The Rise Up Ride (TRUR) Day 7: Thursday 29 April, Brookings, South Dakota Marie Kondo Day
Today was a rest day, letting all the organic pieces restore but my left knee in particular take a short break after riding about 300 km over three days from Hutchinson, Minnesota to here. Physically everything is working fine after preparing for a year training indoors, but as someone said, "In everything that the gods have made, there is a little crack." At about 200 pedal strokes per kilometer that is approximately 60,000 repetitions of the same biomechanical act and the little crack appeared on the medial side of my left knee. But during the late afternoon, following 24 hours off the bike, I took a spin around the parking lot of the EconoLodge in Brookings and the pain had gone down from a 6 to a 1. I'm hoping that all is better to ride to De Smet.
Today I took each piece of equipment, clothing, and tool in my hand and held it to determine if its gravity outweighed its usefulness. 3.5 kg, or approximately 20% of my stuff, didn't make the cut and found its way into a box at UPS headed home. I also jettisoned the lightweight camp chair that I'd found for cheap on Ebay, which turned out to be cheap for a reason: the stitching was defective and started falling apart. The GoPro with steadicam stick and batteries is going home early, some extra tools and a bulky synthetic down vest.
This part of South Dakota is lovely, flat and sparsely populated, with few towns and fewer camping services. It's about 180 km of zigzagging to stay on secondary roads from Brookings to Huron, which is too long to do in one day. The official route takes me too far north, away from any place to camp without riding a long way off route. I've had Strava route me on other secondary roads closer to the highway that passes through De Smet, where I have booked a room in a bed and breakfast. Pam was shocked when she discovered that I had no clue about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the "Little House on the Prairie" books, but evidently (and to the thrill of the female Chasek fan base) I'm pedaling to the shrine of young women's adventure literature and staying in a very special house, just four homes from where the Wilders lived. This should be interesting.
