Tour de Tonka 2023

Note: The Tour de Tonka was on Saturday August 5th. Here's my report. Did I take pictures? Well no.

I rode my bike 50 miles today. I did the Tour de Tonka 47 mile ride, and then rode 3 more miles around the Minnetonka High School so I could say I rode a half century. I can’t tell you how pleased and happy I am about this ride. To an experienced, younger rider this must seem like no big deal, but it was a big deal to me. I rode strongly, didn’t give up on the hills, averaged close to 13 mph, which is fast for me. I had fun, didn’t get tired until the very end, and chatted with my friends from the Minnetonka Bike Club at each rest stop.

I did the TdT 2 years ago but I did the 36 mile ride then, and I had my old bike. The 47 mile ride is much much prettier. It starts at the Minnetonka High School, goes through Deephaven up to Wayzata, out in the country north of Mound, down through Mound, through Navarre to Excelsior and back to the High School. It wanders all around Lake Minnetonka and the surrounding countryside. Some of the route was new to me but when we got to Mound we were riding on roads and trails that I ride on all the time, so that was nice! It took me not quite 4 hours, and that’s with hanging out at each of 3 rest stops for a little while.

There were some really big hills, but I didn’t quit. I used my full pedal stroke like I’ve been practicing and stayed steady throughout. Lots of people zoomed passed me of course, but there were plenty of people behind me and I never felt like I was being left behind. The 47 mile course intersected with the 71 mile and the 100 mile courses so sometimes there were really good riders around you. And at the end all the routes converge so there were little kids riding with their families too.

The rest stops had so much food! I told Lee it would have been easy to gain weight on this ride. That’s a nice thing about cycling, I don’t have to be concerned about what I eat, I’m not going to get sick from food bouncing around in my gut!

All in all it was just a great experience. Next up, the Looney Challenge. Time to get serious about running for 2 months so I can do well in in the 10k and conquer those 19.3 miles!