Wes Malinchock

Today was really the first day of our final push into the long awaited Petoskey double break day. Last night we decided that we really wanted to make our July 3rd date, so we would need to do 3 long days more than 90 miles each, instead of taking 4 normal days across the Upper Penninsula (or the "U.P." as we now know the locals call it). We consider these days to be pretty big days because we have a lot more miles planned than we would typically like to do, and today definitely felt like a big day.

We woke up to a great breakfast at our Warm Showers host's house, and as soon as we were fueled up and ready to roll the rain started. It kept up until we reached the Michigan border, but didn't bother us too much. This surprised me because last time we got rained on it took a huge mental toll on me. However, today we could see clear skies off in the distance as we biked toward them and I knew that we had many more miles ahead of us so there was no time for complaining. What was really bad were the mosquitos that seemed to swarm in the morning rain. We needed to keep rolling or else our legs would be covered with them in a matter of seconds.

We crossed into Michigan and began to hit some pretty big hills. Wisconsin had some nice rollers, but to me some of these Michigan hills felt like walls. They slowed us down a bit, but I think we are finally starting to get to the point where our endurance is pretty high and we can pretty much bike over anything given enough time. Later in the day the hills mellowed out as we started to ride some more major roads and the sun even came out! We rolled into the tiny town of Felch with just under 7 hours of saddle time today. Now we have plenty of time to rest up before we get up tomorrow and do it all again!