Thursday, June 11, 2020

Day 13 – Fergus Falls, MN to Holdingford, MN


Distance 102.5
Total Distance 724.7

Well, it turned out to be Century Day. It has been a long time since I rode 100 miles in a day.   It didn’t start out with that plan, but the day went so well I just kept riding.  I was going to have a short riding day tomorrow and there really wasn’t a place to stay in Bolus, the town I was to stop at tomorrow, so I had the idea I would split the 39 miles to Bolus between today and tomorrow’s ride.  I went to a little town called Albany that would have split the difference and there was no place to stay there as well, so I rode the 10 miles to this town.  I have the 7.5 miles to Bolus tomorrow, plus the next day’s ride, so it will be a 60+ mile ride tomorrow.  I do only have two days of riding left, however.

Todays ride was wonderful.  It was bike trail all that 102 miles.  I don’t think I have ever ridden that many miles on a trail in consecutive miles.  The nest closest would be when I rode the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s in northern Idaho which is 70 some miles long.  Today’s trail was mostly good, but did have some areas that it was pretty rough.  Bike trails seem to get some pretty big cracks in the pavement and it can be pretty rough.  There were areas that the asphalt was just laid.  In fact, there were signs that the trail was closed due to the construction, but a construction worker just told me where the workers were and to be careful passing them. That particular portion was just so nice.  Just smooth.

The scenery was wonderful.  Many farms as well as wet lands and lakes.  On trails, the foliage seems to grow close to the trail and many times you cant see too far, but it did seem to open up around the lakes and farms and was just pleasant all day long.




The trails took me through a bunch of small towns today.  Dalton, Ashby, Melby, Evansville, Garfield, Alexandria …  It was fun to pull into the towns and take a look at their Main Street.  Most were pretty quiet places. There was one small town that I passed through about noon called Brandon.  I just had to stop and take a look at the town that shares the name of my son and it happened to have a diner and I needed some lunch.  Had a hamburger and fries and then got on my way again.



There were some larger Cities that I passed through as well. The people using the trails greatly increased in those areas, but overall, there were not a lot of people that I saw.  As far as animals, saw rabbit, deer, porcupine, squirrel, snakes and many types of birds.

There is only one restaurant in town, Rudolph’s Redneck Roost.  It is a bar and grill and I ordered a Reuben.  It was fantastic.  Could have been how hungry I was.

Lyle was a good sport through all of today.  I changed plans on him a couple times and he would just say, “You’re the one riding, whatever you want.”

A really great day, but I feel it tonight.


A typical Main Street


Beautiful farms


Newly laid asphalt


This was an interesting place.  Kind of hard to see, but all kinds of old stuff.  It was closed, but would have been fun to see.


Bridge coming into Holdingford.

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