I’ve been training hoping to ride my longest unicycle ride. The following weekend, there is a 34 mile bicycle race that I’ve signed up for. This was my last test to see if I was ready for the ride. I decided it would be fun to ride from Grafton, IL to Alton, IL along the great river road. Lucky for me, Danelle was there to drop me off and wait for me to finish. If all goes well, I’ll ride through Alton and end up at her work where she’ll be hanging out till I finish.
At Grafton, I stopped to note the trip and that I would be on the side of the road with traffic for a while. And maybe I can submit this photo to the highway department and they can update it for unicycles as well.
Riding next to the Mississippi river is wonderful. I love the view of the river. I had to stop to get a photo.
The road is also a bike trail/path going back to Alton. After those initial 8 miles, the path crosses the highway and goes to a dedicated path away from the road. I followed the path but didn’t stay long. The path is very bumpy compared to the road. I lost about 1 mph of speed focusing on my balance. At the first chance, I went back to the street and continued my ride from there. Unfortunately for me, my training wasn’t enough. I knew I was ready to quit before I hit the distance I wanted to. I called Danelle and had her pick me up several miles early.
This ride represents about half the distance I needed to ride the following week to meet my goal. I gave it all I had to go 17 miles, so 34 the following week was not going to happen.
It was a fun ride and I would have enjoyed doing this ride on a bicycle.
Hogan Haake