This post tells the story of the 1,301 miles from Emporia, KS to Sault Ste. Marie, Canada on my commute home to Alabama via Canada after finishing the Unbound Gravel XL race. See the table below for links to the first two parts of the adventure.
 | Part 1: Unbound Gravel XL+ — my thousand mile commute Read the details and see the pics from my five-day, 1011 mile adventure just to get to the start of the race. |
 | Part 2: Unbound XL 2026 Race Report Read the details and see the pics from the 356 mile MUDDY Unbound Gravel XL race, itself. |
 | Part 3: Unbound Gravel XL+ — to Canada! (This post) This post takes you through 1301 miles from the end of the race to crossing into Canada with Lael Wilcox. |
 | Part 4: Oh Canada! (Coming soon) This post will cover the three days I spent riding through Canada before taking a ferry back into the USA. |
 | Part 5: Sweet home Alabama (Coming soon) This post will cover the last 1000 miles from the St. Lawrence River crossing back home to Birmingham, Alabama. |
Summary of Part 3
For many reasons, I was on the colloquial “Cloud Nine” as I biked 75 miles from Emporia, KS to Topeka, KS about 10 hours after finishing 48th place in the race. I voice texted my race report to Facebook for probably about two of the six hours it took me to cover that distance.
I made it to the hotel in Topeka early planning to leave again same day, but laundry and my accumulated sleep deprivation had plans of their own. So setting out at 6AM the next morning, I decided on another short day, but this time 140 miles to an AirBnB overlooking the Missouri River in St. Joseph, MO after a brief stop at Horizon Cycling shop to fix a super noisy bottom bracket.
I rolled out of St. Joseph on a very cool rails-to-“road” (instead of trail) that wound its way up from the river to the top of the surrounding area over several miles at about 2 in the morning to beat the heat and traffic through Kansas City and finishing the day on the many bike paths of Iowa staying at a brand new, fully furnished apartment in downtown Des Moines for $100 via AirBnB.
By this point I was only about 350 miles from my wife in Minnesota, who was house and dog-sitting for her sister for a couple weeks. I split that over a couple days and arrived in Bayport by early afternoon. I recovered, did laundry, and hung out with her and her parents catching everyone up on the adventure.
With hot temps and afternoon thunderstorms basically the daily forecast for entire east side of North America, I decided to stick to this schedule of leaving around midnight and finishing by early afternoon as much as I could.
It only took three days to cross Wisconsin and Michigan to make it into Canada where I was fortunate enough to cross the Canadian border riding with Lael Wilcox on the second day of her around-the-world record attempt.
I said good-bye to Lael within a few hundred meters of crossing the border and headed across town to the AirBnB I had booked. No AC in the place, and the day had been hot; but with a fan and open window (with mosquito proof screen), it was perfect!
Total distance from the end of the race in Kansas to my AirBnB in Canada was 1301 miles in 8 days.
The Details
Day 8 – 75 miles from Emporia, Kansas to Topeka, KS
Sun, May 31st @ 10:53am to Sun, May 31st @ 5:17pm (6 hours, 24 mins)
218 vehicles, 3/mi, 0.6/min, 33.5mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/646292
A fire alarm in the hotel woke me from a dead sleep just a few hours after I had finished the race. I was really thankful for this because I had not meant to fall asleep and still had a BUNCH of stuff I needed to do in the morning before heading out. It is very likely without that fire alarm I would have slept until 8 or 9am at least!
Will and I finished the race together in a break in the rain just before midnight. I said good-bye as he was waiting for a friend to finish, and I needed to make my way a few miles farther to the hotel on the other side of Emporia. It started pouring down rain again just before I made it to the hotel. After getting checked in, quarters for laundry, and my bike up to the room, priority #1 was to get my Garmin devices and heartrate monitor plugged in for charging.
Priority #2 was to shower. I didn’t need to deal with my clothes because I was going to be doing laundry shortly (or at least that’s what I thought). But after I showered and dried off, I was incredibly sleepy. The last thing I remember is thinking “I’ll just lay on the bed for a few minutes before getting my laundry started”. Well, the next memory after that was the fire alarm several hours later. All the lights were still on. I had slept exactly where I had laid down next to a lot of my stuff scattered on the bed.
The fire alarm shocked me awake because it was incredibly loud and it made me realize I must have fallen sleep. I got up and looked out the window. People were gathering outside, and I could hear the fire engine sirens, but I also looked down the hallway and couldn’t see or smell any smoke. So I took my time getting some clothes and shoes back on and gathering my laundry which I realized still needed to be done. By the time I had done all that, people had started to come back inside the building and presumably back to bed. This was all before the hotel breakfast had even started!
Side note: Let’s talk logistics
The logistics of self-supporting through this race was nuts. Let me spend a few paragraphs to explain before we get back to the day after the race.
You do not need the same amount of stuff for a 350 mile gravel race that you need for a trip that is 4000+ miles long. And even though I was packing light for my entire trip, it was still a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t need during the race:
- Frame bag with charging equipment, power adapters, rain pants, rain jacket
- GoPro, large battery packs (20,000 and 10,000 mAh packs)
- Second iPhone, Arduino, LiDAR for lateral passing measurements
- Rear radar/camera combo, plus the RearVue 820 radar
- Extra pair of shorts, five pairs of socks
As it turns out, it would have been nice to take the rain jacket but there was only one time late in the race where I really needed it, and Will loaned me his since he had both a rain jacket and a poncho. So this is what I took for the race:
- Osprey 20L Backpack with food and room for extra water
- Two 25oz insulated Zefal water bottles
- Three mountain bike tubes
- Multitool, pump, patch kit
- Passport (wasn’t going to risk it getting lost at hotel)
One thing that is easy to forget is that you either have to race with everything you brought or find a place to store things. At shorter races and events where I know a lot of people, I’ll just ask if I can leave my stuff under the registration table. At a big event like this, I probably could have done something similar but I felt like it would be easier for my stuff to get lost. Even if I just set my bag up against a building without telling anyone, I doubt it would get stolen but it could get moved. And if I handed my stuff to an organizer, I felt there was a real possibility of it getting lost and taking a long time to track down.
I had taken off my full frame bag and stuffed it with all the electronics I wouldn’t need for the race. Once that was full, I filled a separate plastic bag with some clothes that I wouldn’t need in the race. I also moved the water bottle mounts from the fork back to the center of the bike to be a bit more aerodynamic and secure during the race. Then I biked carrying the frame bag and the plastic bag about a mile from the cheap hotel I had booked before the race to the much more expensive hotel I would be staying at after the race.
The check-in clerk at the new hotel saw my reservation and made a note that I had a bunch of stuff to pick up when I checked in. As it turns out, they took everything I handed over and put it all into a giant trash bag, which made it quite a bit easier to wrangle up to the room after the race.
At this point, I was checked out of my old hotel and wouldn’t be checking into the new one until 36 hours later. So I was homeless with about 6 hours to kill before the start of the race. I arranged with Harvey, a friend from Alabama there to support his son racing the 100, to meet at Emporia State University and hand over a bunch of cool stuff the race organizers had given us but that I didn’t want to carry with me for the remaining 2500 miles of my trip after the race. He would take that stuff back home for me.
As it turns out, I would also get a ginormous finisher’s medal and finisher’s beer mug after the race that I would need to transport more than 700 miles up to my wife in Minnesota who would then fly back home with it. I was so relieved to off-load that beer mug and medal which was several pounds of extra weight on my back. Ironically, though, on the “Big Canoe” ferry from Manitoulin Island to the Bruce Peninsula in Canada I would see and immediately a purchase a 20oz, 50th anniversary coffee mug, thinking that it would be perfect reminder of this amazing trip. And I can confirm as I’m sipping coffee from it right now typing all this up, that it was indeed perfect!
Back to the fire alarm wake-up call
While the fire alarm blared, I gathered my wet, dirty clothes into a plastic bag hoping that the firefighters would give the all clear before I had to evacuate. And that is indeed what happened. So I took my bag and quarters and headed down the hall to the guest laundry machine with a moment of panic that maybe the fire alarm was because a dryer had caught on fire!
But everything was fine and before 6am the washer and dryer were both free. I started the wash while wearing my “short shorts” and rain jacket, and headed down to the free hotel breakfast. By the time I had finished breakfast, the washer was done so I moved my clothes to the dryer and headed back to the room to reassemble all the gear I needed for the rest of my trip that I hadn’t used during the race.
I moved the water bottle holders back to the fork and reattached the frame bag. I also started loading up the frame bag with charging cables and adapters first, then rain gear, and finally some leftover food. I reattached all the electronics for my lateral passing research, plus loaded up the top tube bag with my largest battery pack and the smaller one to power the Arduino.
Somewhere in the middle of this, I headed back to get my clothes from the dryer because with such a tiny load of clothes, they would dry very quickly.
Amazingly, even with the early morning fire alarm, it was almost 11am as I officially started the rest of my adventure commute back home. I was taking my time and making the most out of the expensive hotel. Leaving the hotel, I had to ride back towards the starting area and it was phenomenal to see that almost everything was gone. (Time cutoff was 3am, so this was 8 hours later). The main street was still closed, but most of the barriers had been removed. I biked by the laundromat, by Do B’s, and by the grocery store I had gotten change from the day before the race. This all seemed so significant in the moment as I was still trying to take in what I had just accomplished with so much more to go.
Remembering back to it even now seems surreal, I can visualize that exact spot where I was riding and trying to take pictures of these landmarks that I will likely still remember even if it’s a decade before I ever make it back to Emporia.
It was cloudy and still drizzling as I made my way backwards on a short stretch of the finishing section of the course, which looked completely different during the daytime. My route eventually tried to take me onto a gravel road, but I took one look at the consistency of the gravel and decided it was not worth it. Plus, I was voice texting my race report on quiet roads, and I didn’t want the extra tire noise from the gravel.
I only had one stop at the Casey’s in Burlingame, Kansas. This was an extended stop to take a break from the midday heat with temps in the mid 90s. A nice older man chatted with me about his former biking days and how he was coming back from visiting his daughter at Emporia State University. I eventually rolled on staying mostly on the somewhat busy US-56 until I got closer to Topeka where I switched to some other roads that were still pretty busy.
I had never been to Topeka but snapped a few pictures of the Capitol and nearby government buildings. My hotel was across the Kansas River in the “Arts District” of North Topeka, so I still had a few miles to go after wandering around downtown. My hotel was right next to an IHOP which I walked to after showering and plugging in all my electronics.
Day 9 – 140 miles from Topeka, Kansas to St Joseph, Missouri
Mon, Jun 1st @ 6:18am to Mon, Jun 1st @ 6:27pm (12 hours, 9 mins)
803 vehicles, 5.8/mi, 1.3/min, 34.0mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/647097
I was asleep within minutes of making it back to my room. And even though I had planned to leave early, I ended up sleeping in and staying through the 6am morning hotel breakfast — still exhausted from the race. I knew I had a relatively short 135 miles on the day, but I’m also used to starting closer to midnight. So in terms of riding in the heat of the day, a 135 mile ride with a 6am start is equivalent to a 200+ mile day starting at midnight.
Still elated from the race and the excitement of an adventure up into Canada, I was happy to make my way north. After a few hours I made it to the outskirts of Kansas City where I had routed myself along a road along the Kansas River. I remember when creating the route that Google Maps was doing everything it could to get me off that road. And once I started riding on it, I figured out why – it was a narrow BUSY road with tons of truck traffic. So I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and found a route up and over some very steep hills to get into the heart of the city. Like most of this entire trip, there was a lot of road construction, but I made it through downtown and across the Missouri River.
On the rolling hills northwest of Kansas City, I first started to notice an annoying creaking sound in my bottom bracket. It would only happen if I stood up trying to power my way up the short steep hills. It gradually got worse so that even if I stayed seated and applied any power at all into the pedals, the bottom bracket would creak. I looked up bike shops in St Joseph and called Horizon Cycling at 4:55pm. They were closing in 5 minutes, but I asked the mechanic who answered if I could make my way up there anyway even though Google Maps had me at 45 minutes away. This seemed so crazy to me as I was only about 8 miles from the shop, how long could it take? But that estimate was pretty good given all the climbing, and I didn’t get there until almost 5:45 after riding through a lot of traffic on the east side of St Joseph.
The two young mechanics in the shop were nice and had the bottom bracket disassembled, cleaned, and lubed within about 15 minutes. There was still play in the bottom bracket, but without rebuilding the bearings there was nothing they could do about that. I didn’t care as long as it didn’t make an annoying loud clunk/creak with each pedal stroke. With over 2000 miles left in my adventure, I thought for sure I would have problems again before the end — but, nope, it made it the rest of the trip without making that sound again, no matter how much standing climbing I did. This was my only mechanical problem of the entire 4124 mile trip.
From the shop it was a few miles mostly downhill towards the Missouri River to the AirBnB I had rented in downtown St Joseph, but it was on top of a steep part of downtown, though, so I had to climb up to it. Then I realized that there was no gas stations or food nearby, so I had to ride back down the steep hill to the closest gas station. Then I had to ride back up carrying all the food I had just bought for dinner, breakfast, and the first 50 or so miles of the ride the next day.
Still, it was a great historic house where they had converted the entire basement to a rental.
Day 10 – 181 miles from St Joseph, Missouri to Des Moines, Iowa
Tue, Jun 2nd @ 1:40am to Tue, Jun 1st @ 5:34pm (15 hours, 54 mins)
327 vehicles, 1.9/mi, 0.4/min, 44.8mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/648025
I was finally rested enough and went to bed early enough that I could get an early start, leaving my AirBnB at 1:40 in the morning and descending down the hill back to the main road leaving the town on a very cool “rails-to-road” through a park following a creek. This was a two mile gradual climb along an old railroad bed that they converted to a road. All the major streets of the city were bridges above the road. There was a park alongside the road, too.
I biked out past the suburban area with the bike shop from yesterday and eventually made my way onto US Highway 169, which I would spend most of the day on or near. Lots of rolling hills and a beautiful sunrise on a paved county road eventually turned into a hot day with gravel and hills mixed with busy highway riding. I even took one minimum maintenance road that would have been a disaster in the rain to get off of one particularly busy stretch of US-169.
I ended up riding through Madison County famous for the book/movie “Bridges of Madison County” and routed myself across one of the covered bridges.
Iowa surprised me last summer with its many bike paths all over the state. Unfortunately for me on this trip, there is a bit of a bike path desert in southwest Iowa. Still, I eventually reached the Great Western Bike Trail which took me all the way past the Des Moines Airport and then into the heart of the city where I had another AirBnB booked. This one was for the entire apartment in a brand new apartment complex. I had filtered the search based on washer/dryer availability as I was desperate to do clothes again. Other than having to contact the owner b/c the doorcode I received was wrong, it was a great place to stay for much less than any of the nearby hotels.
Day 11 – 165 miles from Des Moines, Iowa to Charles City, Iowa
Wed, Jun 3rd @ 2:11am to Wed, Jun 3rd @ 4:23pm (14 hours, 12 mins)
503 vehicles, 3.6/mi, 0.8/min, 52.6mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/648961
It was a bit chilly with the temps dipping down into the 50s by the time I made it diagonally through Des Moines northeast on my way to Minnesota. I didn’t have very much food/water with me so while still negotiating my way out of downtown I stopped at a 24 hour gas station where another guy on a bike arrived at the same time as me. We both ended up getting coffee and chatting a bit outside the store while I packed up food I had bought and was drinking the coffee. It’s funny being cold knowing how hot it would get later in the day … 57 degF in the morning and 100 degF for several hours in the afternoon.
A few minutes later and I was on my way negotiating through a bunch of roads closed for construction and making the decision (usually correct) of whether or not I could still get through on my bike. I had routed myself on the Chichaqua bike trail (rails-to-trail) that wound its way quite circuitously to avoid all the hills that US Highway 65 just plowed up and over. I started down the trail, but it had expansion cracks extending across the trail every few meters. No way I was going to subject myself to that at 3 in the morning when it was also still too dark to really see anything cool beside the trail.
So I turned around and made my way back to Highway 65 thinking that it would be deserted and perfectly paved, which it was for the first few miles. But as it got closer to 4am, traffic picked up, and I still had more than 30 miles on the highway! Thankfully, by about 5am I reached a long 10+ mile stretch that was under construction with one lane closed. I could ride the closed lane while traffic flew by in the open lane. The only tricky part is that there was freshly laid cement every few hundred meters, sometimes several blocks in a row. The workers had smartly put extra cones before each block so I could see ahead of time that I would need to merge back into the open lane to get around them unsure of whether the cement had dried and not wanting to mess up the road.
After I made it out of the construction zone and was starting to get concerned with the increasingly heavy traffic, I was lucky to stumble upon the beginning of the American Discoveries bike path alongside the highway. It started out on the wrong side so I crossed over at the next intersection, hopped on the gravel path, and then within a few hundred meters crossed back under the highway.
The path eventually turned into pavement and took me all the way into the heart of Marshalltown after a beautiful sunrise. The cracks on this trail were minimal, and it didn’t matter anyway because of how much I wanted off the highway. Also, they left the intersections gravel, including the stretch of paved trail immediately before the intersection – I’m pretty sure this is a safety measure to keep cyclists from flying through the stop signs and getting hit by cross traffic. Lastly, the trail went underneath several billboards as you got close to town.
All of this at my favorite time of day to ride meant I was on a high making my way through Marshalltown and then north on a series of state and county roads. I went through one small town (Lincoln, Iowa) on a two lane country road with a green sign that said Lincoln, “next five exits”, which I found hilarious since they absolutely were not exits – just all five of the towns streets.
By late morning I had made it to a larger town (Hudson, Iowa) and stopped at the Casey’s. A couple guys came out of the store and were asking me about my bike. They had done RAGBRAI before and asked me if I had. I told them it was on my bucket list but I hadn’t had a chance yet. It was nice to rest and show them all the electronics I was using to collect data on the trip. Shortly after the Casey’s I was able to hop on the Cedar Prairie and Cedar Valley trails all the way through Waterloo. On the north side of Waterloo, I eventually had to merge with the main highway (US-218) which was very busy on my way to Waverly.
Coffee talk in Waverly, Iowa
My sister-in-law and her husband worked at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa for a few years. On one of our trips up north we visited them, and I rode my bike from there northeast to Elgin, Iowa (Little Switzerland) to meet other friends for a fun get together before we made the rest of our way up to Wisconsin. But that was nearly twenty years ago.
So my memory was fuzzy and I mistakenly thought she had worked at a coffee shop there. Kristine told me it was different town, but I had already set my mind on stopping for an iced coffee somewhere to get out of the heat. The first one I saw was Thinkwell Coffee. It was perfect – they had pre-canned bottles of cold brew. I drank one while chatting with two of the workers about coffee and about my adventure.
I left after a few minutes and biked straight through campus snapping a few pictures along the way. Earlier in the day I had booked a room at the Econolodge at Charles City which was still about 40 miles farther north in the heat. I started out riding “Old” US-218 where I could but I eventually had to merge on US-218 if I wanted to stick to paved roads. Right outside of Charles City US-218 turned into an interstate, so I had to take a series of gravel roads through farm fields for a few miles. I had a nice tailwind, though, and was flying having a blast all the way until I had to get back onto US-218 (business) for the last couple miles to the Econolodge, which was busy again. I stopped at Casey’s and loaded up with food for dinner and supplies for heading out later in the evening and had to carry all that a couple miles down the busy highway, but it was fine. The end of each of these days is such a relief, looking forward to calories, air conditioning, iced drink, a shower, and bed. For me, it is enough to restore me for the next day of riding, which I don’t even really think about until my morning wake-up routine, which involves looking at the weather, thinking about how far I can make it, and where my options are for spending the night.
Day 12 – 175 miles from Charles City, Iowa to Bayport, Minnesota
Thu, Jun 4th @ 1:52am to Thu, Jun 4th @ 3:28pm (13 hours, 36 mins)
680 vehicles, 4/mi, 0.9/min, 35.8mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/649907
I didn’t have to worry or think about where I was going to spend the night on this day because I was only 175 miles from my wife dog/house sitting for her sister in Minnesota! Lots of gravel and heat to get there.
I biked around the side of Rochester, Minnesota on a bike path, but afterwards found myself on some busy HILLY county roads heading north towards the Mississippi River where I crossed over into Wisconsin at Red Wing. It was cool that geographically the shortest distance for me to get to my wife in Minnesota was to ride through part of Wisconsin before crossing the St Croix River on I-94 (attached bike path) back into Minnesota. This was all very hilly, and I was very tired, but I was glad to make it up to Bayport for an extended stay (28 hours) at just past the halfway point of the entire trip.
Day 13, 14 – 195 miles from Bayport, Minnesota to Mercer, Wisconsin
Rest Fri, Jun 5th then Sat, Jun 6th @ 12:08am to 4:12pm (16 hours, 4 mins)
229 vehicles, 1.2/mi, 0.3/min, 41.6mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/652056
Highlight of the day was seeing two black bears on the Tuscobia rails to trail. Before we get there, we have to back up about 10 hours to midnight when I said goodbye to Kristine and headed out the door to pretty much bike all the way across Wisconsin in one ride.
I left Bayport and headed a few miles north through downtown Stillwater which was absolutely hopping after midnight. Even the pedestrian bridge across the St Croix River was busy. Once, I hit the Wisconsin side, though, things started to quiet down. I was on a bunch of county roads and had routed myself on a long rails-to-trail, but when I made it to the first rails-to-trail junction where I could hop on, it was so overgrown that there was no way I was going to trade the pavement for rough gravel in the dark.
It wasn’t exactly chilly, but it was not hot either, and it was foggy as I made my way criss-crossing on county roads up to Turtle Lake where I could finally join highway US-63 for at least a few diagonal miles. The challenge with a good chunk of the midwest is that many roads head either due north/south or due east/west regardless of the topography. The only diagonal roads are the major state highways, US highways, and interstates.
So many memories from this part of Wisconsin where Kristine grew up and where we got married almost 25 years ago. So I had lots to keep my mind busy throughout the night looking for memories in the land itself. Of course, this far north, sunrise was not long after 5am with the sky getting light enough to see by maybe 430am.
I made it to Birchwood a few hours after sunrise and intersected the Tuscobia State Trail, a long rails-to-trail that is heavily used by ATVs in the summer and snow mobiles in the winter. Unfortunately, to keep the trail from getting muddy, the gravel was quite deep. And with the heavy ATV traffic, there was quite a bit of gravel washboard. Still, I was committed to riding this 12 mile section as the area is already extremely rural, and this rails-to-trail left even the nearest roads far behind for many miles because the trail veered around the large hill by many miles.
I was rewarded with my choice by seeing so many deer, so many rabbits, and two black bears. The first black bear was a young, smaller one. Then about a mile later I saw a much larger one. Both of them took off running into the woods alongside the trail before I could even get remotely close. The pics below are at 8x zoom.
I eventually made it back to paved roads heading east. Only a few miles later, I saw the signs for and the guard rails for an inline skating facility. The guard rails were only a few feet from the road so I figured it was ok to hop off the bike and run up to the edge and snap a few pics. Their facebook page was last updated in 2014, but they still have some cool videos and photos of what the facility was like when it was in its prime after reopening. Apparently this track was reopened in 2010 after it had been active in the 80s and 90s. It survived for about 4 or 5 years before closing again if activity on the Facebook page is any indication.
It had gotten hot, and it was hard to reconcile being so freezing cold many times in the same area in the dead of winter with the sweltering afternoon heat. After I made it through the next town, I hopped back onto the ATV trail. It was again washboarded from heavy usage, and this time, there was actually a lot of ATV traffic kicking up dust. None of the riders I saw were going very fast, but I didn’t want to risk somebody rushing to catch up with a group and unable to see me in all the dust. Plus, I didn’t want to ride in all the dust. So after several miles on the trail, I hopped back onto the main county highway at the next intersection.
Eventually I made it to Mercer, a relatively small town, but it was definitely in the height of its summer season. The hotel clerk at the Great Northern Inn said I had gotten the last room (and it was EXPENSIVE, but so much cheaper than any of the AirBnB options which were in the hundreds of dollars presumably for the entire cabin). There were people and ATVs everywhere. I was early enough to get a good night’s sleep and still leave before 3am.
Day 15 – 193 miles from Mercer, Wisconsin to Gladstone, Michigan
Sun, Jun 7th @ 2:46am to 6:28pm (15 hours, 42 mins)
615 vehicles, 3.4/mi, 0.8/min, 39.3mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/653341
I left well before sunrise again, which has numerous advantages for summer riding including cool nighttime vistas under the moonlight as well as incredible night sky viewing in rural parts of the country. But there are a couple disadvantages as well: you don’t get the daytime views and miss a lot of stuff you would normally see during the day … and the mosquitoes were voracious in this part of Wisconsin where I also crossed over into the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. If I stopped for more than 10 seconds, I would have mosquitoes all over me. So at the first gas station I came to, I was lucky to be able to buy a can of “deep woods” insect repellant and got into a routine of spraying a bit on every morning right before leaving the hotel. This was crucial.
One place mid-morning that was absolutely swarming with mosquitoes was the source of the Wisconsin River at the spillway at the edge of a lake named Lac Vieux Desert. I saw a sign on a trail that pointed towards the “source of the Wisconsin River” so I veered off into the parking lot and followed it a short distance to a larger sign at the very small spillway. I was taking pictures when I noticed that mosquitoes were all over me, so I left in a hurry.
As it got farther into the day, I received a text message from my friend, Stuart Roberts, texted me during the ride this day that he thought Lael Wilcox would catch up to me somewhere around Gladstone, Michigan where I was planning to spend the night. I would be arriving from the west and Lael would be passing through from the south having started her world record attempt for fastest time riding around the world in Chicago. Our routes then overlapped for many miles through the rest of the UP into Canada.
I spent a good chunk of the afternoon trying to figure out timing and sleep so I could ride with her for a bit. It didn’t help that I was crossing the border back and forth between Wisconsin and Michigan and always wondering what time/timezone it was. The UP of Michigan stays on central timezone for all the counties that border Wisconsin, but as soon as you go one county farther north into the UP, it switches to Eastern Time. As it turns out, I would stay in Central Timezone nearly the entire day only crossing over into Eastern Time towards the end of the day.
A significant milestone of the day was making it to the highest point of the entire trip at just under 1900′ in Wisconsin near the border with Michigan. From there I would gradually descend the rest of the day through the UP until reaching the northern shore of Lake Michigan in Escanaba. From there, I followed busy roads and then a bike path along the shore all the way into Gladstone where I had a hotel booked.
The hotel was interesting in that while it was an official hotel, there was a number posted that you were supposed to call where they would tell you which room you were in and what the code was to unlock your door. There was no main office. I followed the instructions and was in my room after just a couple minutes.
Day 16 – 177 miles from Gladstone, Michigan to Sault Ste. Marie, Canada
Mon, Jun 8th @ 3:16am to 7:38pm (16 hours, 22 mins)
648 vehicles, 3.7/mi, 0.8/min, 39.5mph(avg)
https://www.mybiketraffic.com/rides/view/654265
This was my 16th day of the trip. One day earlier, Lael Wilcox had started her around-the-world record attempt in Chicago covering well over 250 miles and spending the night about 30 miles south of where I spent the night. With her average speed close to 18mph and me struggling to consistently hit 14mph and our routes having converged for the next 300+ miles, I figured I could just do my own thing and ride even easier than normal and she would catch up to me sometime before the end of the day.
I left by 3:16am and was on my way in the dark. I knew I was going to be taking my time and was actually a bit chilly so within a few miles of leaving Gladstone, I stopped at a 24 hour Circle K and drank an entire hot coffee while loading up Lael’s tracking page into my phone. This was at the intersection where I joined US Highway 2, which is a very busy highway with a large shoulder that is on several major biking routes because it is one of only two paved roads traveling east/west in that stretch of the Upper Peninsula (US-2 and MI-94 which turns into MI-28 much farther north towards the Lake Superior side of the UP). Even the gravel and dirt roads tend to run north/south instead of east/west.
Unfortunately, the highway was under construction, and there were many miles (20+ miles) of rough, graded highway. That wasn’t terrible for me with my 2.2″ mountain bike tires, but I felt bad for Lael who would be crossing through that section on a road bike in a few hours. I was super thankful to be riding through the construction at 4 in the morning because there wasn’t too much traffic, although it did make it a little bit harder to move over when cars/trucks were approaching. Eventually, I made it past all the construction and the shoulder was rideable and mostly debris free for the rest of the day, which is a very good thing because traffic after sunrise and throughout the morning was intense.
Besides the traffic, there was some amazing forest / swamp scenery on the relatively flat highway near the lake. One town had a small memorial to a shipwreck from many years ago. I biked through and snapped a few pics and sent them to our family chat, and my wife looked it up to see that the park was named after the ship that sank.
Eventually I made it past Lake Michigan and turned inland where it went from mosquitos to horse flies. Every little hill where I slowed down even a little the horse flies would catch up and fly all around me. I had my backpack straps loose and flapping in the wind and supplemented that with my arm sorta half-heartedly flailing behind me. This worked together to keep me from getting bit, but it was annoying for many miles.
I ended up climbing up to a very high point (probably a dune) and then descending for many miles afterwards. During all this time, Lael was definitely catching up to me but I was still a couple hours ahead of her. I wanted her to catch me before crossing over into Canada so I could actually try to ride with her for a bit. So when I made it to the town of Trout Lake, I stopped at an actual saloon/restaurant (The Buckhorn) and had a full sit-down meal for lunch. IT WAS AWESOME.
I took a lot of pictures and just rode slowly avoiding the horse flies and thankful for the relaxed pace, but I still needed to kill some time or I was going to make it to Canada before Lael. So I ended up doing a big 10 mile square loop near the town of Rudyard that double backed on itself. It was a mix of pavement and gravel. During this loop, I got passed by a farming truck that was pulling a tub of manure (fertilizer). It smelt so bad! I also passed by a woman running way out in the middle of these farm roads a few miles outside of town. She was heading back towards the route, and I wondered as I biked by if she knew about Lael and was running to intersect the route and cheer her on?
When I made it back to Rudyard, Lael was only a couple miles on the other side of town. I stopped at a gas station for one last gatorade refill and headed along the original route. Just outside of town, I saw a group of cyclists all gathered. I knew immediately they were probably waiting for Lael. They were definitely confused by me and probably thought I was Lael at least initially. I kept on riding knowing that at my speed of 14 mph, Lael would quickly catch up to me.
And that is exactly what happened. It was a group of about 10 riders that caught up to me about 15 miles before the border with Lael leading the way and she was happy to let me join in and ride beside her. It was so awesome getting a chance to talk with her about ultra racing and riding and adventures including Unbound, which she has done several times, and Tour Divide. I picked up my pace to 18+ mph which is the pace she was going when the group caught up to me. It was no problem at all as I was back on Cloud Nine and so excited to meet Lael and get a chance to ride with her near the beginning of her around-the-world adventure while still on my own adventure, too!
As I rotated to the back of the group, I got a chance to talk with a few of the other riders and learned that several of them are a combined US / Canada triathlon club with some of the riders living in “Soo Michigan” (the US side) and some living in Sault Ste. Marie proper on the Canadian side of the border. They have a special driver’s license so they can easily cross the border to ride. Sometimes they do their rides in Canada, sometimes they do their rides in the USA.
In the last few miles before the border, we had to stop and wait for a big turkey to cross the road. It had its tail feathers fanned out (to intimidate us?) but after a few seconds it went over and joined its “flock” of turkeys that were gathered in the field away from the road. Then a few miles later we navigated onto I-75 itself at the last on-ramp in the USA where it then headed to a toll booth on the US side of the bridge where the first rider ended up paying for our entire group! Then we crossed the bridge over the St Mary’s River into Canada. I was last in line through the border b/c I knew it might take a bit longer to explain my adventure. It only took about 45 seconds, though, and once the border patrol agent understood my plan was to cross back into the USA a few days later near Detroit, he handed me back the passport and told me to be safe.
I rolled down the hill to where the others had gathered and said good-bye to Lael as they took off. I needed to head the other way deeper into town where I had an AirBnB booked. But first, I needed to find a gas station to get dinner for the night and supplies for the next day. I ended up not being very happy with the tiny selection at the gas station I came to first, but the attendant drew me a small map where I could find a larger grocery store. It was perfect!
About twenty minutes later, I made it to the AirBnB where I ended up doing laundry and chatting with the owner who had the largest dog I have ever seen in my life. The dog was friendly and we chatted for a bit, but I was tired so I said goodnight and let her know that I would probably be leaving in a few hours. I ended up sleeping in just a little bit longer than I would have liked and wasn’t out the door until 430am the next morning, which would factor into my ride the next day in a very big way. But more on that in Part 4 eventually!
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