Start: 7:43 AM

Finish: 5:17 PM  

Saddle Time: 6:18

Ascent: 404 feet

Descent:  1181 feet

Miles: 75

Total Miles: 1,750

Highlight: The first couple hours riding east from Gackle through wetlands with lots of ducks and other birds.

Lowlight: Getting a flat tire 2 miles before a truck stop after riding 48 miles.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

I was the only person in the hostel last night.  It was nice to have my own, cheap room but would have been nice to meet some other cyclists.  The three women I met in Hazleton were the first I’ve seen in over a week. The Honey Hub is great.  I met the owners last night.  They keep bees for a living and own the Stinger brand of athletic gels and supplements.  Their home is California but they summer over with their bees in North Dakota, one of the best honey producing states in the country.  I saw lots of hives along the way, most belong to them.

The road is straight, totally straight.  Look at my map, only a couple slight bends here and there.  The hills are also like yesterday if anything maybe even a little more flat. I dropped about a thousand feet in elevation on todays ride which certainly helped with the wind.

By 10:00 the wind was really blowing.  Forecast called for 17 mph out of the south but I think it was over 20 mph with gusts even higher.  It shifted a bit from south to south-southeast so I did get a bit of headwind later in the day.  Strong wind in any direction really saps the fun out of riding. I spend more of my concentration and energy seeing that the bike goes straight rather than looking around.

This is one of the most remote parts of the tour.  I have 50 miles of just farmland with no towns along the way.  There’s a truck stop at about 50 miles so I can get at least water for the last 20 into Enderlin.

At 48 miles I noticed my tire was almost completely flat. It seemed like a slow leak so I pumped it up hoping I could make the final 2 miles to the truck stop. Once at the truck stop I pumped it up again and measured the pressure.  I was trying to decide if I should fix it now or ride on for the next 20 miles.  The truck stop had a little restaurant that served the usual midwest fare, burgers and such.  I had a chicken sandwich just to mix it up a bit.  Over the course of my meal the tire lost 20 lbs of pressure, definitely needs to be fixed now. I have the tube I patched from a couple days ago but also a new tube I had from the start.  I figured it’s best to use the new tube, just to be safe.  The flat tire is on the front, my bald tire I had moved from the back a couple days ago.  With the inner tube out an inspection revealed a piece of wire poking through the tire. I’ve read trip journals from other cyclists who have complained about getting flats from wire shards typically on highways.  When truck tires explode they send off lots of fine pieces of wire.

I noticed the bald tire was starting show threads.  I really need to get a replacement soon and I need to figure out how, where and when.  Fargo is the obvious option but my earlier searches showed nowhere to stay tomorrow night and I’m not even sure bike shops will have the tire I need.  I looked up Amazon shipments but they would be a week out for this area. Not sure what I’ll do if I can’t find a tire in town.

I wanted to stay in a motel tonight to figure this out with hopefully decent wifi but the two motels in Enderlin were booked so it looks like I’ll stay at the town park which has free camping for cyclists. They have bathrooms with running water but no showers. I don’t know how people do this without taking a shower every night, or at least jumping in a river or pond.  The park is on a river but I suspect it is terribly polluted like all the water I’ve seen in the area.  A truck stop up the road has showers for $10, pricey for some water but I’m not paying anything to camp.  I picked up a can of beans and a couple pieces of chicken for dinner. Some of the gas stations around here have the Champs line of fast food chicken, basically KFC. I was super happy to find a 4-pack of Goose Island IPA.  North Dakota has been a complete wasteland for beer.  Everything is light: Bud Light, Coors Light, Michelob Light, etc. Occasionally you can find an amber in the mix.

The campsite is nice and secluded by the river and no I wouldn’t jump in.  There’s a covered area with picnic tables and a small field.  I’m the only one camping here tonight.

I looked again online and called ahead to some places in the Fargo area for motels and camping, everything is booked.  My plan is to ride on and hope I can find a replacement then ride out of town to Barnesville where there’s a campground and another city park.  One should work out one way or another.

Start: 8:05 AM

Finish: 3:15 PM  

Saddle Time: 5:13

Ascent: 699 feet

Descent:  734 feet

Miles: 66

Total Miles: 1,674

Highlight: Staying at the Honey Hub bike hostel in Gackle

Lowlight: Trying to find something quick to eat in Napoleon, settling for gas station food only to find I passed a coffee shop/bakery on the way in to town.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

I setup my tent last night around 5:00, long before sunset.  Right around sunset lights came on in the park around the picnic tables but also some overhead lights in the field.  I setup my tent right under one of those lights.  I didn’t want to pull up the stakes move my tent at this point so I just figured I would sleep with a light on.  With the rainfly over the tent it wasn’t that bad.  I had to close up one of the two side to decrease the light a bit.

The light didn’t keep me awake but my knee hurt most of the night.  My fall yesterday banged me up more than I realized at the time.  I hit the inside of me knee against the bike frame and also jammed my shoulder into the ground which bothered me on todays ride.  I was concerned about the knee but once I got up and walked around it seemed to sort itself out, didn’t really bother me on the bike.

Today’s ride was excellent, started with a cool morning and temperatures rising into the mid afternoon.  It was hot by the time I stopped but mid 80’s is still cycling weather.  The wind picked up later in the morning as usual but was mostly out of the south so not much of an issue on todays ride.  The route was mostly due east with a few right hand turns to cardinal directions so the northerly portions gave me some good tailwind, too bad it was only about 10 miles.

I’m still very much in the prairie but the hills have started to subside a bit.  The shorter, steeper hills of further west have been replaced with gentle grades that are barely noticeable. I’m seeing a lot more standing water than further west.  I hate to  say ponds or lakes but I guess that’s accurate.  They have the look of water that may dry up during a dry spell, in fact some looked pretty low.  This is the most water I’ve seen since the Pend Oreille area way back in Idaho and eastern Washington.  This area clearly supports a lot of bird life including ducks. There’s an old beer can in the place I’m staying tonight that says “Gackle, North Dakota’s duck hunting capital”. The can dates back to 1979. I suspect birds is the only life these bodies of water support because I would guess they are terribly polluted with farm runoff, be it fertilizer, pesticides or manure.  Many had a noticeable green tinge and some had large amounts of algae on the surface.

I’m now seeing a lot of corn, maybe 50-50 corn to wheat.  I guess all the water makes growing corn more possible where the more arid west is better for wheat.

I haven’t mentioned the smoke mainly because I didn’t know there was smoke.  Several times while riding over the past few weeks I thought I could smell smoke.  Could just be someones BBQ but I’m usually in the middle of no where. The air has often has the appearance of high humidity but it’s not humid. I didn’t think too much of it until a couple days ago when a local told me there’s a lot more smoke in the air, much more than is normal.  You can’t smell it but you can see it. You may notice most of my photographs at a distance are not very sharp.  That’s not my poor photography skills that’s smoke in the air.  I noticed today my phones weather app list the air quality around here as poor.

At one point I saw a large dirt hauling truck parked on the side of the road heading in my direction. As I approached from a distance a guy got out of the truck, crossed the street and held out his thumb as if hitchhiking.  Well this is interesting. I stopped and said “I can’t give you much of a ride on a bike but is there anything I can do?”.  He said his truck was having diesel issues so he was waiting for help.  He said my bike has more horsepower right now than his truck.  We talked for a while.  He’s from Harlem, moved out here about 5 years ago for a trucking job.  I asked him if liked it out here. He said “it’s interesting, I’ll leave it at that”.  I should note he’s a black guy from Harlem. He clearly seemed to like the area enough to stay and buy a house.

I’m staying tonight at a bike hostel in the town of Gackle, another tiny town along this route.  A family converted a basement room into a cyclist oasis with a couple beds, bathroom/shower, wifi, microwave, laundry and various other odds and ends. There are no reservation, you just show up and sort out who stays where when you arrive. Overflow can camp out back. The room has a private entrance off the back of the house.  One thing riding a bike across country shows you is that there are good people everywhere, even those who open up their house to complete strangers asking nothing in return.

Still not sure what to do about my tire situation.  I looked into having something shipped from Amazon but I was looking at about a 1 week delivery, too far in the future for me to plan where I’ll be.  My tire will last a while on the front, it’s not that bad, no threads showing but I do want to get it replaced.  Tonight I’m going to look into some places in Fargo.

Start: 9:35 AM

Finish: 3:00 PM  

Saddle Time: 4:00

Ascent: 705 feet

Descent:  408 feet

Miles: 49

Total Miles: 1,608

Highlight: Camping at a nice town park in Hazelton, also met other cyclists for the first time in over a week.

Lowlight: Waking up to a front flat tire and realizing my back tire is worn bare.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

I’ve been seriously neglecting bike maintenance for this whole trip. I set out saying to myself each week I will give the bike a run down, check that everything is tight and in good condition and clean my chain.  I even brought a ziplock bag of rags for the task.  I’ve done this exactly zero times.  I’ve known for about two weeks that I have a slow leak in my front tire.  I’m carrying patch kits and a spare tube but figured rather than use my spare I would just buy another tube and toss the leaking one, or maybe patch it and keep as a second backup.  I’ve been looking for a bike shop this whole time but they either don’t exist or are not open when I roll through town.  I found one a couple days ago in Dickenson, Steffan Saw and Bike.  Yes, they sell chainsaws and bicycles, been in business for 50 years.  I bought my tube and planned on changing when I have time.  You would think I have a lot of time, finishing up riding by 3:00 or so but everything takes so much more time on the road plus this blog and instagram also take a lot of time. I thought last night would be the night.  I arrived in town at 2:00 but stopped for my Thai feast.  Got to the hotel around 3:00 but my room wasn’t ready so I went to the supermarket.  I eventually made it to my room around 4:00 but wanted to get caught up with back posts on the blog, then had dinner and it was too late to dig into a bike tire.

I woke up this morning find my front tire completely flat.  I flipped the bike upside down for easier access to the tire and realized my rear tire is worn bare.  I don’t normally see the rear tire since its covered by the fender.  I look at the front tire all the time, looks good. I found two holes in the front tire, one from a piece of wire still in the tire and the other looked like maybe a pinch flat which makes sense because I was on some rough roads end of the day yesterday. I used my new inner tube and patched the old tube as a backup.  I swapped the front and back tires partly to make the worn tire last longer but also the rear tire is a pain to access so high as well move it to the front now.  I also cleaned my chain and gear.  They were a mess, totally black with crude.  Did my best to not make a mess in the hotel room then took it outside to lube the chain.  I should have done this at least a couple times by now.

I debated how to ride today.  There were two options, one a short 45 miles and the other about 70.  There’s a bike hostel I wanted to stay at about 110 miles from here.  If I do the 45 mile ride today that makes for a nice 65 mile ride the next day.  If I do the 70 mile ride then 30 miles is really too short so I would likely skip the hostel.  Last night I was leaning towards the longer ride and skipping the hostel. This mornings tire incident decided for me.  I was going to get a late start so might as well do the short ride.  Since I’m already getting a late start I might as well look for a new tire in Bismarck.  I’m not likely to see a bike shop until Fargo.  I packed up, headed out and stopped at two places. Both were out of my tire.  Both said bike supplies are in high demand and short supply which has me concerned about getting a replacement.  I may look into having something shipped ahead to a post office maybe 5 days from here as general delivery.  I did a quick look for Amazon delivery lockers in Fargo but there doesn’t seem to be any.  I’ll check again but one of those options is my best bet because I don’t have a lot of miles left on this tire.

Riding conditions were fine today.  I followed bike paths out of Bismarck then zigzagged my way southeast through farmland.  More of the same scenery but I feel it’s slowly changing from prairie to woodland.  I assume this transition will continue to Minnesota.

Had my first spill of the trip. I was pulling off the road down a short embankment for a water and snack break with my right foot unclipped as normal. My tire slid to the right causing the bike to fall to the left. Perhaps made worse with my bald front tire. With all my bags this is more of a motorcycle than bicycle so you don’t easily regain your balance. I couldn’t unclip my left foot fast enough so over I went. Scratched up my elbow and banged up my knee but nothing serious.

I’m staying tonight at the Hazelton town park which is quit nice, a typical park environment with picnic tables but also parking spots for 6 RV’s with hookups and tent parking in the field for $12. They also have bathrooms and showers.  Perfect.  There’s an RV and a group of three young cyclists heading west, the first cyclists I’ve seen in over a week heading in either direction.   There’s a restaurant walking distance from here so that’s dinner for tonight.

Start: 7:50 AM

Finish: 3:00 PM  

Saddle Time: 5:11

Ascent: 769 feet

Descent:  1,247 feet

Miles: 66

Total Miles: 1,560

Highlight: Eating Thai food for lunch.

Lowlight: A 5 mile stretch of road about 10 miles outside Bismarck, an old and poor quality road with more traffic than I’ve had in recent days.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

Great riding conditions today, one of the coolest mornings I’ve had to date, almost chilly. I’m in central timezone now so the sun is coming up about an hour later making for a cooler start. The motel owner warned me about a length of dirt road coming up. She said many cyclists prefer getting on the interstate to avoid the dirt road.  I’ve been happy with my interstate riding so I went with the suggestion.

The route crossed the interstate about 5 miles down the road where I jumped on for the next 25+ miles.  I started on the interstate earlier and stayed on longer since I was making such good time, I banged out 30+ miles in about 2 hours.  I’m sure everyone thinks riding on the interstate is crazy but you haven’t ridden through Montana, that’s crazy.  After the interstate the route followed Old Highway 10 for the rest of the way into Bismarck. Most of the road was in fine condition and not heavily traveled but the scenery was nothing different from what I’ve been seeing for a while. So a good day of riding but visually a little boring.  The wind also wasn’t much of an issue most of the day, neither good nor bad.

Road conditions deteriorated as I got closer to Bismarck, seemed like an old road that was never updated with narrow or non existent shoulders and a poor road surface.  I was banging on cracks in the road every 10 yards or so. The route crossed the Missouri River and moved on to bike paths for most of the way into Bismarck.

I came across a Thai restaurant about 1.5 miles from my hotel.  It was only about 2:00 PM kind of early to check in to the hotel and I was hungry so I turned around and went in for some pad thai.  The more I looked at the menu the more I was looking forward to this meal.  The waiter joked “one of everything?”  Little does he know how much I can eat and how much I’ve been craving anything but burgers or steak. We talked for a while, he was from Montana so he totally understood my situation. I told him how I was looking forward to this meal.  He said, “good, you will have leftovers”.  I said, “I don’t think so, I’m on a bike tour”. I finished off the pad thai so he brought out spring rolls on the house.  I think he was trying to break me.  I finished off the spring rolls but felt like I was going to throw up for then next couple hours.

Bismarck is the largest city I’ve been in since Great Falls which was largely shutdown when I passed through for the 4th of July. I do feel a little overwhelmed after being in the middle of nowhere for so long.

I made it to the hotel around 3:00, Raddison where I found a good deal on a $60 room, beats camping.  My room wasn’t ready so I went to the supermarket to pick up food for breakfast. By the time I had my room it was well after 4:00.  I had hoped for a long afternoon of getting up to date with the blog and some other things I wanted to do but the day was ending quickly. You would think finishing mid afternoon would leave a lot of downtime but everything takes so much longer when on a bike tour.

I went to the local brewery for dinner which was very good.  For the beer drinkers out there, I’ve found more selection of beer out here than back home where the beer menu is a list of a half dozen IPA’s.  This place had IPA, a couple stouts, an amber, Belgian strong, Belgian golden rye, a few sours and fruit beers. Most places also server food unlike back home where they are just tasting rooms with food trucks in the parking lot. People out here seem to strongly favor light beer which occupies all the taps in bars but breweries are an escape from Bud Light.

I’m not sure how I will ride tomorrow.  There’s a bike hostel I’ve heard good things about 110 miles from here, too far for me in one day, don’t want to end up injured or just hating it.  I have options for 45 or 70 mile rides.  The 45 mile ride sets me up for a decent ride the next day while the 70 mile ride is more the distance I want to cover but the following day will be too short so I would likely just skip the hostel.  Right now I’m leaning towards skipping the hostel to make forward progress.  I’ll see how tomorrow goes and make the call when I get to the 45 mile point.  I’m not going to make any reservations.

Start: 7:20 AM

Finish: 4:30 PM  (Entered central timezone)

Saddle Time: 6:02

Ascent: 1,227feet

Descent:  1,241 feet

Miles: 78

Total Miles: 1,494

Highlight: Stopping at the Painted Canyon.

Lowlight: Not realizing I entered central timezone and wondering why this ride took so long.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

Today was a great day of riding.  Of course it was windy but out of the north-northwest so NOT a tailwind. Well except for the last 5 miles or so where the wind just had to show me who’s boss.  Wind by far has the largest impact on how enjoyable the ride will be, much more so that scenery, climbing or road conditions. Great scenery can be completely ruined by incessant headwinds while boring scenery can pass innocuously as just putting on the miles. I probably mention wind too much but it is what rules my day.

Sleep wasn’t great last night, but not terrible either.  It was in 80’s to the high 70’s until around midnight, didn’t cool down into the 60’s until the early morning.  I was a little too hot in the tent for comfortable sleep.  If I wasn’t in a jam packed RV park I would have left the rainfly off for better ventilation.

I cooked up my camp breakfast for the first time in a while: oatmeal with a chicken bouillon cube and Old Bay seasoning, topped with some granola.  I’ve been carrying this stuff around in my bags now for a couple weeks, finally getting to eat it again. I think adding the granola really packs in the calories so it keeps me going for a while. 

The route started with a bit of uphill out of the Medora area and on to Interstate 94. At about 10 miles I saw a sign for Painted Canyon, part of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  At first I wasn’t going to stop since I was making good time with favorable winds but I had to remind myself why I’m out here, not just to cross the country by bike but to see things along the way.  This is very much a downside of bike touring, you tend to dislike going off course knowing it’s just adding more time and miles to an already long day.  I would have liked to ride around Makoshika State Park back in Glendive but I really didn’t want to add 6-8 miles at the end of the day when it was hot and I was tired or early the next morning when it would just make my day longer.

I’m glad I stopped because the visitors center and overlook was right off the highway. You can walk along the edge of the hillside and view the colorful canyon below.  They had signs about staying away from the buffalo.  While looking out on to one of the open areas below I could see two dark spots off in the distance that seemed big and slowly moving around.  Must be buffalo. I still haven’t zoomed in on the pictures I took but I’m going with Buffalo. Too bulky to be something like a horse or donkey.

Soon after the overlook I made my way off the highway and on to Old Highway 10 now considered a scenic byway, a very nice, quiet and scenic road.  I guess this is still prairie.  The terrain is rolling hills with lots of grasses or wheat farms, along with the occasional corn field.  There are a lot more trees here than in Montana.  Some look like they occur naturally in low spots that probably collect water while others clearly have been planted in long rows, sometimes a few deep.  Must be for windbreaks.  I wondered if these date back to the post dust bowl era.  I did a little bit of googling, one of Roosevelts programs was the Shelterbelt, the planting of 100 million trees from North Dakota down to the Texas panhandle so these very well could be those trees.

While approaching RIchardton, the town before my destination in Hebron I could see two spires sticking above the buildings, silos and trees so I wandered off route to investigate. It was Assumption Abbey, a Benedictine abbey of the American-Cassinese Congregation.  Founded in 1893 the building was completed about a decade later. Very impressive looking from a distance. The inside was dark but the walls looked very bright like it was newly painted. I assume the ornate paintings are original.

I made it to the tiny town of Hebron at 4:30 which at first I couldn’t figure out, I was making good time. Turns out I just barely crossed over into central timezone. I staying at the Brick City Motel for $85, a bit more than I wanted to spend but there was nothing else around, not even camping options. The place was really nice, must have been newly renovation because it’s clearly not a new building. The town has two bars and one restaurant, the Pizza Pantry, which is only open for 5pm-7:30pm. In addition to pizza they have two of the the other midwest favorites, burgers and chicken fried steak.  I had a chicken fried steak, again.  I’ve had a few over the past couple weeks.  I so want a real restaurant.  I considered the bars but their food options were even less, frozen pizza.  I mentioned how everywhere here serves only burgers and steak, the other food is pizza, typically the frozen variety.

I need to start figuring out how I will travel through Minnesota.  There’s a northern and southern option.  Talking to west bounders I hear the souther option is shorter and also includes about 100 miles of rail trails.  That may seal the deal for me.  The other question is do I veer off the norther tier and head northeast then down the Michigan upper peninsula.  I’ve also heard this is fantastic but adds more miles to the trip.  One option that may make it a wash is riding the north shore of Lake Erie which would require the Canadian border to be open.  I hear that may be a possibility soon.  When I started this trip these decisions sounded so far off in the future now they are right around the corner.