Cycle Across America – Day 81

Bay City to Lapeer

69 miles / 1,083ft climb

Exhausted, bedraggled, soaked through but otherwise the perfect day!

At 70 miles, today was too long for me. I had had enough by 3pm but we still had 30 plus miles to cycle, a few hills to climb and a thunderstorm to shelter from.

We found lunch today in an unexpectedly quirky Bavarian town of Frankenmuth.

We took refuge from the sun at one point, under the trees on the front lawn of a church. We were warmly welcomed in to use the facilities and top up with icy cold water.

Then later in the day we took refuge in a perfectly placed diner during the thunderstorm and consumed a hearty meal whilst doing so.

Another unusual ‘highlight’ from today was cycling a couple of miles down a newly laid tarmac road, having understandably not seen the ‘road closed’ sign on its side in the hedgerow.

We were all marvelling at how smooth and easy the cycle was when we noticed some roadworks ahead. It was about the same time that we noticed our tyres beginning to stick to the tarmac as we realised we had reached the end of the ‘freshly’ laid tarmac and the beginning of the ‘just’ laid, waiting to set tarmac. A rather short conversation with the lady responsible for rolling the tarmac ended with us retreating back to the main road and having to find an alternative route.

Strangely, it was worth the extra miles simply to cycle on such a perfect road surface in fact we stopped to photograph it. Fear not, I have insight into how crazy this sounds. However, after 81 days on the roads and tarmac amongst other things such as potholes, hard shoulders and gravel tracks all take on previously unimaginably interesting qualities!

It was 8pm when we reached our hotel. Thank heavens we didn’t ever entertain the idea of camping. I mustered just enough energy for a quick shower and straight to bed with not an ounce of sociable in me!

I’ve clearly cycled too much, the sun has addled my brain, the rain has chilled me to the core but otherwise all is well!