Day 51 Laingsburg to Richmond

The weather report from Katrina M (MI) at last night's peleton meeting was not good. Wind from the East. Seeing as we have over 150 klm (95 mi) or so to do, the peleton group groaned in unison.

The weather report was right. The wind turned from the W to the E during the night, and that's what we woke up to. Back in the mid-west it would usually not get windy until mid-morning or so, but today, it was head wind right from the start. It was also cloudy and cool today, but now in the afternoon it has cleared up and is sunny and warm.

Our route was pretty well straight east, having completed the trip around Lake Michigan on Saturday. Fred and I alternated taking the lead every 10 klm and that worked pretty well, so our speed wasn't bad at all considering. It just takes more effort to get anywhere when the wind is coming at you. When it's like this, we don't really take in the scenery all that much, it's more like look at the road and pedal. But basically, the scenery here is all small farms, hobby farms, corn, and soy. The towns are fairly small, and most of them had really, really bad pavement. Lot's of cracks and potholes. It's amazing our bikes haven't fallen apart yet.

We stopped at Papa's Restaurant in Almont about 5 miles before our final stop for some food/fuel. One of us had 4 berry pie a la mode, and the other had cabbage/ham soup with coffee.

We arrived at Richmond High School at 2:30.

Totals for day: 159 klm (99 mi), 6:04 on the saddle, 26.2 kph avg (15.7 mph)