August

8-16-15 Sunday

Emily has been thinking about "century rides" for the past couple years. Riding 100 miles on a bike in one day is a good goal. I experienced it by accident in early April on my bike tour ride home from Hibbing. I still vividly remember how tough that day was; mainly because it was cold and I had ridden 85 miles the day before. 

It was really warm on Saturday and I was preparing myself mentally for this ride on Sunday. Saturday night we went to dinner at Kris and Andrea's house for homemade Indian food. We went to be early and prepared some food for Sunday.

The wind was strong from the SW but we took off on the bike for 50 easy miles of riding. Going up the shore was a breeze - literally. The temps in the mid 80's didn't hurt to much because of the breeze off the lake. Just like air conditioning.

 We made it to Gooseberry Falls and felt really good. Having a big tail wind in great. 

This is me back in Sept 2011 on my way to Thunder Bay. I sat here in Oct 2010 on the bike tour with Peter. I was pretty exhausted on that trip. Photos from that trip

Me in 2015 - feeling good

 Beach at the mouth of the river by Split Rock Lighthouse

 On the way back down the shore we tucked out heads and went into the wind. It wasn't that bad along the Gitchi Gami state trail bike path but once we were back on Hwy 61 the wind felt stronger. We used drafting and kept repeating that we were over 1/2 way done.

For lunch we stopped at the Rustic Inn for some fish tacos and a salmon sandwich followed by a piece of peach cherry pie. Great food for a post birthday meal. Thanks Emily!

A photo from the 2010 bike tour with Peter. This is at the first tunnel on Hwy 61 where the old road use to be. Great views and a awesome rock wall at the Silver Creek Cliff. 

Construction took three years of dynamite blasting to remove 500,000 cubic yards of rock for this tunnel. 

 On the way home there were various people rock climbing. I'm not sure which company was hosting this but it could have been UMD. 

 Selfie at Silver Creek Cliff

The ride home felt good till about mile 85 when we both got tired and took a break on the shore. I was looking at Emily's bike and her rear tire was cracked and pretty worn. Well...this jinxed us because 2 miles down the road she got a flat on the rear. We fixed it road side and made our way home. Our biggest soreness was our shoulders and neck. We were both happy we did it.