Today we decided to create our own route south through Iowa. We had heard from a few West-bounders that the roads were pretty bad with limited shoulders, and a little construction with detours. Instead, of following the Northern Tier route, we decided to follow the Mississippi River Trail (MRT) along Great River Road that then meets up with Highway 52. The road was beautiful with steep open rock faces on our right and the winding Mississippi River on our left. The road took us through the small town of Marquette and on the corner of a block full of small shops blinked a large neon sign that read, Mexican Restaurant. The word Margaritas jumped out me, even though it was only 10am. The road started to take us away from the river, as nice shoulders started to guide us up a steep climb. We continued to follow the MRT signs and relish in our choice to follow a different route. At the top of a climb worthy of the mountains in Washington, the scenery opened up to rolling corn fields. The road continued to carry only a few cars and the shoulder was nice and wide. Most of the morning I couldn’t believe why the Northern Tier Route wouldn’t take us on this road. Maybe it was the steep climbs out of the towns along the river? Either way, Matt and I both thought we had made a great decision on the route.
After our third tough climb, the road gave the wonderful yellow sign of a truck on a half diagonal line with a 6% grade. My fist pumped in the air, as the smile grew across my face. I kept a slow descent, creeping steeply down the ridge, keeping an eye on my speed and the road ahead. Suddenly I notice Matt slowing very quickly and then un-clipping from his bike petals. I pulled up next to him, and he had gotten his fourth flat tire on the descent. We walked the bikes the rest of the way down and pulled off the side of the road to repair the flat. A long metal shard had split Matt’s tire, and since he had some speed on the downhill, the shard didn’t just puncture it, it slit it in a long line. He replaced the tube and we jumped back on the bikes. Less than a quarter of a mile, his back tire blew again. He took off the tire and put a boot patch on it. Luckily we were both carrying extra tubes. We headed back on the road, and thankfully the patch worked.
At around mile marker 30, our sweet road started to turn a little rough. We lost our nicely paved shoulder for a gravel one, which our bikes can’t handle. The road itself seemed to get narrow, while the traffic increased. Huge ‘oversized load’ trucks started to pass us, accompanied by a row of pissed off cars behind them. The two-lane road was not quite suitable to pass, but cars did it scarily on rolling hills. At one point, a semi drove behind me, and I could see it was not going to try and pass, so I pulled off the road and stopped to let it pass. As the line of cars picked up speed to pass, I guy yelled out his window to ‘f-off’ and stuck his middle finger at me. The people in Iowa are so friendly.
Our chosen path rejoined the Northern Tier trail for the last 20 miles. We thought we had made a mistake taking a different route, but the northern tier route was just as crappy. The road continued to have only a gravel shoulder and the road felt like it wasn’t strong enough to even drive on it, with so many cracks and repairs. We pulled into the campground a little after 5pm. It was great to get off the bike, shower and relax with Matt’s mom. Lilly’s kisses quickly washed away the Iowan stink.
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