TECHNICAL DETAILS

A Quick Sip Before the Next Hill, 2018
Sony A7ii
Sony FE 70-200 f/4
200mm, 1/2000 f/4, ISO 100

PLUM CITY ROLLERCOASTER

Cycling is only a notch below photographing as my favorite leisure-time (sic) pursuit. And when you combine that with raising funds to fight blood cancers, well, that about hits on all cylinders for me. I have ridden consistently with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Minnesota cycling team since 2010, putting in thousands of miles on the road, riding century (100 mile) rides around the United States, and raising tens of thousands of dollars personally for research and patient support. Early in May each year, as the team readies for a big annual ride around Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, we train on some of the hilliest rides we can find out here in non-mountain land. And that inevitably leads to my favorite of midwestern rides, the aptly-named “Plum City Rollercoaster”.

You cannot find a more scenic and vigorous 63 miles of country roads within an hour’s drive of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. And I’ve looked. Winding inland from Maiden Rock, Wisconsin–a tiny berg of a few hundred people perched on the eastern shore of the Mississippi River’s Lake Pepin–the ride launches into an unforgiving pedal through classic Wisconsin “coulee” country. This is an area of deeply-furrowed moraines that funneled water to the ancient Mississippi at the end of the last glaciation, and the remnant hills are steep and deeply channeled. It’s scrubby farm country, hard, I must imagine, to till given the topology. But it makes for great biking.

At one point, the ride runs straight east along a section line road, and the rhythmic rise and swoop along this stretch gives rise to the rollercoaster name. It burns your legs, leaves your lungs heaving, but the brief exhilarating downhills somehow make the pain seem worth it. Alas, this year saw me unable to participate in the Tahoe ride due to scheduling conflicts, and so I found myself driving the support car for the team while they rode my favorite ride. I was a little heartbroken not to be on the bike, but I took consolation in bringing cameras and shooting between their water stops and feeding breaks. And at the top of the best stretch of rollercoaster, I caught this scene of a few of the riders catching their breath after the last climb, grabbing a quick drink, and preparing to drop into the next coulee. Rinse and repeat. There wasn’t much magic about the shot, aside from knowing where a good view would be and pulling over for them to ride past. The compression of the longer 200mm lens, and the contrast afforded by the sun being nearly directly overhead brought out the silhouettes and accentuated the drop-off into which they were about to roll.

The next event is nigh, and I’m feeling like I need to take my turn on this road in the saddle while somebody else dishes out the Gatorade this time.

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