Daily Summary

The Ride

Today was a short ride with one part in the US, a short ferry ride, and a finish in Canada.

The weather app said literally 0% chance of rain as I was getting ready at 6:30. As we started riding, it started raining again. The initial miles on the straight line on the map were on a very busy road. We had been a bit nervous about riding it during rush hour anyway and even did a scouting drive down part of it last night to see if we would.

Once it started raining, 4 of the 5 of us decided to hop in the van after the first mile and skip those 10 miles and start by the lake. It rained really hard for a while and we were all glad we played it safe. The road, plus rain, just wasn’t bike friendly. The one person and the guide that did ride it spent most of the time on the sidewalk instead of the road and got soaked.

The Sights

We started at a nice park by Lake St Clair. It would be a huge lake most places but nestled between the great lakes it looks small. You can see the ferry and a picture of Canada behind be while we crossed the river, along with one of the welcome sign. The final picture is a tribal gas station after we got off the boat. There were a wide range of tribal businesses. 

Other than that, the landscape pretty much looked like the same farmland we saw in Michigan, except all the speed signs were in km/hour instead of miles/hour.

The Ferry

It was very small. Behind me in the picture you can see it. It will only hold maybe 10 – 12 cars, plus some people walking or riding like us. I honestly don’t know how it makes financial sense. On top of that, there were several border agents on both sides as well which is a big expense for both governments. But, it was a nice 10 – 15 ride across the river and very convenient to get to.

The Flat

Every day has a challenge! I had noticed my rear tire seemed to be losing a bit of air. At the park before I started, I inspected the tire and got a couple pieces of glass out and a wire. I guess the wire was still in a very small hole it made in the tube because just a mile or two in, I had a flat. By pulling it out of the hole, it let the air out.

We changed the flat in a few minutes as it started raining on us. There is always an unexpected challenge every day it seems, but this one was minor. If I still had a tubeless tire on the back, this puncture would not have been an issue. But, when my other tire failed a few weeks back, they didn’t have a tubeless available and so I have a tube on the back and tubeless on the front.