New Orleans, LA to Bay St Louis, MS

 

This is what I looked like after doing our first day ride of 70 miles.  We all agreed we should take credit for 90 miles because we had a 20 mph headwind pretty much all day.  I’m happy to report that in spite of All my medical adventures so far in 2025 (back injury, hernia surgery & Covid), I really made it through this day quite well.

the image below shows what our group looked like as we prepared to push off from New Orleans.

You may notice a motorcycle in the image.  That bike was not part of our group.  It just happened to be parked right there in the lot.  We got out right at 8 AM, and fortunately a local biker provided us with a friendly route out of the city.  Some trails, some roads, but lightly travelled for the most part.  Here is something we hate to see when out biking:

In this case we had advance knowledge, again because of the local biker connection.  There is about a 20 mile stretch of US 90 that has been closed to traffic for years.  There are 4 or 5 bridges that need to be rebuilt, but they don’t have the money to do it.  The problem is heavy truck traffic.  Bicycles are allowed, but there are huge concrete barriers to prevent motor vehicles.  Once you lift your bike around the barrier there is 20 miles of paved surface with no other traffic.  The down side is that the pavement isn’t maintained, so it can be quite uneven.

This definitely is hurricane country.  Hundreds of houses are built high off the ground like this:

It is also pretty clear that some of the hurricanes in the past 20 years wiped out everything that had been standing because all of these houses are really quite new. 

This is named the Gulf Coast tour, and I expect to see a lot of the Gulf of Mexico in the next few weeks, but it took us 60 miles of riding today before I could get this picture:

Most of the day was spent pedaling through swamp and forest. Not very scenic, but sometimes that has to be done to get where you’re going.

Overall a pretty good day.  Temperatures in the high 70’s - low 80’s.  The wind kept it from feeling too hot, but if I had my choice, I’d rather sweat than fight the wind all day.

Overview of our Route

As you follow me from New Orleans to Key West, click on this link for the interactive google map that will give you a good idea of my progress.  Thanks to my daughter Julie for putting this together.

We have arrived in New Orleans & met the group of riders.  19 are doing the full trip,  another 9 will either leave early, or join us part way in.  

In addition we have 4 Support staff who drive the route carrying our baggage, setting up rest stops, helping to repair breakdowns, and checking us into hotels along the way.  They are our favorite people, and really make the trip the great experience it can be.

Tomorrow morning at 8 AM is our set departure time.

2025 Gulf Coast Tour

 Welcome to my biking blog!   Some of you may have followed me on previous trips (the posts for those are below this one), but this is a new adventure.  I was invited by my friend AD Carson, who was the guy that got me going on these trips in the first place.  If you want to read that story, go to the page titled "How I got here"

AD & I leave early tomorrow morning for New Orleans.  We are driving my big Transit van, which will also serve as a support vehicle during the trip.  I will be biking, but the spouse of one of the other riders will be following us in the van, and providing us water and snacks along the way.

The trip is 21 days of biking an average of 55 miles per day from New Orleans to Key West, FL.  We will have 2 off days during the trip, and we will have extra tourist days at both the beginning and end of the trip.  Then AD and I will load up our bikes (and a couple of others for some riders from Chicago), and drive back home. 

I plan to post every day beginning Sunday April 20, and will include as many pictures as possible.  There should be plenty of things to see because we will be riding along the coast until we need to cross the Everglades to get to the Keys.

Let me know if you have any questions.  I will try to answer.  Here we go! 

North Branch to Maple Grove

 No pictures today - No biking today.

It rained over night, and was drizzling at 6 AM.  The forecast was variable, but all weather channels agreed that at some point it was going to rain today.  Our leader and tour planner took a very democratic approach to the decision.  Although all of would like to have completed the loop, we also agreed that it has been a great trip & that completing the last 50 miles wasn’t worth the potential risk of going down on a trail covered with wet leaves, or getting caught in a storm.

This was the best day to have a washout.  The logistics were pretty straightforward.  Some of us drove the 50 miles to our starting point with as much gear and bikes as we could fit.  There we unloaded into the hotel lobby, picked up my big transit van & drove back to North Branch.

We were then able to get everything, and everyone else in the two vehicles.  We were back in Maple Grove by 10 AM.  When we arrived, the sun was out, but the forecast was still dismal.  No one regrets the decision to not ride.  This is all part of planning a trip like this.

Tonight we will have a final dinner where exaggerated stories will be told.  

I am very satisfied with the experience.  I’ve made 10 new friends from all around the country - Maryland, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon & Wisconsin.  I have accomplished my goal of keeping my fitness at a high enough level to do a trip like this.  I continue to enjoy riding my Cruzbike Q45 recumbent.  I most enjoy the comfort compared to some others on the trip riding their upright bikes who spend too much time shaking out the numbness in their hands, or standing up on their pedals to give their butts some relief.

Thanks for following along these past few weeks.

0 miles today - 736 total miles for the trip

Sturgeon Lake to North Branch

Our extremely budget motel last night didn't have internet, or breakfast included, so some of us pedaled the first 8 miles, and then stopped at a diner for breakfast.  Others had a bagel and started riding, not stopping until lunch.  I had breakfast.  We were back on the Munger Trail today for the first 25 miles, and it was mostly rail bed, with a few areas of up and down and curvy trail just to keep us alert.

Most of the scenery is similar to what we have seen, but there was one open area that might have been logged 30 years ago or so, and now a pine forest is starting to grow up.  It doesn't look like a plantation because the trees are not in rows.  They are really randomly growing in this 80 acre or so area.  The thing that makes this a nice picture in my opinion is that the background shows some nice hardwood with colors changing.

Once the Munger trail ended we were back on the highway, traveling through small towns.  The road was mostly good, with nice wide shoulders.

You will notice it says "Old Hy 61".  This road runs pretty much parallel to a new interstate, which also means it is not heavily traveled.  Nice for biking.  

We usually spread out while riding because people ride at different speeds, and some stop more often for picture taking etc.  But we normally all stop for lunch at the same place.  It is sometimes an adventure for a small town cafe to handle an influx of 10 bikers, each wanting to pay individually.  Here 3 of us are in line waiting to check out and get back on the road.

Today we are back to a couple of features that I remember from earlier in our journey - corn fields & murals on buildings.  No corn field pictures, but here are 3 murals I saw.

A couple of other interesting things today was a huge statue of a Native American.  

I looked for a story to go with the statue, but couldn't find anything.

There was also a fully restored red caboose that I found picture worthy.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast is for heavy storms over night, and possibly extending into tomorrow.  We have one last day of riding scheduled, but we all agreed to wait until morning before deciding what to do.

65 miles today.

Duluth to Sturgeon Lake

 Sorry this post is late - we had no internet connectivity last night.

We started out the day climbing away from Lake Superior heading south.  I am pleased to report that although the climb was steady for the first 10 miles, it was not steep, so I was able to do it with no problems.  Soon after we got out of the city of Duluth we came to the:

This would be our path for most of today and half of tomorrow.  It was one of the nicer trails we have been on, except for the place where the sign said Trail Closed.  We decided to see exactly what that meant.

Not Good!  Some of our group decided to look for an alternative route, others decided to portage the mess.  I had not done a portage since my canoeing days, so I joined that group.  Turns out that a nice detour was marked which means we could have avoided the portage.

Once we got going again on the trail, we saw some new things we haven't experienced on other trails we have ridden so far.  Most of this trail again was old railroad bed, but the significant difference today was that they had to blast through rock in order to get the rails down.  That made for some pretty rock outcroppings.  The other interesting thing I noticed was that in a couple of areas where the rock walls were high above us on both sides, for some reason they painted stripes on both sides of the trail.

I don't know why.  It seems to me that if you get off the trail in an area like this, you might hit the wall, which would not be good, but I think it makes more sense to put stripes on an area of trail where there is a 20' drop off.  That would be even worse.  In any event, that isn't what was done.

The trail ran past a couple of towns, and we took the occasion to stop at a place called TJ's.  I thought of my grandson TJ, but I don't think the place is named after him.  Here is a nice picture of my fellow rider Keith sitting on a live edge bench next to a wooden cut out of the TJ character. 

There were a couple of other interesting features at TJ's, including a train carved out of a single log, huge pumpkins, and an old car with a leaky radiator doubling as a waterfall.

Something I noticed today, that I don't remember seeing before was multiple caterpillars making their way across the trail in front of us.  I am happy to say I didn't ride over any of them, but after seeing 4 or 5 today, I decided to get a picture.

The most interesting thing to me about this is that all of them were going from the east side of the trail to the west.  Why?

I've also talked some in previous posts about bad areas of trail where something is causing the pavement to protrude.  We always are on the watch for this because otherwise it can be a jarring experience.  Today I noticed in some areas it looks like they brought out a grinding machine trying to flatten out these "launchers"

We appreciated their efforts.  Not far before the end of our ride today, we crossed a bridge over a river and got some nice pictures of these rapids.

Overall a pretty nice day on the bike.

48 miles today.

Virginia to Duluth

 Today was mostly a day of traveling from one trail to the next.  It was our longest day, and except for about 5 miles at the beginning, we were on roads all day.  Here is a picture of the group (except me because I took the picture) waiting at a stop light in Virginia to get out of town.

I believe I have mentioned before that I've been surprised that there has not been more fall colors showing since we are so far north.  That started to change today.

Just as we were leaving the trail, we crossed a bridge, and found this nice picture opportunity.

We are too far east for this to be the Mississippi, but I didn't see a sign so I can't identify it.  Still a nice picture.

Once we got on the roads, I found nothing much picture worthy except for a few adventures.

A flat tire, but not on my bike.  This is only the second flat in the whole group since we started.  The first was mine, but it happened overnight and we were able to fix it before we left in the morning.  This one we had to fix while we were on the road.  We have some good bike mechanics, so it didn't take long.

This was our next adventure.  It is hard to plan for road construction.  Fortunately, we were able to walk around it with only about a 1/4 mile hike.

Beyond that, it was just a long day with a head wind.  The roads were good with mostly wide shoulders, some hills, but no steep grades until we got to Duluth.  Here is a picture of me with the Duluth bridge in the background.

As we entered Duluth, there was about a 5 mile drop to Lake Superior.  I was braking most of the way.  My main thought as I was going downhill was - "I hope there is a different way out of town tomorrow, because otherwise I'm going to have to climb this hill".  I will let you know.

Once we reached town, we weaved our way through a residential neighborhood before getting to our hotel near the lake.  This house caught my eye, especially because of the fancy moulding at the top of the pillar.

That's all for today.  Everyone agrees that we will sleep well tonight.

71 miles today.