Day 21 - Baxter MN to Duluth

Greetings all - Sitting here at our B&B looking out the window at Lake Superior - Duluth, MN. 

What a great day.  The guys let me sleep in this morning - woke up about 7:00.  Found my way to the Paul Bunyan Trail and went for a short jog. Did not see Paul - just some geese.  Got back to the hotel, packed up the car and met the guys in a small town along Hwy. 210.  After lunch I headed to our B&B along the north shore of Lake Superior.  Another good day.
Patty along the lake

Notes from Jerry:  We had another successful day today.  Tom and I tried to get going early today and let Patty sleep in, which meant we had to make sure we had enough stuff with us to be self sufficient for at least 50 miles. The road was great at first and we made excellent time, but at one point the shoulder got narrower and the cracks in the road (probably from winter thawing etc.) became bigger and bigger.  Tom called them holes, I would say they were more like troughs.  Brutal on the already sensitive butt!  Luckily this ended with 22 miles of brand new road.

Saw some gorgeous little towns like Crosby, that is on Serpent Lake where we also missed a jog in the highway, so we went a few miles out of our way by accident before realizing our mistake and had to backtrack.  We stopped short of Duluth at 99 1/2 miles, and Patty drove us in to our B&B.  Wow, Duluth is a big city with lots of industry along Lake Superior.  The B&B is a really cute house right on North Shore Drive overlooking the Lake.  Spectacular!

Notes from Tom:  I've been reluctant to mention that we haven't had so much as a flat tire, but today I hit a rock at mile 96 of the 99.5 mile ride, and had a flat, so now it's OK to talk about it.

The first thing this morning we crossed the Mississippi River, just east of Baxter, MN. 

Later, as Jerry said, we rode by Serpent Lake.  I stopped for a picture--thinking that we're in the land of 10,000 lakes so we should have a picture of at least one.

I'm kind of a stats guy, so here are some stats for our ride so far.  First, we've ridden a total of 1833 miles, and we're more than half way done.  Since we left East Glacier Park in Montana, we've averaged 101.7 miles per day.  My Garmin computer calculates the number of pedal strokes that I make each day, and for 100 miles per day, I make an average of 24,000 pedal strokes per day.

Only one of my friends has done any rides this long, so he will be able to identify with what happens to your body when you put it through something like this.  Let's start with feet.  If you're going to make 24,000 pedal strokes per day, you better have shoes that fit.  One day in Montana, my right foot got so hot  from the sun and hot asphalt that I actually poured water in my shoe.  Other than that, my feet have been fine.  Now legs.  Legs are obviously the most important part of riding.  So far, I haven't had any real leg pain.  My legs get tired, and a little stiff when I stop riding for very long, but basically they've been fine.  The next most important part of your body is the realitvely small area that sits on the saddle.  I've not had any big saddle sores so far.  I've found that one way to manage the condition of my backside is to stand up and pedal every so often. It gives me just enough of a rest that I don't end up really sore at the end the day.  Standing up also changes my upper body position, and it taxes my legs a little, but it actually feels good to change the position of everything.  Surprisingly, my hands might be the most tender part of my body.  Riding with my hands on the brake hoods has given me a near-blister in the area between my forefinger and thumb.  Lastly, the arms and shoulders don't have to really do any work, but they don't get to move very much so they get stiff and sore just from staying in the same position for so long.

So tomorrow we'll ride into Wisconsin, but just for one day, because Tues we'll cross into the U.P. of Michigan.