Welcome Back for Season 4! The Northern Tier.

Welcome Back for Season 4! The Northern Tier.

July 17, 2024

Welcome to new readers and welcome back to loyal readers of the Shifting Gears blog!

On July 20th, Heather & I start cycling by ourselves from Bellingham, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest, back home to Larchmont, New York. We will ride over 3,900 miles which is 900 more miles than our previous cross-country ride!

This ride was originally conceived of as fly to Seattle and then ride home, with a tagline of from Puget Sound to Long Island Sound. However, the Seattle bike shops would not accommodate our need for a set appointment time to help in reassembly of our bikes so as bike-packers learn quickly, we improvised. We will land in Seattle, rent a car to drive to Bellingham, a lovely town on the water 90 miles north of Seattle but not actually on Puget Sound. We will start from a bike store that we visited last year. We look forward to finishing at Dog Beach in Larchmont, nearly 70 days later, in the last week of September!

This route will more or less follow the “NORTHERN TIER” route of the Adventure Cycling Association. Their official route is from Anacortes, Washington to Maine. We decided we liked Bellingham more than Anacortes last year (and it is the same distance), and we loved the idea of finishing at home – not to mention 3,900 miles is sufficient and we do not need 500 more to Maine.

This journey will complete our effort to ride the perimeter of the contiguous United States. In the fall of 2023, we completed the third leg of this mission, and biked 2,065 miles along the Pacific Coast from Vancouver, Canada to Mexico. Although it was our shortest adventure, it was our hardest challenge in terms of climbing. Our total of 104,995’ accumulated elevation gain was much more than the prior 2 years and since it was over a shorter distance it was much steeper average daily climbs. We also faced severely cold, rainy days for several days. 

Our greeting committee when we got to the Mexican border in 2023.

In fall 2022, we pedaled 2,667 miles from Bar Harbor, ME to Key West, FL, the most southern point in the continental USA. Somehow about 1 in 10 people had the same joke of “oh, that must be easy going north to south, it’s all downhill”. I say to them try it yourself sometime!

Alan Brown of the Reeve Foundation welcomed us to our "finish line" in Key West, FL in 2022.

And this all began fall of 2021 when we cycled, by ourselves with paniers (saddle bags) on our bikes, from San Diego, CA to St. Augustine, FL. That 2,970 miles cross-country odyssey took 46 days from Pacific to Atlantic, across what cyclists call the SOUTHERN TIER. We rode a daily average of 72 miles. We faced daunting challenges and hardships including menacing doc chases, severe heat of 108°, dehydration, steep long climbing over the Continental Divide, painful “chip & seal” roads in Texas, hand numbness, and saddle sores to name some. Despite those obstacles, (or is it because of them?) we were hooked on this way of life and bike touring. Incredible highlights included meeting extraordinary people and experiencing their kindness. 

Celebrating our finish from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 2021.

As we set out on this expedition, we contemplate the challenges:

• 3,900 miles is 900 longer than prior rides
• 134,000’ of accumulated elevation is 30,000’ more than last year
• 10 weeks is 3 weeks longer of wear & tear on our bodies than prior adventures
• This will be the first trip that we include some camping stops in places that have no indoors alternative; along with less comfortable sleep, it means carrying more gear – tent, sleeping bag & pad, towel.
• I turned 61 this year and do feel some sort of ache or pain just about most mornings- this is only getting harder each year. On the other hand, Heather (a spry 58) is her usual Energizer bunny of endless energy and doesn’t appear to slow down with age – in fact, on a very recent training ride that we did “together”, she would ride ahead as she is faster and then double back to find me; she did it so much that at the end of the ride she clocked 62 miles to my 57 and 4,200’ climb to my 3,700’. Does that mean she could finish this trip in about 63 days, a full week ahead of me?

We also look forward to natural beauty:

• Riding the “Going-to-the-Sun Road” (GTTSR) across the heart of Glacier National Park in Montanna
• Pedaling to the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Itasca State Park in Minnesota, and riding alongside that river separating Minnesota and Wisconsin
• Riding along 3 of the 5 Great Lakes and on to Niagara Falls

Here is our planned route that most likely will vary due to weather, bike issues, fatigue or other unexpected plot twists. 

DAY	DATE	MILES	CLIMB (ft)	DAY	NIGHT LOCATION
0	7/19			Fri	Fly to Seattle, transfer to Bellingham, WA
1	7/20	49	1522	Sat	Concrete, WA
2	7/21	47	2681	Sun	Colonial Creek campground, WA
3	7/22	50	5394	Mon	Mazama, WA
4	7/23	59	3509	Tue	Omak, WA
5	7/24	68	4780	Wed	Republic, WA
6	7/25	52	4027	Thu	Colville, WA
7	7/26	69	2940	Fri	Usk, WA
8, 9	7/27-7/28	46	1599	Sat-Sun	Sandpoint, ID
10	7/29	49	1835	Mon	Noxon, MT
11	7/30	52	2806	Tue	Libby, MT
12	7/31	69	5311	Wed	Eureka, MT
13,14	8/1,8/2	59	3200	Thu-Fri	Whitefish, MT
15	8/3	40	1668	Sat	Glacier National Park, MT
16	8/4	40	3907	Sun	Saint Mary, MT
17	8/5	72	3777	Mon	Cut Bank, MT
18	8/6	56	1781	Tue	Conrad, MT
19,20	8/7, 8/8	65	1636	Wed-Thu	Great Falls, MT
21	8/9	71	4028	Fri	Stanford, MT
22	8/10	59	1985	Sat	Lewistown, MT
23	8/11	78	2019	Sun	Mosby, MT
24	8/12	54	3295	Mon	Jordan, MT
25	8/13	70	4223	Tue	Circle, MT
26	8/14	56	2395	Wed	Glendive, MT
27	8/15	81	4027	Thu	Medora, ND (Theodore Roosevelt NP)
28	8/16	94	3525	Fri	Glen Ullin or Hebron, ND
29,30	8/17;8/18	55	2288	Sat-Sun	Bismarck, ND
31	8/19	76	1600	Mon	Medina, ND
32	8/20	66	1371	Tue	Valley City, ND
33	8/21	62	621	Wed	Fargo ND / Moorehead, MN
34	8/22	72	748	Thu	Waubon, MN (White Earth Lake)
35,36	8/23, 8/24	80	3039	Fri-Sat	Bemidji, MN
37	8/25	72	1516	Sun	Pequot Lakes, MN
38	8/26	74	1092	Mon	Royalton, MN
39	8/27	56	902	Tue	Monticello, MN
40	8/28	66	1726	Wed	South St. Paul, MN
41	8/29	53	2223	Thu	Red Wing, MN
42	8/30	71	2059	Fri	Winona, MN
43,44	8/31, 9/1	83	3422	Sat, Sun	Viola, WI
45	9/2	70	2690	Mon	Spring Green, WI
46	9/3	60	2700	Tue	Madison, WI
47	9/4	87	1493	Wed	Waukesha, WI
48	9/5	63	1198	Thu	Kenosha, WI
49	9/6	43	619	Fri	Evanston, IL
50	9/7	73	933	Sat	Indiana Dunes NP, IN
51	9/8	42	1164	Sun	South Bend, IN
52	9/9	80	1731	Mon	Angola, OH
53	9/10	86	1262	Tue	Toledo, OH
54	9/11	65	751	Wed	Sandusky, OH
55,56	9/12,9/13	62	1259	Thu-Fri	Cleveland, OH
57	9/14	55	1300	Sat	Geneva on the Lake, OH (TBD)
58	9/15	60	1200	Sun	Erie, PA
59	9/16	73	1925	Mon	Lake Erie Beach or Derby, NY
60	9/17	54	972	Tue	Niagara Falls, NY or ONT (TBD)
61	9/18	73	1109	Wed	Medina, NY
62	9/19	70	1112	Thu	Palmyra, NY
63	9/20	68	1432	Fri	Syracuse, NY
64	9/21	62	547	Sat	Utica, NY
65	9/22	82	1121	Sun	Schenectady, NY
66	9/23	67	2395	Mon	Tivoli, NY
67	9/24	76	3300	Tue	Mahopac or West Point, NY
68	9/25	50	2600	Wed	Larchmont, NY
TOTAL		3,912	135,290
AVG.		64	2,218

We look forward to charming small towns much more easily discovered at the slower pace by biking, but as in the past, we are most excited for the cast of characters we meet along the way and what they share about themselves that in turn teaches us about ourselves. We have loved our random encounters with strangers who ride along with us or people who approach us in our spandex and neon to start up conversations in a bakery or hotel lobby. And then there are the wonderful angels who are complete strangers before meeting us, but soon feel like friends after they host us in their homes through Warmshowers, an association of cyclists (and surprisingly some non-cyclists) who host riders. (We have hosted many such cyclists ourselves.)

If you have any friends or family on our route that you think we ought to connect with, feel free to send us their contact info. We also enjoy great food recommendations on route! I’m already looking forward to enjoying a Dilly Bar at the Dairy Queen in Moorhead, MN where it was actually invented in 1955. 

For the past few months, we have trained riding with our paniers full of various combinations of weights, cans of food and sand bags to build up our strength. On the trip, we each carry 25+ pounds in our bags.

I will continue to blog my observations of life on the road that help bring you along on our adventure. Our original motivation for these epic rides came from the spectacular week-long rides we had in Nova Scotia (culturally unique Cabot Trail, 2018) and in Newfoundland (Viking Trail, 2019). Those rides inspired us to step back from working full time so we could pursue greater adventures while we were in good health. [New readers can enjoy full details in blog entry titled: The Backstory – how did this come to be. And you can retrace our story starting with September 2021 entries.]

However, what started as rides motivated by our thirst for adventure, has grown into rides with a deeper meaning. We cycle to support the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to honor our friends Ernie and Lenny, two individuals who we admire for their strength of character in living with paralysis. By their examples of perseverance and positivity in confronting adversity, they inspire us to ride when it is most difficult. (For readers who landed here without receiving an initial email from Heather or me, you can see our dedication letter to Ernie & Lenny and contribute here.)

Thank you to our 3 adult children, Sydney, Jamie & Matt who encourage us in our goals as we encourage them. It is a bit amusing and heartwarming to us that they ask us to text every night to indicate we are safe - when we don’t ask them to text us the same, nor did we ask when they were in college. Thank you to Sydney for again managing the technical side of this blog, allowing me to just email you my copy and photos for you to drop in to format.

We look forward to hearing from you - questions, suggestions and comments. 

Thank you for reading!

Northern Tier, here we come! Ride on!

Mark 

© Copyright Mark Segal 2024