Spring 1997 - Cincinnati to Yukon
Journals - 28 May 1997
Day 58 - Near Minot, ND
28 May 1997 (sunny with overcast, moving-in winds; light, but erratic,
mostly head winds; mileage = 54.8) -- X - The noise died down last night
and we had a peaceful night. We awoke to see sun and we set a record with a
complete take down in 25 minutes. That's sitting up in "bed" to rolling.
What pros. We started out down 2 and found some not-too-great, light
headwinds. We were really grinding away, trying to keep our attention on
the time-in-motion clocks to encourage us to put in decent riding before
resting. We both started this psychologically. We rode past micro towns and
stopped every hour of riding to eat snacks and rest. We finally made it to
Minot, the BIG city. Ooh ah. And they have hills here! Hey, no fair! So we
made straight for the bike shop. Their concern for our predicament with the
tires was about nil and they were quite uninterested in our touring plans.
So I said screw 'em and we headed for K-mart. There, I bought two fine
specimens and went outside to mount them. After I took apart the bike and
started to mount one, I noticed that they were WAY too big. I checked and
re-checked and measured and decided that it was very screwy. I went back in
to see if I could find a good one and a manager took an interest. A kid
also affirmed my suspicions. He recommended a sports store down the road
and I talked to the guy on the phone and he seemed to have it. We then went
to Wal-mart to see their selection. Same deal, 26 inches was more like 27
inches. Then to the sports store, where despite their lack of bike-weenie
sophistication, they were nice and had some tires that would keep us
rolling. We now have a big collection of crummy tires. After the tire
purchase, we went to a buffet (The Real Fork) which was quite good. We both
stuffed ourselves and could barely ride away. We started off down a big
hill, but into a nasty wind. At the bottom, this guy came out of the gas
station parking lot and stopped us. He said he was touring (Seattle to
Alabama) and wanted to say hi! He is Tom. Very cool. I suggested we all go
in together on a site with showers and that was well received. So he saw
one coming in that we all rode to. We set up and Tom rode off to eat where
we did. We took super awesome, badly needed, destinking showers. Ahhh. We
got some laundry going. Tom is a vet major enjoying his last summer off. He
is using a B.O.B. trailer and it seems to work out well for him.
![[Bike]](./only2500b.gif)
