Day 19
June 2nd, 2004
Today was not a day of great scenery. Today was not a day of great motorcycling roads. No, today was a day of great WEATHER ! It was sunny for my departure in St. Cloud, and contrary to the day before, this time it stuck.
I decided to just ride and enjoy soaking up the sun. As I had predicted, the roads in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan were chock full of police. As the last thing I want now is a speeding ticket, I decided to take it slowly today, and just ride and ride and try to concentrate on keeping time stopped to a minimum. Sort of going back to the basics of Long Distance Riding.
The roads South of Lake Superior were pleasant, but there were a lot of towns to go through. The temperature was also fairly cold because of the breeze coming from the Great Lakes. My thermometer was between 10 and 12 until I reached Sault Ste.-Marie, then fluctuated between 16 and 19. These are very comfortable temperatures to be on the bike
It was kind of fun to avoid time stopped. All in all, the only time I was stopped was for 2 gas stops (gas + pee at the first one and gas + pee + wolf down a Power Bar, a Slim Jim and the apple that I took from the 'continental breakfast' thing at the hotel). Other than gas stops, there were traffic lights, customs at Sault Ste.-Marie and one photo by Lake Superior, this one
Nothing too exciting. The scenery today was the very familiar kind, just small rolling hills, trees like we have at home, lots of dandelions. Nothing too exotic. Plenty of deer seen on the US side of the ride. They were all behaving.
I was enjoying myself so much when I got to my destination, Sault Ste-Marie, that I decided to continue on until I got tired or hit some rain. I just hit some rain around Sudbury, and even there, it wasn't much, maybe 3 or 4 showers, only one worthy of the word "rain", that lasted for maybe 15 to 20 minutes.
When I got to North Bay, I decided I'd better call it quits. I was almost up to 1 400 km and any further would put me in Iron Butt territory. Those days are over of course... It was still quite light out at 8:00 PM here and it had been light out for at least an hour before I left this morning. It would have been easily possible to do a SaddleSore completely in daylight today.
According to the GPS, my total time for my ride was 13 hours. It also tells me that I was stopped for 41 minutes total. My overall average was 103 km / h and my moving average was 109 km / h. It was a fun day in the sunshine and I've come to realize that this trip has increased my endurance on the bike. I didn't feel the need to get up and walk around at any time during the ride.
Anyways, sorry for the boring report, I'm on the home stretch now, and I'm not planning on doing any more cool stuff other than get that last checkpoint in Maine. Things are going a bit too smoothly. SShhhhhhh, don't even think it..
Day Stats:
Total Distance: 1 379 km (St. Cloud, MN to North Bay, Ont)
Total Time: 13 h 00 minutes
Overall Average 103 km / h