Day 31 Mankato to Rochester, MN. 102 miles with 2921' of climbing,

Today it was cool at the start 62 degrees and it felt really good.  We ate breakfast at 0600 and loaded the luggage at 0630.  After loading luggage we had 3 blocks to go before the wall out of town.  The hill that we had to climb went for 3 blocks and it kicked up from 9 to 13% and for one brief moment it went to 14%.  It is hard to do a climb like this when your legs aren't warmed up yet., but we all made it and moved on down the road.

Once again after leaving Mankato we were routed on rural farm roads and the scenery is really pretty.  The corn and soybean fields are everywhere as far as you can see.  Everything is really green, they must have had a wet spring.  We only had 2 rest stops today one at 36 miles and the other at 69 miles.  The spacing of these was about right as it did not get real hot and we had a cool breeze from the SSE at 5-8 MPH.  The miles went a little slower today due to more climbing and somewhat tired legs from the great ride yesterday.  This is the 1st time that I have done back to back century rides.  I could feel the heavy legs early in the day so I took it easy today and enjoyed the scenery and fresh air.  The 1st rest stop was at a city park in the town of Waseca and there was a nice lake across the road. We had picnic tables to sit down and shade trees.  It was really nice.  I usually don't spend too much time at the rest stations as the legs get stiff and don't want to cooperate when you get back on your bike.  Off  we went again and we had some rolling hills and the miles clicked off as I watched a crop duster spray the Soybean fields.  There was a road construction crew doing some patch work on the road and they had a stop sign up, but I got waved on by as they knew were were turning right after we passed it.  There were 8 riders or so ahead of me and I was on a stretch of road and could not see another biker ahead or  behind me.  At time it gets where you second guess yourself and wonder if you are on the right road when you do not see other bikers.  I just double check the cue sheet and proceed on.  I met up with the others at the 2nd rest stop which was set up in a park next to a gas station and once again we had shade.  I ate my other peanut butter and honey sandwich and got some chocolate mile from the store to go along with it and filled my bottles up and departed on the home stretch for the last leg of 32 miles.  It was getting a little warmer, low 80's but when you were moving on the bike it felt really cool.  The last stretch had a few long hills in it and when we topped the last on you could see Rochester in the valley below.  We had a few stop lights to deal with and then they routed us to the bike path along the river and it was fantastic.  There were Canada Geese and with the river along side it made the last part really nice.  We arrived at the motel and they had cold bottled water and towells for us.  I checked in took my bike to the room and then we unloaded luggage, showered and I did my laundry. 

Tomorrow is only another 70 some odd mile day and the forecast is for 50-60% chance of rain.  Not a good forecast, but we will have to deal with the rain if it shows up.