Category: Tom’s Cross-Country Bicycle Adventure

July 31st

I’ve been trying to write something for this blog at least once a week, but after cycling for five to six hours, then setting up camp, I find it hard to sit myself down to write.

I now find myself in Gran Portage, Minnesota, located in the very northeast corner on the shore of lake “Gitche Gummee*” (Superior). It is an Indigenous reservation of the Ojibwe people (a miniscule portion of land that was once an entire nation). Through a miscalculation, I will be here until Wednesday morning when I will take a ferry to Isle Royale (I thought I was leaving on Tuesday). The time here will not be wasted. More time to write this blog, for example. I have many stories to tell and thoughts to share. Also, I will have time to investigate this land and maybe its people, past and present.

So, stories. Another reason for not having time to write is that I’ve had a rash of flat tires.(I’ve lost track. Six at least, all rear tires.) I had replacement tubes and a patch kit, but after the second flat, I was out of patches. Then, a third flat on a gravel back road. I dragged the bike and panniers to the main road and began trying to hitch a ride to Ely, a 50 mile distance. A woman driving a road grader for the county pulled over and, although she couldn’t give me a ride on the huge machine she was driving, she got on her phone to try to find some help. Eventually, she called the county sheriff’s non-emergency number and they sent the sheriff to save me. The woman who stopped for me was Kay (another angel). Ironically, her son is a cyclist and had only left that morning to drive to Maine with his bicycle to compete in a triathalon.

The sheriff put me in the back seat of the truck/cruiser that she was driving. This is the seat where they put arrestees, void of any objects with which I might hurt myself. She was not able to bring me to Ely (it is out of her county), but she could bring me to Virginia, MN. This was farther south than I had intended to go, but it was the closest town with a bike shop.

The people of Virginia were very friendly and very helpful. The woman who was working at the shop told me about a bike trail (paved and 90% complete) that runs from Grand Rapids to Ely and just happened to have an access in Virginia. So, after repairing my tire for the fourth time, I set off on the Mesabi Trail.

This trail turned out to be a gift. There was no car traffic (except where the trail was incomplete) through, for the most part, what felt like back country: marshlands, forest, land-and locked ponds. There was no sound except the hum of my tires and the birds and frogs. I felt like I was given a gift, being able to experience a part of Minnesota that most people never get to see. All due to happenstance. Bad luck transformed to good luck OR an uphill followed by a downhill!

August 1st – OMG it’s August

Ely (Eelee), Minnesota is the gateway to the Boundary Waters, an area extending across the border, traversed by a seemingly random system of gravel roads and home to many of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. It is favored and enjoyed by canoeists, kayakers, and fisher people, as well as just campers who appreciate its wilderness quality. (Didn’t meet many other cyclists, though.) It is also home to the North American Bear Center and the International Wolf Center, both of which I took the time to visit. Each of these centers has a large educational display and each has as many as five resident animals who, because of a variety of circumstances, have been deemed not able to survive in the wild. These creatures have been acclimated to human handlers. One of the bears, for instance, insists on being hand fed and the wolf handlers can pet the wolves. 

Also while in Ely, I visited Ely Bike and Kicksled, where the owners Alvin, Alexia and Ullr let me work on my bike in their shop. (I had had another flat since leaving Virginia.) Alvin was very helpful. I purchased another tire and headed south on Minnesota Route 1 late in the day, but determined to put more miles behind me.

In the end, it was a 32 mile day ending at a campground five miles off Route 1 on Birch Lake, where before I had a chance to get a campsite, I was met by Julia Murtha. After talking for a few minutes about what I was doing – where I was coming from and where I was going – Julia invited me to join her and her family (mom, dad, husband, and 3 children) for dinner. I spent the evening with them around the campfire. New friends with Maine connections.We hope to meet again. I hope to repay the hospitality.

The following day, I continued south on Route 1, all the while looking for a gravel road that Alvin had told me would take me to Grand Marais. I never found that road, but a fellow by the name of Joe Ernest found me in my search and offered me an alternative route along another gravel road. He even drew me a map that was invaluable. (This is almost wilderness, remember, easy to get lost.) The next day I made it to Grand Marais (had another flat tire) and traveled north along “…the shore of Gitche Gummee, by the shining big sea water*…” otherwise known as Lake Superior. 

I stopped at Judge Clarence Magney State Park where I was met by Brian Fyksen, who invited me to join him, his wife Jane, son Teal, daughter-in-law Jenny, and their three children for dinner. (I must look hungry.) Another night making new friends while chatting around a campfire. I think that because I’m traveling by bike some people take a particular interest in me. Or perhaps it is just more angels making sure I am taken care of.

~ Tom
*from The Song of Hiawatha, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

7/24/22

Took a motel room yesterday for the third night since starting this ride. I had multiple reasons for doing so. First, Deb has sent me a general delivery re-supply package to the post office here and it has not arrived, so I have to wait until Monday. Second, it rained all day so I spent the day doing laundry, mending, food shopping, and having a sit down breakfast at a coffee shop. Third, after three days averaging 80+ miles a day, I need a rest. Fourth, I’ve been wanting some time to put my thoughts to paper.

Pedaling a bike for four to six hours a day with breaks in between offers a lot of time to think. Some of these thoughts are will-o-the-wisp thoughts: there and gone again. Some are calculations of miles and time to the next destination. Many are simple observations of the landscape I’m riding through. Some take the experience of riding and turn it into a metaphor with deeper meaning. And of course, there is the on-again, off-again music in my head.

The evening of the 24th

Used this Sunday to ride without all the gear to Kabetogama VIsitor Center in Voyagers National Park – a 53 mile round trip from International Falls. A nice way to spend an “off” day.

The next morning, 7/25

Have been wanting to finish the conversation that I had started yesterday morning, but last night I fell asleep early. So, on my thoughts while pedaling:

Bicycling back in Washington state from the Cascades to the Idaho border involved crossing 5 high passes: Rainy (4855 ft), Washington (5477 ft), Loup Loup (4020 ft), Wauconda (4310 ft), and Sherman (5575 ft). The approach to each of these passes, as you might imagine, required a slow methodical steady pace – often in my lowest gear and with many, sometimes long, rest breaks. My average speed could be 6 mph or less. On the east side of each of these passes, the ride was all downhill. I could fly at 30+mph, an exhilarating ride. The same was true when riding through Glacier on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. 

My thoughts while on these rides would often be metaphorical. Riding a bike can be a lot like life: times of struggle and even pain, wishing this hill would just end. (Even times when you need help from outside of yourself, like when I stuck my thumb out and the Smyths picked me up.) These difficult parts of the ride are accompanied by those easy downhill stretches when the hard part is behind you and now you’re flying down a 6% grade. The accompanying music in my head while riding these passes was a Joan Armatrading song called “Bottom to the Top.” The refrain I would sing:

To the limit here we go
From the bottom to the top
Gonna tell all of my friends
Say I can run on any track

Some move more quickly
You know they can stand the pace
Others move slow
But they get there just the same
I know I want first and not just a pace
Keep on pushing babe

~ “Bottom to the Top” by Joan Armatrading

I have more thoughts along these lines, but they will have to wait for the next blog post.