Spoke Too Soon

Ok, we finally had a real bike failure worth talking about. Yesterday, while riding, Jason got a flat which we promptly fixed (that makes 4 flats total). But while fixing it, Jason noticed that one of his spokes was broken. This was no problem, as it allowed me to make use of my kevlar emergency spoke (see picture). So we rigged up the emergency spoke and loaded the wheel again, only to notice that the wheel was way out of true (out of plane) and was rubbing on his brakes each rotation. So I did a quick field-truing of the wheel and Jason rode on it for 2 days into Minot, ND, where we were able to get a replacement spoke. I noticed that after fixing up his wheel, Jason was riding much faster. Since there seems no reason that his flat would cause a broken spoke, and I suspect that it had been broken for days and the rubbing of the brakes had been the cause of his recent trouble keeping speed. Ever since the repair he has been going a fair bit faster.

In Minot, we went to a bike shop where the guy confidently measured the spokes and gave us the wrong replacement spoke (the ones he said were right were too short). Luckily, we also bought some other spokes (for a different part of his wheel) that worked, but were still shorter than they should have been. Finally I trued up the wheel, and actually did a pretty good job of it. On the road repairs: no problem.

Also, this is what my legs look like after doing battle with Jason's wheel (Click for zoom).

The Wicked Witch of the... East?

So every book, guide, map, and local person states that the wind in this area (the plains) blows predominantly from the West. But we have found this to be very much not true. We have been on the plains for 6 days and have seen wind every direction from North to South (by way of East), but have only seen a wind from the West one, weakly, for 2 hours. The favorite direction is definitively from the East, which is exactly how it "never" blows, and coincidentally the direction that is the worst for us. It seems that every day it should change to the dominant direction (it has to blow from the West sometime, right?), but it never does.

Also, why isn't the land flat yet?

For Those Keeping Score at Home

We have been on the road for 17 days now and here is the tally of bike repairs needed:

Flat Tires:
Jason Rear Tire (Bent wire in tire): patched
Jason Rear Tire (Screw in tire): patched - needed 2 patches
Eric Front Tire (Staple in tire): patched


Jason derailleur jockey gear fell off on road: pieces gathered, reassembled, later went to bike shop to get it loctited

Eric grinding in drivetrain: brought to bike shop, crankset reassembled (retightened)

Safe Havre

It turns out (and we knew this going in) that we are doing this whole trip backwards. Instead of starting out in familiar territory, where the land is relatively flat and we know many people, we flew to Seattle and started there. The weather, animals, and bugs are all foreign and somewhat strange. The first pass we did (Washington Pass) was the single highest climb of our entire trip (and incidentally, the first mountain pass either of us had ever done). And the longest stretch of the whole trip without a know friendly face was the stretch between Seattle and Shelby, MT (2 weeks). By the end of the trip, through Ohio and New York, we are going to have stops every day or two and be cruising through early autumn weather in familiar and fairly level ground.

But for that reason, it was delightful to meet Cindy (a distant relative of Erik (not me, note the "K")), who greeted us with ice cold Powerade, cooked us dinner, washed our clothes, had beds for us to sleep in, made us breakfast, and gave us cherries for the road. That was a huge boost after our terrible day yesterday.

Now we are in Havre, having finished 104 miles today. We are staying in a church that Jason hooked up for us. This is quite important, as it turns out, since the mosquitos are really bad here. I killed at least 50 going to and from dinner, and at one point I could see 6 at one time on my legs. Indoors is good.

Oh, and some folks had requested that we google map so that people can follow along with us, but this is probably too much work for us, since we have a very busy schedule (any time I am not actively doing something, I stop to think of what needs to be done, and there's always something). But the best bet is to look at the Adventure Cycling map page for our trip. This can easily be matched up with google maps.

For fun, here is a picture of a "Used Vehicle Lot" that we passed.

No More Messing Around

Ok rock stars,

anybody who thinks we have been moving quickly so far is in for a surprise. We have been going up and down mountains, touring through beautiful places. We have gone north, east, south, west, north, just rolling around visiting every neat thing in the area. Well, all that is changing now.

We are now headed express across the plains, straight as an arrow, East. And we plan on making some good time. So hold on to your hats for the section I like to call Minnesota Express. I have a date with a plane on August 9, and I have no interest in missing it.

The Salt of the Earth

So another new thing: salted bodies. With the massive sweating we are doing, along with the dry air, at the end of each day our clothes and skin are coated with salt. In the clothes, it appears as salt stains, and on the skin it appears as legitimate, salt-packet-style crystals which feel a lot like sand on the skin. Jason sweats more than me, and thus gets a better harvest, but we both have noticed this.

Gross.

The Bubble of Determination

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"

-Kipling

So, awful awful times today. Awful. Really bad.

As of today, we are on the plains. Great, we thought, no more mountains. And we were hoping that the prevailing winds from the West, along with the smooth earth would help us sail right along. But we were wrong.

We did 96 miles today, insisting that we show up in Shelby, MT. The 100 degree heat was bad, but nothing that we hadn't dealt with before (Everywhere we go, people say, "Oh, it's never this hot around here - but they say the heat will break in a few days." We've been hearing this for weeks as we drag the heat across with us). What also hurt in a new way was the 75 mile stretch with no services, not even a tree for shade in the aforementioned heat. But what was completely debilitating was the 20 MPH headwind (coming from the SE, another unlikely meteorologic event) for the entire day.

When we rode, we struggled to maintain 10 MPH ground speed into the wind. When we stopped, we had no shade and flies would immediately swarm around us. As we came into Cut Bank, both of us were ready to fall off our bikes. At the diner, I couldn't eat much, as my digestive system (a non-essential function) had shut down a while back.

And we still had 25 more miles to go. It was very hard to get ourselves up out of that diner and haul our bodies another 25 miles, but we did it. About 10 miles into those last 25, my water ran out, and my emergency water had acquired the strong taste of burning plastic and was undrinkable without vomiting. My front tire, due to a staple found earlier in the day, was getting increasingly flat. The headwind was getting stronger, trucks kept whizzing by our elbows, and I was very very tired. And all I wanted to do was dump my bike and sit by the side of the road and cry. But there was no time for that. I figured that I would either ride that bike into Shebly or die on the road, and I didn't really feel like dying.

Then a train went by us, and gave a few long toots on the whistle for us. And though it sounds stupid, it is little things like that, knowing that some totally unknown person is cheering you on, that makes you go. And we did. Jason, also feeling a few shades past death, came up and we waged war on the wind. For a little while there, it was just him and me, battling the wind in a little bubble of determination. In the end, things like drinkable water and inflated tires take a backseat to utter determination. They say that the spirit/mind gives out long before the body does, and I think we got a little taste of what that means today.