Ride 12 - Pie Ride

Rest stop at Sweet-Allyn Park. 6/14/25 dwm

 Yesterday I took part in the Pie Ride, a fundraising ride sponsored by the Janesville Morning Rotary club.

 There are four rides - -a family fun route; and routes of 12, 31, and 100 (20K, 50K, and 100K) miles. I signed up for the metric century.

 The ride started in downtown Janesville on the Festival Grounds. This area didn't exist when I was growing up in Janesville when downtown featured a parking lot covering the Rock river between Court and Milwaukee street bridges and riverbanks with a large parking lot.

Location of old Monterey dan. 6/15/25

As a kid, my friend and I rode all around the city, but neither of us would have imagined what it would look like 50 years later. 

This is the 25th year of the Pie Ride which is one of two fundraising events the Morning Rotary hosts annually. Their web site indicates money raised goes back into the community for causes like YMCA, Echo Food Bank, and the Boys and Girls Club.

When we moved back to Wisconsin in 2012, I did a couple rides around Janesville, but this took me through areas I'd never seen. 

The route used country roads.

 After leaving downtown around 7:15, I got on a bike and walking path along the Rock river that goes through Monterey Park before becoming the Peace Trail as it follows the river south. Before it left the city, it goes past a building where Dad used to work before the company moved to a new facility on the east side of Janesville.  

 This trail didn't exist in the late 1970s, early 1980s. The city's bike routes then were a couple of 10-mile loops on each side of town with signs directing you around less-traveled city streets.

 If you're not familiar with Rock County between Janesville and Beloit, this won't mean anything to you, but the route crossed from the west side of the river to the east where the Alliant Energy plant is located between cities. 

 From there we had a mostly direct route to the little community of Shopiere where the Rotarians had their rest stop. It was also the hub for all routes. For the metric century, in addition to the main route there was a South Loop that took you into parts of the far-east side of Beloit.

A few of the hundreds of riders. 6/14/25 dwm

The East Loop followed Turtle Creek east all the way to a park I grew up calling 'Carver's Rock.' It was a place our family picnicked and hiked. 

From there it was back to Sweet-Allyn Park for the third and last time to refill my water bottle and grab a few final cookies for the final miles. 

There were hills on the route but nothing particularly difficult. It was well-marked, I only needed to look at the map a couple of times to check where my location.

It was a great day. While it was cloudy at the start, the clouds broke by mid-morning and the temperatures stayed in the 70s.

Most roads were quiet. 6/14/25 dwm

 The ride finished where it started. After putting the bike on the car, I went back to the registration tent where they had a pie waiting for every cyclist. I was surprised that strawberry-rhubarb was one of them, it's my favorite.

 For the 12th ride of the year I was on the bike 4 hours, 9 minutes; averaged 16.8 mph; and covered 70 miles (8 more than that metric century).

 After all that, it was time for lunch and for a treat. I stopped at Frostie Freeze for a chocolate chip malt and Culver's for a pork tenderloin sandwich. It was a perfect finish.

 

All photos 6/14/2025 dwm