Cayla has a blog called The Bicycle Diaries where she posts about her life with a bicycle, mix tapes every Friday (I love this feature) and other stories from her day to day. In Cayla’s Rider Profile she mentions a bike trip to Duluth. She recently blogged about this tour, and I thought I would share a few shining moments from her post.
Huss is in the BLUE jersey, Alex has on a fleece, but was wearing a GREEN jersey and that is me in the RED. As the trip progressed, we dropped our names and called each other by our colors. I liked that.
“Huss is in the BLUE jersey, Alex has on a fleece, but was wearing a GREEN jersey and that is me in the RED. As the trip progressed, we dropped our names and called each other by our colors. I liked that.”
As you know, I enjoy riding my Bicycle. I have a handful of friends who also love this activity. A few years back, two of the gents I know (who love biking) and I started talking about the possibility of riding our bikes to Duluth and back. It was a saucy January night, if I remember correctly, so we got WAAAAY into this idea. We actually thought we could do a ride into Wisconsin, but decided that riding to Duluth and back was a good place to start. And the next morning, when I wasn’t so saucy as much as spinny/pukey, I thought to myself, WHAT THE HELL! Let’s do it.
I love the adventurous attitude of, “Let’s do it!” I think the most important thing on a bike tour is resilience and enthusiasm.
Strange and scary things can happen on country highways.
…We were back on country roads, riding by LOTS of farms. We had about 5 miles until our campground and finally hitting the 90 mile day. We were BEAT, tired, drained and ready to relax. Then, out of nowhere we heard a jingle, which sort of sounded like a dog collar. That jingle got louder, closer and more intense. We realized that a farm dog was running towards us. It started barking like crazy and I realized I had to get my shit together and RIDE. Like RIDE as fast as I could. We all started screaming as the beast of the dog was about 10 feet away. I have never pushed that hard in my life, and as the dog got closer, it jumped up at me. I screamed in it’s face and road like I was never going to ride again. I looked back and the boys were behind me, also safe from the dog. This happened about 2 more times on the way to our campground that night.
Cayla ends her account with some things that she learned on her first tour. I’m definitely going to take the tip about spraying vicious farm dogs in the face with water to heart.
Don’t get wasted the first night. Use your water bottle to spray dogs in the face if they chase you. Bring extra spokes. Even if you don’t think you will need them, you might. Don’t let your pride get in the way of comfort, or safety. Taking a cab isn’t the worst thing ever. Also, just have fun. That is all you need.
Exciting story, Cayla!