Saturday, July 5, 2014

Day 74: Rocky road to Blind River

For today's 134km ride from Sault Ste Marie to Blind River I enjoyed great weather, but did hit 20km of atrocious road conditions that put a lot of stress on Gracie and had my joints barking. I've ridden over pre-repaved asphalt on this trip already, but never over such a long continuous distance. 

With cheese grater road surface and loose gravel shoulder,  I picked the lesser of two evils and rode in the traffic lane, darting over onto the shoulder when vehicles squeezed me over.

Whenever I have to ride in the traffic lane because of a loose shoulder, I constantly check my rear view mirror to see if cars are getting ready to move over to accommodate me. If I can't see them moving over well in advance,  I don't wait to make sure,  I just move onto the shoulder and try not to fishtail into the ditch until the vehicle passes. It makes for slow riding, and today was even more of a challenge with both the shoulder and the road surface being so poor for a long stretch.

However,  aside from the aforementioned 20km stretch,  I had a good rhythm for today's ride. I didn't have the cold breeze off Lake Superior, and the terrain started to flatten out and become less rocky. On the whole,  a good day on the road.

Bumpy ride

On the road from the Soo


Kickin' it, old school




Road into Blind River

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