Day 6: Following an impulse, paying the price

Hay bales stacked high on a quiet gravel road outside of Parker’s Prairie, Minnesota. After six days of riding, I decided to get off the recommended routes and explore some rural, gravel roads.

Route: Melrose, Minnesota, to Parker’s Prairie
Distance: no idea (maybe 70 miles)

This time, I couldn’t fix the rear wheel. I’d heard the same “ping” that I had heard on the first day of my trip and confirmed that it was, in fact, another broken spoke on the rear, drive-train side of my wheel. This time I couldn’t adjust the spokes enough to keep the tire from rubbing against the frame. This time there was no adventure; it was just an anticlimactic end to the trip. With 70 miles to go to what I had hoped would be my final destination, I gave up, called my wife and asked her to come get me.

I think the most frustrating thing about that final day was that I had finally given myself permission that morning to do something I had considered doing many times on the trip: Ignore my route and the map on my phone and turn off on a rural gravel road and just start riding. The choice would lead to a comedy of errors and the early end of my trip.

Heading through downtown Melrose, Minnesota, at the start of my final day. I was going to attempt to ride 127 miles that day. I would fail.

That morning I had packed up my gear for the last time and headed off from the municipal campground in Melrose, Minnesota, with an ambitious goal in mind. I was going to try to ride the final stretch of the Central Lakes Trail to Fergus Falls before turning north to Audubon, Minnesota, where my wife and son (and dog) were visiting family for the weekend. The trip would be a total of 127 miles, the longest day of the trip. But with many of those miles on the bike path, I was optimistic I could make it.

AJ’s diner in Osakis, Minnesota. It was one of a few local diners I stopped in on the trip, and it was by far the best. The hash browns covered the entire plate. I had been following the suggestion of another bike tourist who recommended getting up early to break camp and ride before stopping to eat. My only regret is I was too full to try the pie.

But after about 30 miles of riding, I did something impulsive: I turned north and started looking for gravel roads. My thinking (what little there was) was that the route I had planned on the bike path was not direct. It was heading due west before heading due north. By getting off the bike path, I could cut across that angle.

As beautiful and peaceful as the bike path had been, I was growing bored on the bike path. I was curious what would happen if I just got off the path and found some rural gravel roads.

Just outside of Nelson, Minnesota, I impulsively turned off the bike path and started heading north on gravel roads. Well, I thought I was going north.

At first, the choice seemed a great one. The gravel roads were quiet, and I was making what I thought was good time as I zigged and zagged my way along. Eventually, I found myself in a lake resort area and riding along the shoulder of a beautiful road with a name that excited me Glacial Ridge Trail.

At a kitschy local convenience store, I stopped to refuel. I asked the woman at the counter what community I was in. She glared at me.

“Alexandria?” she said. The tone suggested I should know the answer.

What this meant was that my carefree, zigging and zagging morning had taken me on a circuitous route that had brought me back southwest and down just a few miles from the bike path again.

I checked the map on my phone and realized that the distance to my final destination was nearly unchanged from what it had been when I left the bike path. I could have ridden right back to the bike path. I didn’t. I got on the gravel and headed north again.

About 20 minutes later, I broke my spoke and my ride was over.

My bike rests under the shade of an ancient tree next to a small, historic Lutheran church near Leaf Valley, Minnesota. With another broken spoke, I called my wife and asked her to drive down and rescue me. My ride was over.

I sat in the shade of an ancient tree that grew like an oasis on the lot of an old Lutheran Church surrounded by open farmland in a town (really just a crossroads) called Leaf Valley. It would take my wife a little more than an hour to get to me so I agreed to slowly ride toward Parker’s Prairie.

It was a hard way to end my six-day, 501-mile journey, riding slowly along under a blazing hot sun, listening to my wheel rub, rub, rub against my frame as I crawled along.