Day 45 - Dassel, MN to Prior Lake, MN - Starting the East Coast Leg

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Stats: 

Today's miles: 42.0 miles
Today's feet of elevation gain: 659 feet
Total miles traveled: 1,805.3 miles
Total feet climbed: 55,165 feet

Some days should just be taken as a mulligan….


It was great to get back on the road after spending time with family and grand kids. The weather was great and the route to Matt & Martha’s promised to be easy. The first challenge came at mile 10 in Cokato…the first flat tire since Oregon. No problem, I quickly changed the rear tube and was on the way. I made good progress all morning and was on the Dakota trail in Mayer when I had a second flat. Thinking it must be a fluke ( valve not sealed….etc) I pumped it up, confirmed that it was holding air and pushed on down the trail. A mile later, I pulled into a shady section and started changing the flat. After replacing 2 more tubes(all previous flats that had been patched) and replacing a patch only to have it fail, I had exhausted all my spares and was out of options. I called Clare for a ride to the Eden Prairie Scheels for 4 new tubes. Matt was good enough to pick me up there and bring me back to their place, fix a great dinner and let me spend the night (as we had originally planned!).


Two lessons for the rest of the trip:

  1. regardless of recommendations, patches are not reliable for spare tubes.
  2. I can now change a rear flat in 15 min.

Location: Prior Lake, MN, USA

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