way onto Hwy 53, which had a sign that said, "No Non motorized Vehicles". We turned around and went back to Hwy 35 and continued to La Crosse. We finally reached a point where we knew we were close to our motel and Ann went into a furniture store and asked directions. We followed her directions, which said that the motel was very close to a Wal-Mart store. We found the Wal-Mart store but did not see how to reach the motel so we drove behind the Wal-Mart store and finally came out into the Wal-Mart store parking lot. On the other side of the parking lot was our motel. Thank goodness. I fixed the disk brake, we showered and ate a late supper and went to bed.