Tour de Corn

I got a chance to ride the "Tour de Corn" (unfortunate name) in Mitchell, SD yesterday. Mitchell is the proud home of the Corn Palace, hence the name for the ride. I rode it with Amy's brother Casey who lives in Mitchell.

I rolled into town shortly after 8:30 and parked at Casey's house. We rode over to the Corn Palace and got registered along with a few hundred other riders. They gave the option of a 15, 30 or 62 mile ride. Casey and I opted to go for broke and do the 62.

Casey's been training for a marathon in the Twin Cities and was a track athlete all through college. We grew up riding together with some of our friends and have had a few chances over the last few years to ride together. He wasn't sure how well he'd do since he's been running a lot and not riding much. I figured his fitness would be such that he wouldn't have any problems. I was actually a little worried about getting dropped by him even though I've got almost 2400 miles in my legs this year.

It was a gorgeous day, if a little windy (this is South Dakota after all). The wind was actually working in our favor as it would be in our faces for the first little bit, but behind us for most of the return trip. We rolled out easy as we got a police escort down Main Street out to the south end of the lake where we turned off to head out of town.

We lost the 15 milers almost immediately as they were riding around the lake, turning a corner that we would turn after about 50 miles. Casey and I were just kind of loping along having a conversation when we decided to move ahead of a pretty large pack that lagged behind a handful of riders that took off like a shot and we never saw again. When we got to the front of our pack, we picked up the conversation again. We rode like that for a few miles when we realized that we had a good sized group of about 20 riders drafting off of us.

We shared the love and let someone else take the brunt of the wind and began to share some of the work load with the whole group, occasionally going back to the front to do our turn. Drafting in cycling can save 20-25% of the effort you would need to ride that far that fast, so it's something that we were all looking to take advantage of.

We all stopped at a water station about 20 miles in for water, gatorade and a variety of foods. When everybody in our group had rested a little, we started back up. At this point a guy named Brian (related to Casey's wife by marriage) and I did most of the pulling. We would each take about a mile at a time with Casey and a guy named Matt from Sioux Falls taking the occasional, shorter pull. We got about five miles down the road when I decided I'd worked enough for awhile and planned to drift down the group aways. The only problem was that the four of us were the group by that point.

The four of us kept it up until we hit the turn that put the wind somewhat at our backs. We hit another rest stop, picked up a few more riders and kept on. Brian started complaining about cramping about 30 miles in and mentioned that 30 miles was his farthest ride for the year. I could tell by the way that he was talking that he overcooked it early and was going to have trouble holding us for long. Sure enough, the first incline (I refuse to call it a hill) we hit saw Brian cramp up and have to get off the bike. I felt bad for him, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do for him.

Matt, Casey and I continued on as we approached the lake, circled it and hit another rest stop. With only about 7 miles to go, we started on again. I knew from riding in the area with Casey before that we had a real hill ahead of us as we came back into town by the hospital. I was a little worried about whether I'd be able to keep a decent pace up it since both Casey and Matt have done or are preparing for marathons, both weigh at least 30 pounds less than me and both are just more naturally athletic than I am.

I hit the bottom of the hill and just rode a tempo like I have been riding on the hills around here for the last few months and just pounded it out until I reached the top. I was surprised to look back and see that I had gapped the guys by several blocks. I tooled along easily while they caught up by the time we made the turn to downtown and the finish.

I said, "I guess all that training I've been doing is working for me."

To which Matt replied, "Yeah, the King of the Mountains is safe for today."

We rolled the last several blocks in and had our free lunch of sloppy joes at a downtown bar where we also received our t-shirts and water bottles to commemorate the event. The sloppy joes weren't necessarily the ideal post-ride food, but it was food nonetheless. Brian joined us for lunch along with a couple of other guys we'd ridden with for various parts of the day. Afterwards, Casey and I rode back to his place where I was able to shower and visit with Heidi and their kids for a bit before driving home.

Our totals for the day: 64 miles (including the ride to and from Casey's house) with an average speed of 17.1 mph, four sloppy joes (between the two of us), about 5000 gallons of liquid, a lot of conversation and 1 good day on the bike.