We just rode our bicycles across a continent.

On September 24, 2013, a little after 12 noon, we could no longer travel from left to right. The North American continent gave way to the Atlantic Ocean, in our case at Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn, New York.

5595km, 2 Provinces, 9 States, 26 flat tires, 65 burgers, and 9 million pedal strokes.

The Hudson Valley was absolutely beautiful, giving Washington a run or its money in that category. 

We enjoyed a second night in Albany with our host Jim and his wife Peg. He gave us a nice 20 mile tour of the town, and then guided us across the bridge across the Hudson to Rensselaer the next morning. There is only one crossing accessible by bike in Albany, and it involves a rather steep climb, followed by riding alongside the interstate. Hardly unfamiliar territory at this point.

Once we made our way across the river (which we were informed, is actually a fjord) it was a straight line south to the end of the trip. We were splitting this into 2 days, one average and one long.

The first day took us to Mills Norrie State Park, a short hop from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. The campground was basically empty, maybe 10 other people there in total. We got in pretty late and knew there was a huge day ahead of us to get to Manhattan, so we wasted little time bothering with showers. We jettisoned some items (torn sleeping bag, cheap sleeping pads, burned camping pot) and planned an early start. The forecast told tales of 12mph headwinds, but a clear day. Our topographical maps suggested our climbing muscles would be given a workout.

We woke up earlier than we had on the entire trip, and set off almost immediately, despite the cold. The threat of headwind turned out to be bogus, and there was not a cloud in the sky. We could not have asked for a more perfect day. The scenery was utterly amazing. We were passing through quiet winding roads surrounded on both sides by forest. We got the occasional clearing with a view to the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains to the west. Not even the four obligatory punctures could get us down.

As we neared NYC, things got a bit busier and we popped back over to the west side of the river, at Bear Mountain State Park. This turned out to be a rather difficult climb. Typical NY, steep but not overly long. The descent was a blast. We found ourselves going up and down short, steep hills through to New Jersey. 

Once we hit the welcome to NJ sign, it was just 10 miles to Manhattan. It really set in at this point; we were all but there. The realization went straight to the legs, and sustaining 40km/h was a piece of cake. The feeling was overwhelming.

And then we found ourselves crossing the bridge into New York City. Perfect blue sky and the Manhattan skyline unfolding before us.

Riding in Manhattan was somewhat like a video game... we did a bit on the street as well as a good chunk along the Hudson River bike path. Not sure which was more sporting; battling yellow cabs on Broadway or competing with joggers and aggressive cyclists on the path. We got to our destination in SoHo as the sun went down, capping our day at 156km. 

A couple of beers, some all you can eat (!!!) wings for $7 later, we were asleep.

Our final official day turned out to be somewhat anti-climactic, given its significance. a 21km ride across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Prospect Park, and down Ocean Parkway through Brooklyn to Coney Island Beach to get our front tires wet with Atlantic salt water.

We did it.

Back from hiatus

After surviving the shoulderless roads of Michigan, we found ourselves on a little ferry that shuttles us across the St Clair river into Ontario. Poor weather slowed our progress up in and around London, but we made up for it by trekking all the way from Woodstock to St Catharines in one long, rainy, humid, bug filled day.

Then it was break time! 58 days in to the trip, with just 2 days off, we were more than happy to visit friends and family for a week or three. The bikes mostly stayed untouched, save for a couple of short day trips... Including one in Niagara Falls, NY to catch up with Sara, Jamie, and Jeremy who were passing through the area Ken their way to Maine. We hadn't seen them since Newhalem, WA, just a few days into our trip.

September 15 saw us back on the road. Things felt different. Getting back on a fully loaded touring bike again took getting used to. The air was much colder. Worst of all, the daylight hours were getting shorter.

Our first day in NY state provided some other annoyances. An hour and a half at the border to renew Emi's US visa, followed immediately by my front tire going flat was the beginning. Ten minutes down the road in Niagara Falls saw Emi's rear tire pop. An hour later I was pulling a staple out of my own rear tire, while sitting on church steps in Sanborn, NY. All of this accounted for about 3 hours of setbacks, meaning that in order to get to our destination, we would have to ride in the dark for the first time. It was all worthwhile once we showed up at Chris' house in the hamlet of Hulberton, NY. He owns a little bike shop out of the front of his place and is situated right on the Erie Canal. He fed us well, and we chatted for a couple of hours before a good nights' sleep.

The next morning began with more of the same; a puncture before we set off... "Here we go again!" I thought.

But we rolled through the rest of the day problem free and made it to the canal lock at Macedon which offered a free place to set up camp. We even ran into Phil along the canal trail. We had met him all the way back in Saco, MT, a place we all confess to having nightmares about. It is quite amazing the number of times we have met people only to see them again. We rode together a while then decided to part ways as he opted for the quieter yet mostly unpaved Erie Canal path, while we stuck with the pleasant (and well signed) state bike route 5.

A night of frigid camping was followed by a nice day of riding. We found ourselves passing on our planned campground in Weedsville, upon finding it would cost $35 to pitch a tent. We found a cheap motel a few miles in the right direction for just $10 more, and spent the night in Baldwinsville, just northwest of Syracuse. A great pub and a warm nights' sleep followed.

The next morning meant more bad tire luck; 3 more random punctures. My front, my rear, and Emi's rear. Our tubes were beginning to resemble the patched up things we rode on in North Dakota. We decided to cut the day short after 50km, and stayed on Verona Beach. It turned out to be one of the prettiest places we put a tent on the whole trip. 50 feet from Oneida Lake, facing directly into the sunset.

The weather improved, and two days of warm but hilly riding followed. A few steep 500 foot climbs brought back memories of Washington, and that's not a bad thing! We got great views over the Mohawk River Valley, and some fun descents.

Getting into Albany was somewhat of a task. The state bike route lowers significantly in ridability between Schenectady and the state capital. Shoulderless four lane roads with heavy traffic, freeway on/off ramps, 6 inch drops around manhole covers, and aggressive bus drivers. We made it, as always, and wound up at Alan's house, in a nice part of Albany. Alan, a bike enthusiast himself, was great to chat with. We went out for a couple of did is and some dinner, and he helped us with our routing onwards to New York City.

Ah yes, onwards to New York City. As it stands, we are a mere 250km fro our goal. 5500km of road is behind us. A day off in Albany today to wait out the impending thunderstorm will be followed by two solid days of riding down the Hudson River. Almost there....

Great Lakes. Great Times.

A short 30km morning preceded our voyage aboard the SS Badger, the last remaining steamship on the great lakes. The 4-hour crossing would take us, without any pedaling whatsoever, from Manitowoc, WI, across Lake Michigan, to Ludington, MI.

We got up earlier than usual, anticipating flat tires and detours, and sure enough we got both. After getting through Washington and Idaho puncture free, we had not cleared as state without the annoyance.

The detours along the route to Manitowoc brought us to unplanned country roads with names like "Hilltop." It was hilly.

Manitowoc was not at all as I'd expected; it seemed a rough-around-the-edges industrial town that had its better days well behind it. The major landmark, aside from the Badger and its pile of coal, was a grain silo painted to resemble cans and bottles of Budweiser.

At the ferry terminal, we met Mike, who happened to be from my hometown of Kingston, ON. He had cycled from the Oregon coast and was headed home. We shared stories from our travels, noting that encountering other cyclists was becoming far less common as we make our way east.

Ludington proved a more promising port town than its Wisconsin counterpart. We had a nice dinner and good Michigan beers at a nice pub downtown before making our way down the street to our host, Juliann's house. We were met by her cat, who shared the bed with us.

Getting out of Ludington was not easy. We left with no real plans and winged it, settling on a destination well into the day. Horrible highway traffic and gravel roads were offset by a couple of fortunate stops where we got good advice, meaning tomorrow will be better. Apparently the quiet campground that we happen to find ourselves at, with our tent 15 feet from the Muskegon River under a full moon, is located along a paved trail that will take us 110km in the right direction tomorrow. By this time tomorrow we should be in Bay City, with a tent pitched along Lake Huron.

Wiscornson. Wiscowsin. Wisconstruction.

We took a vacation.

Two days in Minneapolis had us enjoying the long forgotten pleasures of urban life. Activities included eating proper food (Emi got to eat Japanese, finally!), going to a Minnesota Twins game at Target Field (featuring a 2-hit no-walk shutout from Andrew Albers), drinking beers not produced by Budweiser, and visiting every bike shop in town trying to get Matt's tire situation sorted.

He had purchased as spare at Wal Mart, which should give an idea as to where the story is headed. The spare was needed at the exact moment the gunshot-like boom bulleted out from his blown tire. Unfortunately, Wal Mart tire sizes operate independently of conventional, normal world tire sizes. The "26 inch" was so big it would not seat into the rim at all.

But, as the lightbulb above our heads suggested, it would go over top of the blown tire. Double tires? It got him 50 miles. Innovation at its finest!

In Minneapolis we were hosted by Steve and Louise, a great couple who were kind enough to open their beautiful 100 year old house on the south part of town for not one but two nights. Words cannot do justice their hospitality. We'd have love to have stayed a week, but we had to keep moving forward.

Minneapolis was where we would have to part ways with Matt as well, after three weeks together. He was on his way south to Chicago and on to Pennsylvania, while we were headed across Wisconsin to Manitowoc, port of the only coal powered ship remaining in the US, which would ferry us across to Michigan.

Exiting the twin cities proved a challenge. Crossing the Mississippi into St Paul involved carrying our bikes up and down stairs to a bridge, and climbing and descending some of the steepest hills we'd encountered. Throw in getting a bit lost on winding suburban roads and the first day out of the city wound up being a lot of going nowhere.

We made it across the Wisconsin border and gave up just outside of Hudson, at Willow River.

The following days were much more productive. Short steep hills, quiet country roads varying from shredded to brand new to closed, endless cornfields, and Holstein cows everywhere. The camping has been some of the best on the trip. One night we met Bob and Jennie, along with their family, and the offered us a great dinner of ham and vegetables. Another night we found ourselves camping 50 feet from the shore of Partridge Lake at Blue Top Resort, where the owner Debbie, an experienced cycle tourist, let us camp free.

Currently we are enjoying yet another camp stove pasta dinner, this one in Reedsville, which is a small town just 17 miles from our 2pm ferry. Our last night in Wisconsin. Tomorrow night brings a new state, a new time zone, and one step closer to home.

Still rolling. Somehow.

Greetings from Minnesota.

North Dakota was a breeze relative to Montana. The winds sucked, but less. The route consisted entirely of the I-94, which was safer than anything Montana had to offer, yet presented a new array of obstacles.

The shoulders are very wide, yet filled with rumble strip. This meant of 15 feet of shoulder, we were relegated to the tiniest of lined along the far edge. Which brings us to our next problem; wires.

Truck tires are lined with a layer of wire reinforcement within. Truck tires also happen to explode frequently enough that there is a great deal of this wire along the shoulder of the freeway. Being unable to avoid them because of our restricted riding area, many of these wires find their way into a very bad place... our tires.

Puncture after puncture after puncture.

Oh, and it rained and thundered a lot as well.

We still managed to pull almost exclusively 100+km days, including a 135.

The bull, Maltana, was blamed for the bad luck and was jettisoned in Valley City, ND, forever facing the concrete bridge on the west side of town. Sorry, buddy.

We entered Minnesota after surviving a hail storm in Fargo, which was less challenging than surviving the drivers of Fargo. We got no welcome sign.

I had been looking forward to this stage of the trip since the early planning stages, as it meant miles upon miles of paved off road bike trail along a repurposed rail corridor.

We spent two days on the trail, split up with a stay at Mike's place, a guy we met along the trail in Osakis, MN. He and his girlfriend Steph opened up their pantry (and beer fridge!) on as moment's notice and went well out of their way to make us comfortable.

After that, it was on to Minneapolis.

In the end, we didn't die.

Montana, after 17 days, 16 nights, and roughly 1000km, is a thing of the past.

The headwinds intensified to about 20mph so we took a day of zero progress in Glasgow. This coincided with Emi's birthday! We went out to what appeared to be the nicest restaurant in town to get a decent birthday dinner. Comedy ensued. They tried hard, but came up short. The two servers were running around like bumper cars. Matt ordered a burger, which came to the table on a 12" square plate, completely alone and unaccompanied, and slightly offset. The side of fries followed on a separate plate, taking up half the table. We were given the bill shortly after we started eating. Dessert was a bannoffee pie, with crust made of something similar in texture and taste to drywall compound.

Like I said, they tried. It was probably the best poor Glasgow had to offer.

Back to our tent plot we went. We were moved from a crappy RV hookup site to a narrow grass patch where other campers took their dogs to do bowel related business. I sacrificed a plastic bag to improve our situation.

By morning, the wind had died down to a mere category 3 hurricane in our faces, and we were off. We also ignored the thunderstorm warnings... which in the end were bunk anyhow.

Our destination was Wolf Point at 80km, where we would spend our last night along the "Hi-Line," the name given to the towns along US-2 and the corresponding rail line.

We had received advice from cyclists headed west; Wolf Point is a horrible place (local code for "Indian Reservation"). They said camping was sparse, low quality, and our best bet was in the city park atop the hill. We went up the hill, high above town, came to the city park and found a closed pool with padlocks on the washrooms. Not going to cut it. We called police, city clerk, sherrif's office, none of which were any help. Finally we went into the hospital hoping it would have someone local who could direct us the right way. We met Tacy, an employee of the hospital who ever so graciously offered to let us sleep in her yard.

We biked down to her house across town, where we met her husband Troy, who within no time had barbecued us some steaks and opened up their basement with two spare beds to spend the night. What was everyone saying about Wolf Point?

After a huge breakfast courtesy of our hosts, we got back on the road and made our southward turn to head towards Circle, about 85km to the south. The wind? It was at our backs. Despite the highway doing an up-a-mile/down-a-mile routine for most of the day, we made great time and found ourselves in Circle, the city of anti-meth murals.

It had an odd selection of camping choices. We settled on the questionable spider patch behind the laundromat at the edge of town. The owner seemed nonchalant about paying... Said $10 should be fine, and pay in the morning.

The "campground" was sparse to say the least. We foraged through construction waste and fashioned ourselves a table and some chairs. I also found as life-sized bull head made of plastic which has been attached to my rear rack. He has been named "Maltana," in honour of the clever hotel we saw in Malta, Montana.

The night was awful. 2:37am was the time on my phone display when the flash of light and instant boom woke us up and had us seeking cover in the laundromat. Two inches of rain and hours of lightning and thunder later, we were under slept and in possession of many very wet things.

We set off cranky the next morning, on our way up some mini mountain range thee locals have coined "The Divide," properly named "Big Sheep Mountains." 1000ft of climbing later, the skies cleared a little and we coasted our way down into Glendive for our last Montana night. We spent it in the stunning Makoshika State Park, which is filled with beautiful rock formations made of limestone remaining from the dinosaur age. Void of any sort of services, and a mile or two off our path, but entirely worth it.

We woke up in much better spirits, and set off with one thing in mind: Getting Montana behind us. The highway leading out of Glendive happens to be the I94, a controlled access freeway, which had us uneasy. Until we got on it. Huge shoulders, gentle slopes, and smooth road had us flying. 108km in a snap. Now we are in the cute albeit touristy town of Medora, well fed after our first all-you-can-eat buffet, and ready to tackle the much less daunting state of North Dakota.

Shady Rest(s)

Two days. Just under 200km. Two days of crippling headwinds, tire punctures, endless nothingness, towns with nothing in them, and a chorus of folks telling us exactly how many miles to the next town. Complete with directions. There is only one road, but thanks all the same.

Last night we slept in Saco, Montana. It was exactly as we expected it to be: bar, grocery store, a few houses, a hundred or so residents, and a city park that provides touring cyclists a placed to put as tent for the night at no cost. After 120km of riding, we figured we could sleep through anything. The challenge at hand proved daunting however, as the city park was nestled between the highway to the north, and the railroad tracks no more than 25 feet to the south. Every train that rolled by was sure to blare it's horn repeatedly due to the fact that there existed a grade crossing in the town. Not only did the ground rumble for all of the hundred odd train cars, but we got a nice horn too! All night.

Not at all rested, and facing 35km/h headwinds, we set off today feeling lousy. Not much happened, we rode, and we counted things to pass the time. Two day tallies listed below (some figures are estimates, we lost count, or exaggerations for comedic value):

-82 Budweiser cans
-23 Coors cans
-19 truck drivers coerced into honking
-1 million hay bales
-1 hay bale being created live
-1 failed attempt to roll a roadside hay bale a distance of 12 inches
-6 snakes (2 live!)
-28 birds that had been struck by vehicles
-3 trees
-9 US flags, stiffly facing the wrong direction
-3 punctured tubes
-9 people giving directions, such as "OK so y'all are gonna git on the 2, then turn towards the east. Then stick on the 2, and then keep going"
-1 guy telling us the winds will be twice as bad tomorrow.
-2 guys doing over 160km in a day going the other direction.
-1 invitation to a shooting range
-1 day away from rolling past 2000km on this trip