WI V - Fools 100

April 6, 2008

The season opener turned out to be a very nice ride. Ron, Clint, Ken, Scot and Stu VanSwol met at 7:00 a.m. at the Iron Skillet at Hwy 20 and I-94. We had planned to leave at 7:30 but I held the group back while I finished my French toast.   We hit the highway at 7:46 a.m. It's 141 miles from the Iron Skillet to the Colonial House in Freedom and the Fools 100 ride was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. sharp. We wasted no time on the trip up there stopping to gas up in downtown Freedom.

I thought everyone was ready and pulled out of the service station leaving Ken at the pump. Luckily Clint stayed back until Ken was fueled up. The rest of us arrived at the Colonial House just as the ride was getting underway so we joined in near the tail end of the procession without even stopping in the parking lot. We did the first half of the ride and arrived at Romy's about an hour later only to find Ken and Clint waiting for us. That was when we found out we had left them at the pump. It worked out though. They stopped at the Colonial house and registered and then took a direct route over to Romy's.

We had a good fried chicken dinner at Romy's and some refreshments. After lunch we walked around the lot shooting the breeze with some old friends and checking out the bikes. When the lunch break was over we continued the Fools 100 and returned to the Colonial House via an assortment of country roads. At the end they held the 50/50 drawings and such. Ken Edwardson took home the trophy for the rider coming from the furthest distance for the ride.

Stu headed out to visit his folks and we pulled out a little later. On the way back we cut off Hwy 41 onto Hwy 26 south of Oshkosh and took that to Waupun where we stopped at a Culvers for some custard. Then we cut over to Hwy 67 and took that south through Oconomowoc and continued south past Dousman turning east on some county roads over to Hwy 83. Our group split up in Waterford where Scot and I headed south to Burlington while Clint and Ken took Hwy 20 east heading home.

The total mileage for the day for Scot and I was 432 miles. The weather was pretty good. It was about 50 when we left the Iron Skillet and got into the low 60's. We had some sun and clouds and it was a little breezy but no rain. All in all it was a pretty good trip for the first group ride of the season. I look forward to several more!

Ron