Anne and I rode the New I-64 on Sunday.  On Monday morning this highway will be reopened to vehicular traffic, but on Sunday the only highway traffic was the human-powered variety.  It was cold on Sunday.  Our outdoor thermometer read twenty-nine degrees when we launched at 10:30.  I had eighteen pieces of clothing on and Anne had nineteen.  Although the highway wasn’t scheduled to be opened until noon, we had no trouble getting on it at Big Bend.  We headed downtown for a rendezvous with some of our Team Kaldi teammates.  We passed a MODOT truck that was picking up the two lines of orange traffic cones from the morning’s time trial race.  There were not many riders on the road at the time.  We rode to Kingshighway, the eastern end of the new section of highway.  From there we took Chouteau to Jefferson.  There we met up with our other Team Kaldi teammates.  Sandy had arranged for a great room at the Jefferson Marriott.

Although I have referred to this new highway as The New I-64, it will always be thought of and referred to by Saint Louis natives, as Highway Forty Farty.  This is not to be confused with Highway Farty-Far, which runs jus’a-little-bit south of farty.  Just after noon Team Kaldi’s launched back the way Anne and I had just come.  When we got back to Kingshighway, there were a lot more people out playing on the highway than when we last passed there.  This year MODOT segregated the cyclists from the pedestrians.  The cyclists were in the east-bound lanes and the pedestrians were in the west-bound lanes.  This kept things a lot tamer than last year.  We rode all the way to the western terminus of the new highway section at Hanley and turned around.

We stopped off at the house on our way back east.  We dropped off some things there and picked up some other stuff.  We also got warm again.  The thermometer now read thirty-four.  We headed east again.  The picture with this post shows the section of the highway where the various political dignitaries planned to do their dedications.  It also features the Tamm overpass bridge, where over two years ago the whole project began.  It was the first overpass to be redone.  It is also the only one to be dropped with explosives.  We heard the explosion.  Subsequently all the other overpasses were demolished using equipment.

We pass Kingshighway and rode on to Jefferson.  There was a pretty good crowd at the Marriott when we got there again.  We had a pot-luck dinner and watched the Rams lose to da’Bears.  Still on our bikes we headed for home at just after four.  It was beginning to get dark but we didn’t plan on biking the entire eight miles back home.  We biked a mile to the Grand MetroLink stop.  We lucked out and our train was the next to arrive.  We load the bikes and rode the train off into the sunset.  We got twenty-six miles.