WHEN THE PLAN WAS NEVER A PLAN

A TALE OF TWENTY CITIES WITH PETER LIMBERG AND LUKE LIESKE

Words & Photos by Peter

When Covid first hit my buddy Luke Lieske and I started doing long bike rides all around Minneapolis, usually splitting a twelve pack of beer on each ride. Luke and I had met that previous fall, I had started getting tattoos done by him and we really connected over biking. The idea to do a bike tour first sparked after our first ride together, both about six beers deep, we loosely had talked about how fun it would be to do a bike tour during Covid. Luke had been wanting to do a long bike tour and I had done a few month long tours in the past and was overdue for another one. Both of us laid off because of Covid we thought we might as well make the most of our time off. Every ride after that we would bounce idea’s off of one another, where to go, when should we go, how long, what to bring, Do we go north? Do we go south? On one of the rides we had a beer break on a railroad bridge in downtown Minneapolis “Cat’s Bridge”. We were discussing the trip and where to go, Luke set down his beer on a railroad tie and he noticed it said “St.Louis, MO” He pointed it out and said “We’re going south, we’re following the Mississippi River to St. Louis.” Boom decision made. From there we gave ourselves about two weeks to plan and get ready. Our good friend Jules who was a bike mechanic, tuned up our bikes for us and made sure we were properly fitted to our bikes. Both us bought new camping gear as well new parts for our bikes and did an overnighter on one of our favorite bike trails to test our equipment. We both agreed to go into this trip with no expectations, no timeline, and just enjoy the ride.

We set off from Minneapolis on our bikes on May 6th crossing over into Wisconsin. We rode along the Mississippi River with beautiful views of bluffs. We rode through small river towns that had a lot of character. The first couple of days I had some complications with my bike and ended up having to get a whole new back rim. On the third day my tent and crocs flew off my bike without realizing, luckily a nice middle age women received the items and met me down the highway and gave them to me. We mostly camped in fields in below freezing temps. A camp fire had to be made every night and morning to keep ourselves warm. Every cold night we would huddle around the fire before we went to bed and would run straight into our tents to trap in the warmth while wearing every piece of warm clothing that we brought with us. On mother’s day my parents linked up with us and gave us roof over our heads for the night, a nice meal and a warm shower. We told them how cold it was at night and my mom said “There’s a reason why not many people do bike tours in the beginning of May” She’s wasn’t wrong. After the parents left we continued down the Mississippi, ran into some rain, picked up four pounds of smoked catfish from a vendor on the side of the road, and from there we crossed into Iowa. For about five days we crisscrossed from Iowa into Illinois depending on the quality of the roads. We discovered a bike trail called the Heritage Trail just east of Dubuque, IA which was once an old railroad highway which was one of our favorite rides of the trip. At the end of the trail we stopped for a snack and had a number of people come up to us asking us about our trip, we felt like celebrities. Illinois was interesting and seemed like it never ended.

In a small river town a lady who seemed to be tweaked out stopped us and tried to get us to stay with her at her sketchy hotel. We met a long distance runner (Dave) who was very interested in what we were doing and gave us good advice on which roads to take, later on the trip our paths randomly crossed with Dave again. One of our last nights in Illinois we had a run in with the cops, there was a storm a brewing so we stopped early and to seek shelter to camp under. We found one in a park in a small town that locals are very protective of. Some concerned citizens who thought we were up to no good called the cops on us and three squads showed up at the park. Once the police saw what we were just two good o’l boys traveling by bicycles they gave us the green light. Shortly after the cops left, four middle age men came over to us for questioning to make sure nothing sketchy was going on and took photos of our ID’s. Our stay in Fulton, IL will always be a memorable one. In southern Iowa we stopped on a bridge for our usual peanut butter banana burrito mid day snack, we met an old hippie fisherman with some herb who watched us bike in and he commented on the height difference between Luke and I, Luke being about 10 inches taller then me he laughed at me how my little o’l legs had trouble keeping up Luke’s long ones. We had crossed into Missouri which greeted us with long rolling hills but the scenery was well worth the climbs. On day twelve we did our first century and made it into St. Louis, MO. In St. Louis we got an Airbnb, took a well deserved day off, and took full advantage of bbq spots that St. Louis had to offer.

Our original plan was to bike from Minneapolis to St. Louis and then head north back to Minneapolis. During our off day in St. Louis, I had jokingly mentioned how cool it would be to keep following the Mississippi all the way down to New Orleans. After that we both looked at each other and said “Fuck it should we just keep going south, we’ve already seen everything north of here.” It was a no brainer, New Orleans here we come.

It didn’t take us long to realize that as we continued south the more humid it was, the food got better, our appetites grew stronger and recognized that southern hospitality is a real thing. After St. Louis we crossed back into Illinois for a hot second, stayed at an abandon state park that we had all to ourselves and biked into Tennessee. Our first stop in Tennessee was at this hole in the wall bbq spot where I had the best pulled pork sandwich of my life. Once again people were very interested in what we were doing and felt like celebrities again. It got hot, real quick. We found a water spigot with ice cold water outside of a convenience store called beard and roses where we took full advantage. Beard and Rose hooked us up with cinnamon rolls and cookies, made us sign their guest book and we were on our merry way. Our last day in Tennessee we got stopped by a middle age women named Kathy who saw us on the road earlier in the day drove to a gas station and bought us a bunch of snacks and water. Thank’s Kathy. We crossed into Mississippi which ended up being our favorite state to bike through. We discovered a road called the Natchez Trace parkway, which is extremely biker friendly with a big shoulder and commercial vehicles aren’t allowed on it. It went through desolate forest with no cell service, we practically had the road to ourselves for two in a half days. We ran into the only other bike tourer that we saw on the trip on the Natchez. Once we got off the Natchez we went into town and stopped at a restaurant for lunch, it was the first time we’d had cell service in a couple of days. We opened our phones to seeing riots and burning down buildings in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd. It hit us both hard, seeing that the city that we lived in was burning down. There were only a few more days of the trip and we told ourselves to enjoy the peace while we still can. This gave us more appreciation towards the trip. There were only two more days until we got to New Orleans. Those last two days we rode back to back centuries. We camped in a damp field the last night, Luke woke up with a bunch of ants in his tent. On the last day we rode 124 miles into New Orleans. New Orleans greeted us with Po’ Boys and beer. To celebrate our accomplishment, we spent two days in New Orleans biking around eating every chance we could. I’d say New Orleans is the one of the best places to end a bike tour.

The bike tour was 1,642 miles total crossing 9 state lines in a 22 day time span. We slept in our tents for 20 nights and didn’t pay for a single campsite. With how crazy everything is going on with covid, it felt really good to take advantage of our time off that was granted to us and do it in a unique way. While the rest of the world was going bonkers in the beginning of Covid, Luke and I were having the time of our lives. I’m glad I was able to share this experience with Luke, thank you for a great trip.