Sept. 6-7: Savanna Bike Ride

With much enthusiasm and a decent weather forecast we left the Farm & Fleet parking lot in Muscatine at 8am on Saturday heading for the bike path in Moline. I decided at the last minute to run my very first 5K run at Wildcat Den State Park and the race started at 8am. My wife, Patti, dropped me off for the race and went ahead to meet the group. She returned just before I crossed the finish line and helped me limp over to the registration table to turn in my ID info. It would be Monday morning before I would find out that I placed 1st in my age group.

We reached the eastern parking lot at the Ben Butterworth Parkway in Moline just a couple of minutes past 9am and the group was ready to go minus the Olson’s who had a flat tire on their car a mile back. The delay was minimal and we started on our 60 mile journey heading north into a slight headwind. Our group did a great job of staying together with a comfortable pace of 13-14 mph. Mark & Julie would leave Moline about 2 hours after we left as Julie competed in a triathlon at Scott County Park and she took 1st in her age group. Congratulation Julie!

Over the next 3 hours we passed through East Moline, Hampton, Rapid City, Port Byron, Cordova and finally Albany. Anytime I am on a bike up in this area, I make a point to stop at Julie’s Restaurant. You get more food for the money than any other place I know and the staff was very hospitable to our group. Originally we had planned on stopping in Fulton for lunch, but we couldn’t wait. The Nepple’s had taken out ahead of our group and did stop at Cousin’s Sub shop for lunch in Fulton.

In Fulton we took the trail that goes around the eastern edge of town and on the return trip the next day we will take the western trail that goes by the big windmill. Dan had a broken spoke on his bike in Albany and had taken a ride with one of our sag drivers to the town of Thomson for repairs at Arnold’s Bike Shop. He met us along the route in a nature preserve area that has a sandy/pea gravel trail. This trail has some soft spots and we had to be extra careful maneuvering the 2 miles through this area. In Thompson we took a short break at a Casey’s General Store.

North of Thomson we had to get on Hwy 84 for a short section before re-joining the trail for the last 5 miles into Savanna. The wooden bridge over the railroad tracks was the steepest climb of our trip. About half of the group elected to stay at the Super-8 and the rest headed north for a 3 mile ride to Palisades State Park, where we were camping for the night. The campground was pretty quiet as there weren’t a lot of campers. However, one little detail I forgot to tell the camping group ahead of time was the hourly train that passes by all night long. It kept Patti and me up till after midnight, then either the trains quit or I fell into a deep sleep.

That evening our group gathered at Domenics & Maria’s Restaurant for some home made pasta. I think everyone had a great meal that night. Some of our group made the rounds of a few bars before calling it a night.

The next morning we met at 8am for breakfast at Aunt Mannie’s Kitchen. We were essentially the only patrons they had, but they were ill-prepared for this large of group. About two-thirds of our group took the buffet and the rest of us ordered off the menu. The last of our group finally received their food around 9am. Not a good start to our day. We all agreed that this place will not be on our list for next year’s ride.

The weather forecast the night before had mentioned showers after midnight and into the morning. We were fortunate that the weather forecasters were wrong again. We had beautiful weather on both of our days with daytime highs in the low 70’s. Today we would have a slight headwind and crosswind all day long.

On our trip back we stopped for a short break in Fulton to see the large windmill along the Mississippi River. After a few pictures we passed through Albany and on into Cordova for lunch at the Farmer’s Table. None of us had eaten here before, but by and large it was an ok stop. There weren’t many patrons there when we arrived and we got decent service and the food was ok.

We arrived back at our vehicles a little before 3:30 and ended up with close to 123 miles for those that had also biked to the campground in Savanna. The scenery along this route is just gorgeous as it follows the Mississippi River most of the way. Our average speed for the whole route was 13.5 mph. This pace allowed us to enjoy the scenery and carry on conversation with our friends. We had 17 riders and 8 non-riders join us for this first ride. Look for this route to be an annual event.

A special thanks to our sag drivers: Joyce, Bill, & Becky.