June 17, 2005

A Dose of Reality

We got up a bit later (around 6:30), cooked, ate, packed and were on the road at around 8:00, which is pretty good for me as I am the one who seems to hold up the roll out each morning.

We turned right out of Buffalo River State Park and immediately felt our arch enemy the head to cross wind that was blowing out of the southeast. It was light in the morning and varied during the day from around five to fifteen MPH. We also noticed that we were gaining in elevation as we were riding up out of the Red River valley. Route 10 is a four-lane road with a fair amount of traffic that travels at east coast interstate speeds. The road surface for cars and trucks is fairly good but the shoulders are somewhat bumpy and uneven and debris filled, but that’s what we had to ride on. When we turned right onto State Highway 51 the road was better for a while and then started to have bumps every ten to twelve feet. These state highway roads were once concrete and were paved over. Where the concrete seams are, that’s where the cracks are. In some places they are about one to two inches wide. They tried to fill them with asphalt but the asphalt shrunk so that the gaps create a big bump at each crack. On top of that, the paving asphalt had a fair amount of larger stones in it, which creates a bumpy surface causing a greater effort in pedaling.

Ok, the wind, the elevation change, the cracks, the rough surface, all these factors caused us to work fairly hard to maintain speeds of only eight to twelve miles an hour. At one point when Nick was grumbling about the riding conditions I turned to him and told him I had a theme for today’s log; “A dose of reality.” He agreed. We then talked a bit about how cocky we were in Washington and Montana when we were flying along without much effort being pushed by tails of ten to twenty-five. I recalled a comment Nick made our first day of riding together when he said: “This is real”, referring to the fact that we started the ride and it was no longer just a plan, idea, or dream. Well it was real today and our only option was to keep pedaling one pedal stroke at a time. We exchanged one-half mile pulls each time the winds were strong and mostly heads to try to keep us as fresh as we could. I am a much smaller target for the wind than Nick and I don’t protect him as well when I am in front, so to compensate I started to take ¾ mile pulls to his ½. His cyclometer is freaking out from the moisture of the prior week so Nick didn’t have it on his bike. He never knew. Just as well.

A Really Big Turtle

Reality really struck just before we stopped for lunch. I mentioned to Nick that his rear wheel was starting to get a bit wobbly. I told him I would true it up after we ate. When I started to adjust it I said to Nick. “My friend you have a wheel failure.” The constant bumps were like riding over railroad ties and they caused one spoke to pull right out of the rim. Nick has “radically lace wheels” which have far fewer spokes than a typical 32 spoke triple laced wheel which is much more durable for a trip like this. I built myself a pair last winter just for this trip and they are holding up really well. I mentioned to Nick the first day when I saw his wheels that they were not as durable, but I never thought that one would fail in just under 2,000 miles.

I loosened the opposing spoke so he could ride on the wheel until we find a bike shop to replace it. Our goal for the day immediately changed to finding a place to get Nick a new wheel. The ACA maps showed the next bike shop at around one hundred and twenty miles and that was unacceptable especially with the condition of the roads. We stopped a gas station in the next town to inquire about shops and were told that there was one about twenty miles in Pelican Falls, MN. The road to Pelican Falls was pretty smooth but it took us about five miles off the Adventure Cycling Association route. That bike shop has mostly mountain bikes and had no suitable touring wheels. The owner called a friend of his who had a shop about fifty miles away and in the right direction who had a wheel that would work for Nick. Since we already had a pretty full day we decided to finally eat lunch (at around 3:30) and ride until about 6:30, which would leave us about thirty the next morning which we could do and arrive at the bike shop when it opens at 10:00.

One of 10,000 Minnesota Lakes

The directions to the bike shop was the only good thing about this whole day other than the fact that the skies were clear and the temps in the 70’s and low 80’s. Our directions put us on the Central Lakes Bicycle Trail, which is a 197-mile bike trail that runs diagonally southwest on a closed railroad line from Pelican Falls well into Wisconsin. The surface is smooth and clear, relatively flat since it is a railroad bed, and often protected on the sides by hills or trees, which helps with the headwind factor. We made the best progress of the day on the bike trail. With about a half mile to go to finish at Ashby Nick’s rear tire blew. He decided to walk the bike and replace it with his spare in camp. That was an extra dose of reality.

The City Park in Ashby is quite nice. The Sheriff stopped by to say hi and offered to unlock the bathrooms but they were already open.

We have Wi-Fi (wireless internet) in the City Park so Nick could check his E-Mail. That put a smile on his face. He chuckled a few times when reading them.

Jim writing his log

Nick checking his e-mail

Overall we had a very hard day.

Jim

Cycledog (Ride the extra mile!!)

PS: Maybe tomorrow I’ll have some space to write about the Minnesota landscape and the lakes.

© 2005 - JNS