Date:
10.06.2018
Altitude:
2936.4 ft (895 m)
Distance:
114.15 mi (183.70 km)
Total
Altitude: 73891.1 ft (22522 m)
Total
Distance: 2958.66 mi (4761.58 km)
The
longest day on my tour so far, with almost 115 miles. In my original
plan, I would have covered the distance in two days instead of one.
Last night I decided to try to do it in one day, since the weather
forecast predicted winds from the southeast and there wasn't really
anything between Enderlin and Napoleon on route. I still left me the
possibility open, if it didn't go well, to stop in Gackel and stay
there for the night.
To
make sure I had enough time to cover the distance, I was on the road
by 6:15 this morning. The first miles on the road this morning were
great, there was no traffic and the temperatures were still nice and
cool. In the morning there wasn't that much wind yet, but after a
while the wind got stronger and stayed like this for the day. Since I
was going west for most of the day, the wind really helped me. Only
exception was a short 10 mile stretch on HWY 30 going south to HWY
34. Here I had to deal with strong winds from the side/front. On this
part of the route the wind made it really hard to move forward and
sometimes it was hard to keep the bike on the road. Luckily it was
only a short stretch and for the rest of the day the wind helped me
to move forward and I arrived by 3.30pm in Napoleon.
On
today's route I didn't need the GPS and probably could have read a
book on the bike. I went straight west on state highway 46 for the
first 85 miles before I turned south on state highway 30 and after
about 10 miles turned west again on state highway 34 to Napoleon. So
I only had to change direction or the road I was going on twice, not
counting going to the motel and turning into Gackel to get some
lunch. I reached Gackel, the only town on my route, after about 75
miles. Since it was almost noon and there was no place else I could
get something to eat, I went to the local dinner for lunch. At the
dinner I got talking a bit to the locals, they weren't really
surprised to see someone on a fully loaded bike, since bikers on the
Northern Tier route stop here regularly. They were surprised that I
came all the way from Germany to do a cross country trip and that I
was doing the trip alone. It was nice talking to them for a while.
After Gackel I only had about 38 miles to go, so I took my time at
lunch and got some rest before I had to go back out into the sun and
on the bike. Except for the 10 miles going south, which were terrible
with the wind, the last few miles to Napoleon went quite smoothly.
Still I was happy when I reached Napoleon and could get of the bike
for the day. I don't want to imagine what it would have been like, if
I had to pedal against today's wind the whole day. I wouldn't have
covered 115 miles for sure. I met a group of three bikers going east,
I wouldn't want to trade places with them. They really didn't look to
happy pedaling against the wind. I only got to talk briefly with
them, because they just wanted to keep going and get done with it.
On
today's route there was a slight increase in altitude throughout the
day, with some short climbs every ones in a while, but generally the
route today was quite flat. As mentioned before, I didn't pass
through any towns the whole day, with the exception of Gackel. In
general I had wide open farmland/grassland on both sides of the road
for a large portion of the route, with the exception when the route
went down to Sheyenne river where I was surrounded by trees. Later in
the day there were more and more lakes/ponds by the side of the road
and at some of them I could see people fishing. But in general the
scenery didn't change to much during the day. I still enjoyed it and
also the ride in general. Probably with out the help of the wind I
wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.
Conclusion
for the day:
If
your making really good progress on any given day, is best to take
advantage of it and keep going and not sticking to a preset plan.
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