Green Bay. Check.

At the end of today’s ride, Greg (one of Carolina Tailwinds owners) met us at the van and said, ”now you’ve seen Green Bay, you can check that off your list.” I don’t think that it was on our list, or at least not very high on the list, but we have checked it off.

We all had lunch together at the brew pub next to the hotel and started getting acquainted with the 16 other riders and the Carolina Tailwinds crew. At lunch, and then at the pre-ride meeting, we got the Carolina Tailwinds briefing on their procedures and how they are handling Covid (pretty relaxed except when we’ll all ride in vans together).

We opted not to take the detour at the start to see the statues of Curley Lambeau and Vince Lombardi, and we headed out with the group that we ate lunch with who are all members of a bike club in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. It’ was hot (mid-30s or low-90s depending on your standard of choice), but there was shade on most of the city streets as we headed south, and a little breeze.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. Once we got out of Green Bay we were on roads with no shade and some serious headwinds. Combined with the heat the ride to the first test stop at about 15 miles was brutal. There are no photos from this portion of the ride – not much interesting scenery, and no desire to stop in the sun.

Fortunately loop rides that head out into a headwind usually return with a tailwind, and after a few miles past the rest stop that happened. We entered some farm country, but still not a lot of shade.

Then we hit the Fox River Trail. This was a really nice shaded bike path that mostly followed the Fox River back toward Green Bay. We had all been given day passes for the trail before heading out on the ride. Most state biker trails in Wisconsin require that you have either a day pass or an annual pass to ride on them, and they often have rangers out checking to see your pass. There were kiosks at many trailheads where you could purchase a pass.

After getting off the trail we rode back through the city streets past Lambeau Field and t.o our hotel. A hot, exhausting day; but after a shower and a change of clothes we had a great group dinner in the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.