We had two days off here in London. We did this because we wanted to be conservative and give ourselves time to recover from any injuries/soreness/weakness from our long ride into town on Wednesday. As it turned out, we didn't really need two days, as our legs coped with the ride pretty well, and our ride tomorrow is quite short.
Well, we made it!
Today had been sorta looming ominously on the calendar for a while. Today's ride is the longest of the entire trip, by a decent margin: 76 miles. On a loaded touring bike, that's a lot! At least it is for us.
This was also the most rural/remote ride of the entire trip. There were exactly two settlements on our entire journey: a small village (Glencoe) at mile 40, and a tiny village (Delaware) at mile 60. Any injuries or mechanical problems would have been a Very Bad Thing today.
Not a ton to report today. Another beautiful day -- low 70s and sunny.
The ride itself was only okay. Today is the flattest day of the entire trip, but we didn't actually make very good time because of a lot of detours and a headwind that picked up over the last 20 miles. A lot of the ride was on roads with no paved shoulder. But, in general, drivers are much better here than in Michigan, and they leave plenty of space when passing.
One annoyance about my setup is that one of my bags doesn't properly interface with my rack. The rack gets in the way of the bag's locking mechanism, and so the bag can't fully clamp on as designed. This has almost never been a problem in the past. On previous tours, the bag would come unhooked due to a bump maybe once or twice per week, tops
However, in Michigan, most trails did not have smooth transitions at intersections. Instead, there would be a concrete piece with a groove in it (presumably for water drainage). Something about the shape of that groove causes my bag to come loose multiple times per day. So, in that sense, I was happy to no longer be riding in Michigan. Bad news! Ontario (at least this part of Ontario) uses the same system.
A grueling ride today! Seven whole miles (at least 1 of which was walking).
We crossed over into Canada around 10am (more on this below!), and spent the remainder of the morning at a laundromat a couple miles south of downtown.
For lunch, we went to an awesome/ridiculous Italian social club. A big tacky building with a big tacky fountain/statue out front. They had a pizza bar in their basement which is open to the general public, and the pizza was really good!
We had another day off today in Detroit.
Downtown Detroit is kinda awesome. Lots of great architecture. I think this was a silver lining to Detroit's decline between the 60s and 00s -- they still have lots of handsome large masonry buildings from before WW2 that have not been replaced by larger steel-and-glass buildings.
Another beautiful day today!
We got breakfast at a 24/7 diner in Ann Arbor before leaving town this morning, and followed a bunch of nice trails about halfway to Plymouth, our lunch stop. We were on-road for the second half. The road was largely decent, without a lot of traffic.
We had two days off here in Ann Arbor. Daily mileages are going up over the next week, and we wanted to make sure we had plenty of rest time before that. On top of that, there's a lot to see and do here.
Another great day today. Sunny and warm all day. I think this is the first time we got above 80F on the trip. The near-term forecast looks like we're going back to the 60s and 70s for the next week or so, I have no problem with that at all. The longer we can avoid super-hot 90F days, the better.
We stayed at a very old-school roadside motel last night. No breakfast, and no place nearby to get food. So, we had planned on going back into Stockbridge to the diner. But, they were closed (signs on the door indicated they should be open, but the doors were locked). Luckily, there was also a small market that served breakfast sandwiches and pie.
We started the day headed eastbound on an unpaved rail trail. The surface was in quite good condition, so we made decent time on this stretch.
Today was a day off in Lansing. This was a combo tourism/chores day.
For chores, we once again did bathroom sink laundry (no laundromats near our hotel). I also fixed my malfunctioning bike computer. Somehow the spoke magnet had slipped, even though the attachment screw was still very tight.
We also did some shopping to replenish our snacks, sunblocks, and medicine.
Today was... not good!
We are at our hotel in Lansing, with no injuries, so there is a happy ending to the day. But, today was the toughest day of the trip, and the toughest ride I've had in many years.
