The raccoons ate our breakfast!!

Day 25 Miles: 113 Mileage from start: 2,203 Last night at dusk, looking at the edge of the woods about 100 feet from our campsite, I saw a raccoon scamper excitedly into the campground. A few seconds later, another one followed.  We had been told to put our food in the bear boxes, which we […]

Riding through Minnesota lakes

Day 24 Miles: 111, I think Mileage from start: 2,090 Yesterday, the cycle computer on Richard’s bike recorded an additional 14 miles. But at some point yesterday the magnet that marks each time the wheel rotates 360 degrees got knocked out of line with its sensor. And he didn’t notice until 5 or 10 miles […]

Zero in Fargo

Day 23 Miles: 0 Mileage from start: 1,965 Our last zero in Waterton Village was unlike any off day I’ve had during an endurance trip. We slept, we ate, we chilled out. I was beginning to think that thrubiking was just so chill in comparison to thruhiking where zero days are filled to the brim […]

More wind, more miles

Day 22 Miles: 101 Mileage from start: 1,965 We fell asleep under quiet trees and woke up to the sound of strong winds blowing through them. And also the rumble of thunder.  The thunder turned out to be a fluke isolated storm that passed just miles north of us, but the wind was with us […]

The longest day yet

Day 21 Miles: 139 Mileage: 1,864 We got up early today for a long day. We knew it would take big miles to make it to Fargo tomorrow night, so we made the decision, gritted our teeth and committed. When we got started it was chilly and windless. As the day warmed up, the wind […]

Continuing the week of wind…

Day 20 Miles: 112 Mileage from start: 1,725 The first week of biking the Northern Tier was very hot. The second week was very cold. This week has been very windy. Now I’m ready for a week of very nothing. No extremes. All pleasantness and progress. We’ll see. We slept in, of course, and had […]

Headwind broken record

Day 19 Miles: 66 Mileage from start: 1,613 When we looked out the window, the trees were bending west. Not a good sign. Weather apps confirmed it: the wind was out of the east, and blowing fast. All day we pushed east against 20 mph headwinds. The town we planned on stopping at for lunch […]

Leaving Montana

Day 18 Miles: 90 Mileage from start: 1,547 It was another sunny day in Montana. We rode off from our hotel in Circle into a slight headwind.  It wasn’t a huge deal at first, but wore on us by midday.  We stopped in Glendive to eat and ended up staying there for a couple of […]

Working hard or hardly working

Day 17 Miles: 108 Mileage from start: 1,457 After the storm passed last night, the winds went back to their regularly prevailing direction — out of the west. We slept in until 8:30, made coffee, slowly got our things together and left around 10:30 a.m. But no matter. With the wind at our back we […]

Storm chased

Day 16 Miles: 89 Mileage from start: 1,349 Breakfast at Sandy’s Stagecoach Inn and B&B was egg and veggie bake, waffles and venison sausages. The conversation and accommodations were great.  We could tell before we started that today was going to be harder than the last couple of days. The wind had changed overnight and […]