The Great River Road Bike Tour:
Bellevue, Iowa to Cottage Grove, Minnesota
June 24 to July 4, 2007
Twenty years after his last bike tour, John along with Sophie biked from
Guttenberg, IA north along the Mississippi River Road to Cottage Grove, MN.
Trip Planning:
John still has most of his bike touring equipment:
Trek 620 touring bike with front and rear racks.
Kirtland front and rear panniers and handlebar bag.
Small camp stove.
Some biking clothes that still fix but will need some new larger chothes.
Sophie needs to get equipment:
She needs a touring bike: after trying to find a tour bike for Sophie on ebay we were
able to find her a used bike on Craig's List - a Trek 720 Multitrack. Front and rear racks from Lori's bike were added
and Sophie now has a bike ready for touring.
Bike touring bags: An Adventure Cycling small handlebar bag was found on ebay. Lori's front
Cycle Pro Panniers were converted to small rear panniers. A set of REI front panniers were found on Craig's list
Biking clothes: x-small biking shorts were found on ebay and with t-shirts Sophie is now OK
with biking clothes.
Backpacking tent is needed: Found a use REI Clipper 2-person tent. John's down-sleeping
bag was still in good enough conditionb to be used and Sophie has a small kids sleeping bag.
Maps were gathered from Adventure Cycling Association, Mississippi River Trail Inc.,
Mississippi River Parkway Commission, and the states of Iowa, Minnesota & Wisconsin to plan the route.
