RAA II

Day 16

Jamestown to Fargo, ND

106 miles / only about 1,400 feet of elevation! WIDE OPEN ROADS!

Joe put together a reworked route that kept us off any major highways and the backroads and frontage roads he chose rivaled any ride we have had to date. These roads were new, recently repaved and not trafficked.

When we left just after sun-up, we had blue skies and wide-open roads. Our early pace was brisk and we were quickly in and amongst “windmill” farms, which we enjoyed for many miles. As we rode, with no traffic, we heard the gentle “whooshing” from the 120’ blades on these 150’ wind turbines. At times the turbines stretched as far as the eye could see to the horizon.

After riding through these windmill farms, the countryside (still with no traffic) gave way to corn crops, some flower and soybean crops – all ready for the upcoming harvest.

These wonderful views, along with the beautiful weather and riding conditions, made for a perfect day of riding. The new, well-maintained farm and fronted roads we were riding on were so soft that we renamed some of the roads; Tempur-Pedic, Sealy Posturepedic and Sleep Number! Riding on these roads was like riding on mattresses!

At mid-point in today’s ride, Joe asked me, “Do you think anyone lives in this state because we haven’t seen any traffic in 90 minutes?” People do live here and they are the nicest folks we have come across – all waved or waved back at us. If you are looking for a great place to ride, go to North Dakota, the back roads for riding and the people who live here are both wonderful!

Popular posts from this blog

Day 8 East Glacier to Shelby, MT 85 miles / 2,800 feet of elevation Montana is the “new Texas” from RAA I, we are in Montana for 5-6 days out of 18. Growing up in Alaska, my “lower 48” geography is a bit off, I truly had no idea Montana was this large of a state! However, happy to be in Montana; the roads and shoulders are good, the drivers courteous and share the road willingly. We have had some trouble with hotel accommodations as the state is not well populated and some towns don’t have hotels for us, so we end up shuttling at the end of the day and beginning of our days. This shuttling is a very slight inconvenience for the beautiful surroundings we are cycling in. We enjoyed wide open roads with good cycling all day long. Montana’s “Big Sky” was a treat throughout the day. Again, we tried to show you this aspect of Montana in some of our photos but our photos just don’t seem to do the real thing justice – at times w...

Day 6 Libby, MT to Whitefish, MT 50 miles / 3,700 feet of elevation / shortened day due to mechanicals and necessary bike shop stop Today’s shortened route took us up and over a beautiful mountain course bounded by a lake to our left (for the entire day!) and a mountain wall to our right. We traversed over gently rolling and sometimes fairly steep hills with long rollouts afterwards. We had fantastic road conditions and very few, perhaps 12, cars / trucks passed us during this entire day’s ride. Near perfect day in the saddle with beautiful scenery all around us. From time to time the tranquility of today’s ride, in sharp contrast to yesterday’s “white knuckler,” was integrated by one of us pointing off the road to deer and wild turkeys. Some of both allowed us to get quite close before they bounded or flocked away from us. Later in the day we visited a local...

Day 18 Alexandria to Minneapolis, MN 62 miles / 1,750 feet of elevation Sunny / warm start, 56° but fall is coming! We learned that snow has fallen on some of our route already – we just snuck in these rides on the Northern tier route in this year. We feel sad this journey is coming to an end but blessed to have been able to complete one half of the Northern tier this year. Spring / late Summer 2022, Minneapolis to Bar Harbor, Maine! We continued our ride for 62 miles today on the nicest bike path we have ever encountered. As I said in yesterday’s notes, Minnesota’s roads stunk out loud and their shoulders were non-existent. But this bike path is super fantastic. Smooth, safe, quick riding and great views all around. This old railway route, converted to a bike path, is really special. The old rail route connected farming towns outside of Minneapolis St. Paul and today the towns have embraced the bike 100 p...