Remembering the Fruit Loop 2012

It was a while back that the Slender Fungus had the idea of doing a bone breaking ride through out the upper northwest corner of IL. We all congregated at my previous address in Sycamore IL and we departed heading westbound at 4 am sharp. I was lucky to have a bunch of good friends along and also my Son and Daughter. We saw the sun come out and then the relentless heat that beat us down all day. Some riders peeled off and ended the day with long distances and tiredness. My Son and daugther made it to Savanna. Cookie, Paul, B.B.., The Llama, Self made it to Galena, had some much needed food and lots of liquids. By then I had been cramping for about 6 hours. The hills around the Galena area turned our legs to hamburger meat. We arrived at our most northern point almost to Wisconsin. We came down and rode through Apple River Canyon in the dark. We had route 78 to ourselves since the torrential rains had washed most of the road to pieces. Paul was becoming delirious before we hit Mt. Carroll. He was picked up by his lovely significant other around midnight. The Llama fell asleep on a picknic bench at t DQ. He later re-located and spent the night in a display Shed at the hardware store on the corner of rte 64 and 78. Cookie, BB and I departed Mt. Carroll with still a very long way to go til home. We arrived at Mt. Morris and hit the gas station for weak coffee. We then rode through Oregon. We continued in the middle of the night on 64 stopping every so often for a break.
We arrived home around 630 am and completed exhausted. The rest is history. We rode around 260 miles and loved every minute of it.
Good Memories.


Fruit loop. Daughter, cookie, bonk king, son, bb



Son, bb, llama down a beautiful gravel road.



taking a break and trying to cool off.



one of my favorite photos of all time. We are so small compared to nature.



Son and daughter. Son on Fargo, daughter on Croscheck. They had a great day with 90 miles.



The LLama, rode a tall gear all day.



Another heat break. It was almost 100 degrees and very humid that day.



The Llama sleeping on a table.



Cookie reaching exhaustion point in Mt. Morris IL. We still had around 45 miles to go.

Heading home in complet darkness. B.B rode strong all day. I died a million times and kept coming back for more.

Ari