274 Miles, 191 Gravel :
Merrill, Gleason, Summit Lake, Hazelhurst, Phillips, Prentice, Ogema, Rib Lake
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I didn’t set out to build a giant ride, and it’s a good
thing that I didn’t realize how long it would be or I might not have set out to
ride it yesterday. The plan was to link
the
gravel gems of five counties,
and that led to a 285 mile ride that took me 24 hours to complete. I’d been apprehensive about riding through
the Averill Creek wolf pack and hoped to pass them before dark, but the route
proved so much longer than expected that I didn’t reach wolf territory until
2AM.
I didn’t get eaten and didn’t even see the wolves in the Newwood
fog. Everything went just right on the
ride. It never got too hot or cold, and
clear skies gave me the light of a full moon.
Running my Jetlite on low gave plenty of light and made it through the
night with power to spare. I was able to
ration the battery by riding by moonlight on the easier roads, but it probably
wasn’t necessary.
With towns along the way for resupply, I’d taken a wad of
Hammer Gels, a bag of
honey badger burgers and four bottles that never went
completely dry before another town was in sight. I found three of the towns completely shut
down in the dark, but somehow managed to get what I needed. Once I asked some local kids where to find
water in Ogema at 9:30PM and was directed to a church left wide open, and in
Rib Lake
I bummed a bottle of water off a fisherman who happened to be out at 11:30.
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| Morning Deer |
I ate a variety of food so my guts and my head stayed good
the whole time, and my legs stayed solid all the way because I kept a sustainable pace that I should have discovered
long before I got so old. I got to ride
some great roads and really enjoyed my time out there. Only one road gave me doubts, but most
Wisconsin gravel is fast and good. I found a great variety of remote roads and
sometimes went hours without seeing a soul.
The route links a good chunk of the Bearskin with the Pine Line Trail
and even passed the future location of Merrill’s River Bend Trail.
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| Town Hall Road |
