The Iron Range, September 2026

 9/10/26; 15 miles (via Gilbert and around) We started the day with a walk across the street to see "The world's biggest floating Loon. The open pit mines, now lakes, appeared and disappeared midst the woods. The trail is generally rough with lots of heaves and patched cracks. Now that the trail is completed from Grand Island to Ely I hope more resources can go into maintenance. I'm not sure how much of the length is rail-to-trail but a big stretch of today clearly was. I upped my electrical assist for the day: my effort plus an added 75% of me. Marney and I were both somewhat stiff and sore after yesterday. Today was a good e-massage. Hockey is an even a bigger story here in Eveleth than mining. But, like mining, it is an old story.

 9/11/26; 21 miles  (via Biwabik) Beautiful new pavement, heaves and cracks, improvised detour, delicate wetland bridge, ... . Aurora is in the midst of massive sewer installation--disrupting circulation for pedestrians, cars, trucks, and bicycles. Yet a good day.

 9/12/26; 28 miles Cool and breezy. Outstanding (new) trail surface today and beautiful landscapes with hints of fall coloring. Scattered piles of hail (looking like snow) from yesterday evening's storm. Several fallen trees. Remember yesterday's bridge picture , we crossed another of yesterday's design today; It floats on a wetland for 3/4 mile--noisy but a great way to experience and protect wetland. We had a stimulating conversation as well as coffee and sweet breads at a Finnish-immigrant historic house in Embarrass. We arrived in Tower to the small celebration of trail completion--more in 3 days when we come back through--having shared the trail with local trail enthusiasts who did a 30-mile round trip to Embarrass.  In the picture below, at the historic Finish house in Embarrass Bob sits with three locals: Ron Sutton (on Bob's right) is a former  teacher who lived fifteen years in Hungary; so some Hungarian was spoken. Lisa Gibson a volunteer who was in charge whi...

  9/13/26; 28 miles cycling, 2 miles walking. We finally got to the small city known as the primary origin point for canoe trips into the Boundary Waters. Such a canoe excursion has long a dream of ours. Alas, we defaulted to the choice of "peddling-over-paddling." Up, down, around, and through on an excellent path. Cool, breezy, a fine day for cycling. We stopped by the International Bear Center as we arrived.

  9/14/26; 7 miles of this and that We found Ely displaying, in big and small ways, its gratitude to the firefighters who had come in and went out onto the Boundary Waters to fight the numerous lightning cause wildfires that were raging several weeks earlier.  We planned this day off in January when we sketched out the Mesabi tour. We smiled several days ago when we saw the forecast that it would rain today, and only today. It was, indeed, raining as we created this post, but we had a cool dry morning. we walked several pleasant blocks to breakfast: eggs and cranberry-wild-rice toast! At the long table next to us sat three Forest Service couples from Fort Collins headed out into the Boundary Waters--not an ideal day for that.  We did laundry, got cash at a Wells Fargo bank, and we got on our bikes to visited the International Wolf Center and its pack of five wolves. The center is pleasant and informative. On the other end of town there is an International Bear Center whic...

  9/15/26; 29 miles Yes, we avoided yesterday's heavy rains by not venturing out of Ely, but today we bundled up to pierce almost-cold, definitely-stiff head winds retracing our tracks back to Tower. We met Serafino at Pioneer Mine (underground-closed in 1967) finding our way out of Ely. More floating bridge across wetland. We sing the praises of e-assist this evening, but we were both tired and stiff on arrival. We even skipped the trail-completion event for a late lunch at "Good Old Days" bar-restaurant (seated next to a group of women cyclists from Hackensack MN through which we biked on our earlier Minnesota bike tour from the Twin Cities to the headwaters of the Mississippi and back).

9/16/26; Zero miles. Surprise? Bad weather? Exhaustion? Boredom? None of the above. After arriving in Tower from Aurora on the 12th, we looked at our planned ride back from Tower to Virginia and the forty-plus miles to retrace most of our ride there on the Mesabi Trail. The auto route back on highway 169 is only about 23 miles. While highway 169 has high speed traffic, it also has broad shoulders. We have ridden such roads for short distances  comfortably many times before in our tours. The options did not make a lot of sense to us. Bob decided to join the local version of an “ everything-about-our-community ” site. After prompt approval, He posted our interest in hiring somebody to drive us here to Virginia after our return to Tower from Ely. Cheryl responded a couple of hours later; we quickly reserved her time and Silverado pickup for this afternoon. No guilt, no apologies.  It has been a beautiful day. We enjoy planning details of a trip months in advance, but we usually...