Bicycle Tours

From: Rugby, North Dakota
To: Minot, North Dakota
Mileage: 74




Tailwinds!!!! SeeMore was a stallion today! The captain had a semi good day.

I was worried about SeeMore's front tire. It had done a Trojan job, and I cannot be more pleased with the Schwalbe tires. These tires are very heavy, but they are built very strong. The truth is that the tire should have been replaced in Fargo, but the bike store I went into did not have touring tires. Katelyn to the rescue, she mailed us a new tire and camping food via general delivery, to the Minot (pronounced My knot) post office.

Last night, after looking at the tire, it didn't look like it had 74 miles left. So I didn't sleep well, truly silly of me, but things are going so well. . . you just want them to keep going!

[Mary] We rode route 2 all day and would like to send our sincere appreciation to all of the truck drivers who we have shared the road with. They are extremely courteous and go out of their way to get into the other lane when passing us. In fact 99.9 % of the drivers in North Dakota have been super. We did meet up with the one and only rude ND driver today but Noel managed to be equally rude back, so we're even.

Things went well, until the Adventure Cycling map directed us to ride on Broadway through Minot. It truly seemed like the whole state of North Dakota decided to use this road. In fact I'm sure a lot of ND residents are in Minot today as the State Fair is being held here this weekend. It was one of the very few times on this trip that I did not feel comfortable riding. Mary got to be "Frogger" crossing Broadway to and from the post office because we just couldn't get the bike across.

Things have improved! Katelyn's care packaged arrived, the Real Admiral has a new do, SeeMore is now sporting a new front tire; and thanks to Chris at Scheels, a new rear fender, and a tune-up (thank you Chris!). Our bellies are full and we've stocked up at the grocery, where we also received compliments on our amazing tan lines. Apparently those tell tale white stripes down the side of my face are a dead give away of a frequent helmet wearer.

The amazing part of today's ride was the amount of water areas (lakes, ponds, marshes, etc.) that are along route 2. In a car you miss all the birds and action going on, but on a bike (even SeeMore the stallion) life moves by you much slower.