Dairyland Dare Trip Report

Catch-up
First a quick catch-up since I've been slacking on postings. After Steelhead my family and I went up to Muskegon to spend the day at Michigan's Adventure - a kid oriented amusement park with a great assortment of rides as well as a great water park. Afterwards we took the Lake Express high speed ferry over to Milwaukee (costly but worth it in order to avoid the hellish ride through the Indiana/Chicago perpetual construction-zone corridor of death) and then headed for home. Overall it was a fun trip and a great way to slip in a Triathlon while still spending quality time with the family.

After arriving back home I decided to take the remainder of the week off to rest up for the Dairyland Dare - a new "challenge" ride that I was totally unprepared for. Slacked on posting because I was totally swamped at work and home. From the Matchbox Twenty song - I wish the real world would just stop hassling me. Ahh, the delicate balance of priorities....

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Dairyland Dare Trip Report
It was redemption time. After the miserable showing at the Horribly Hilly Hundreds in June it was time to return to the scene of the crime and give it another go. Pre-ride my game plan was to at least do the 200K route, and then based on how I was feeling decide whether or not to the 266K route. Given the fact that I haven't had a ride over 100 miles since June due to my focus on Muncie and Steelhead I knew I was going to be in for a challenge.

The Dairyland Dare is a new challenge ride this year for those who didn't suffer quite enough during the Horribly Hilly Hundreds. There are four options for the ride - 100K, 200K, 266K, and for the truly sick and twisted - 300K. I signed up for the 266K but knew going into this weekend that that was unlikely since I haven't done a lot of distance training.

Arrived at the Pine Ridge Motel in Dodgeville late Friday afternoon after three hour drive and hooked up with Pa and Luddie who had left an hour and a half ahead of me. After riding down to get our packets (and getting lost along the way) we headed to the Pizza Hut for dinner. The Pizza Hut sign had another sign just below it that proclaimed that this Pizza Hut was an "Italian Bistro". I guessed that meant pasta so we went for it. It was indeed pasta and it was surprisingly good. We were off to a good start.

Saturday morning it was up at 6 and on our way by 7. The ride start was uneventful and I was quickly dropped by Pa and Luddie on the first rollers coming out of the start. In contrast to the Horribly Hilly Hundreds and the past couple of weeks, the weather was very cooperative - high 70's, low humidity, and clear skies. Outstanding.

The course(s) for this event were absolutely fantastic from a scenery standpoint. I've often told my wife that if we were to ever move anywhere in the Midwest that it would be to the Madison area - it is absolutely beautiful up there. I had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery because I was so pathetically slow on the climbs. Even my forerunner thought I was standing still which screwed up my mileage stats a little bit.

The beauty of the landscape was in stark contrast to the sheer brutality of the course. This course has some of the steepest most grueling climbs I've ever done on a bike. There were times on some of the climbs where I thought my quads would stop firing because they were so burnt. There were also times where I was literally doing track stands because I was going so slow. My cadence was reduced to a push-pause-push-pause grind up the steeper climbs.

Overall it was a good hard ride with only a couple of hitches. The organizers allowed a special needs bag to be dropped and one of the rest stops. Pa and I decided to drop some Perpeteum into a bag and have it waiting for us at the Pleasant View rest stop - about 80 miles into the ride. Unfortunately we both missed the rest stop (I thought it was just a water stop and not the official rest stop when I went by) so we had to back track tacking on another 4 to 6 miles to the trip. A few of the roads had some "surprise" gravel patches on the downhills which took a few folks out of the ride. Fortunately I saw the patches in time and didn't freak out so I escaped unscathed. There were also a couple of poorly marked turns which got quite a few riders lost. In the end I finished the 200K route - not quite the 266K I'd signed up for but great considering the lack of big mileage rides since June. Overall though the organizers did a great job - I think this ride will be very successful in the future.

At the end of the ride I was totally, utterly, spent. After collapsing in a heap and not moving for a good 10 minutes I got up and had a burrito and felt a bit better. A quick shower (Pa brought along his Sunshower portable camping shower - a must have for rides and tri's) and we hopped into cars and headed down to New Glarus for a proper dinner at the Glarner Stube - home of the largest urinal in the Midwest. There I proceeded to consume at least as many calories as I burned by eating wiener schnitzel (veal cutlets breaded and fried in butter) and ruesti (a kind of hashbrown pie with cheese filling), as well as a pint of Squirrel Nut (local beer). A perfect ending to a tough day.