So, in Williston, ND, the oil boom has made riding on the 1804 road dangerous. No shoulder in some places, windy and narrow roads, and huge oil-related trucks coming and going. Many townsfolk advised us to go on Rte 2 instead. Most said the shoulder was fine.
When we got to back on Rte 2, the crosswind was pushing us all over the place. The shoulder was about 10 feet wide, yes. BUT about 8 feet of that was gravel, which is hard for a fully loaded bike on skinny tires to maneuver on. Well you say, you have 2 feet of asphalt..what's wrong with that?
The damn rumble strip!!!! For those of you who don't know what a rumble strip is, it is many lines about 12" wide (think the ruts made by a tractor tire) grooved into the pavement to the right of the white line which marks the shoulder. They are made so that if a car driver is falling asleep, they will hit this and be jarred awake. You can imagine the jarring our teeth had when we slip over onto it...
Anyway,that left less than a foot for us to ride on cuz there was a sloped edge of asphalt leading to the gravel so we had to stay away from that.
Add that to fearing for our lives as huge trucks zoomed past us going 70 mph..
It was not a pretty sight...
Who knew we should have been practicing the tightrope walking game on WiiFit?
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