CC20 - Day 26

After yesterday's long distance ride, I wanted to take it a bit slower today and ride some backroads as well. So, my extraordinary routing skills got me into miles of this again:

Unpaved Backroads

It was mostly hard packed gravel, only a few sections were deeper gravel or a bit softer underground. Overall I managed okay, although my really worn front tire certainly didn't help. That tire has 7000 miles on it now and has only marginal tread left. Okay for dry roads, but certainly not anything else. It'll likely get me home but will then be at the legal limit or even worse. Shouldn't be a problem though. Straight home would be around 1700 miles or 2700km, but I'm likely taking some nicer roads, which will add some distance and I believe the tire will manage that. If not, I'll find a shop to change it along the way.

Now, back to today, I didn't want to ride all that much, so ended up doing 335 miles / 540km, some backroads, some freeway, and I ended up in Tulsa, OK. For the next day or two, I'll have some really boring roads in front of me to cross Oklahoma and the Northern part of Texas, then I can find some nicer roads again in New Mexico and Arizona. 

Missouri was interesting, I didn't expect the variety in scenery. 

Missouri, West Ozarks

Missouri, West Ozarks

Missouri

Regarding Hurricane Delta, I successfully avoided rain/wind or even getting stuck somewhere. I'm now west of the storm and should be okay for the rest of the trip.

This is the projected storm path for tomorrow, I'm safely West of it:

The storm path from there will be going East, I'll be heading West. 

On the practical side, since I was too tired to clean my windshield and lights from bugs last night, I ended up with some wet rags this morning and found a good way to dry them while riding. Just strapped to the top case and all was good after a very short time:

Drying microfiber rags while riding

Overall, it was a decent ride today. 

Route Day 26