Day 4 — West Allis, WI to Edgerton via Waterloo, WI (104mi) and Recap
Today, we started the second of our back-to-back century rides. Our route took us from West Allis up to Waterloo, WI — so we could have lunch at Trek HQ, and take a tour of the museum and the factory. Then we headed south to Edgerton, WI — home to the largest Culver's in the world. Culver's is a presenting sponsor, and one of the franchise owners (in IL, not this one in Edgerton) is riding with us on this ride.
(I was impressed I was pulling 18+ mph average on my third century in four total days)
We grabbed a free lunch in their cafeteria and quickly pivoted to the tour. We started with a brief history of the company and how its founders met. They had a few items on the wall showing the evolution of the product over the years.
We started the morning as we always do: huddling after a quick breakfast. It's a well-oiled machine: after we bring our bikes downstairs and check out, the support loads luggage into the vehicles and our jump bags into the SAG vehicles. We fill up our water bottles and air up our tires.
Then, we have someone participating in the ride (rider, staff) tell their story about pediatric cancer. Today we heard from the mothers of Megan, a girl from the greater Chicagoland area. She was a great runner since a young age, all the while a straight A student. She was on-track to run division 1, with times that approached college times, just out of junior high. One day after a race when she ended 45 seconds slower than usual, she had to head home and go to her School dance. The next day she said she was feeling odd, when shortly thereafter, she said she had numbness in her legs. After a visit to the doctor with several scans, they found that she had a tumor growing on her spine. After surgery to remove it, they determined she had a rare glioma, and began a long series of chemotherapy and radiation. After some remission (over a year), her tumor came back, this time, and she had to have another surgery. This time, she actually had damage to her nerves and lost motor function from the chest down. She had to learn to adapt to a new sport, as running wasn't an option anymore. She started swimming and got an adaptive bicycle.
Ultimately, treatment options didn't prove to be working, and Megan died the summer after her freshman year of college.
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We rolled out and headed west, through construction and road closures until we left the outer suburbs and headed into the countryside. We eventually got into rolling hills, trees and, farmland. About 16 miles into the ride, just as we were exiting the right suburb neighborhoods, we rolled across a set of train tracks. We cross several dozen every time (you tend to notice them more on a bicycle since they can be a bad moment if you don't cross them perpendicularly). Rick was leading the single file line and I was riding behind Max in the number two spot. 
These tracks crossed the road from the bottom right side to the top left, at a 70⁰ angle. We tell to one another to give them updates on:
• road conditions (potholes, gravel, roadkill, obstacles) • traffic (clear or not of cars, which direction cars are)
• group tempo (e.g. getting gapped at the back of the peloton, move positions in the group, and swap out the lead riders who are pulling (cutting the wind and removing drag for those behind)
Max wasn't able to cross the tracks more head-on and he caught his front wheel in the track and barrel rolled. I was able to swerve around him (barely) but he fell safely and didn't break anything. His hip, shoulder had some serious road rash, and his helmet did its job and got a major scuff. The bike mechanics determined his fork had damage and his dad recommended he let the adrenaline wear off, that he rack his bike and ride onward to the rest — where they could determine if he could ride a spare bike or not.
We took our first rest stop at mile 26 in a state park. One of the riders and I chuckled as the RideWithGPS file had us riding on a gravel, then eventually a long grass trail, about 0.2mi into the park since it missed the turn. The ride got spicy with some unexpected cyclocross 🤣
Max got his replacement bike ready and he hopped back in with us. This stop was when we grabbed donuts and headed onward for the longest single leg of our rides this far: nearly 50 miles to Waterloo, unassisted other than the rider group.
This ride ended up having two groups, with the slower one (~16mph) leaving first. The other group left a bit after and we fluctuated between 18-22mph with a crosswind. Mike is a beast of a rider on a gravel bike, and he broke away and pulled me for 10 miles until about mile 45. We got into Lake Mills and there ended up being two fast groups and a smaller third slower one. When you ride single file, it's generally a safer idea to have smaller groups versus a long line when people keep passing and might have the tendency to serve back in front when oncoming traffic approaches.
We paused at mile 70, at a Y intersection, resting in the shoulder of a red barn. We waited to collect everyone so we could ride into Trek as a single group.
(I was impressed I was pulling 18+ mph average on my third century in four total days)We arrived and parked our bikes out front (making sure the Trek Madone that folks were on got placed by the door 😉).
We grabbed a free lunch in their cafeteria and quickly pivoted to the tour. We started with a brief history of the company and how its founders met. They had a few items on the wall showing the evolution of the product over the years.