Please don't shoot; I'm not a deer

Riding a bike through northern Minnesota woods can be a very pleasant experience. It can also be a little nerve-wracking. It’s all about the timing.
For example: riding through the woods during the peak of the fall color season is beautiful. Riding through the same woods on the first day of deer hunting season, though? That’s enough to make a guy a little apprehensive.
I can picture the hunter now, fingers and other important extremities numb from sitting in a tree stand since before dawn and eager to shoot something so he can go home and take a hot shower, seeing me, my dad and my brother riding by.
“Well,” he might think, “they’re about the right size to be a deer. They’re moving fast like a deer, even if they’re not quite so bouncy as a deer usually is. They appears to be wearing yellow jackets, though.Hmmm. Could be a trick.”
In retrospect, we might have been pushing our luck when we stuck those twigs in our helmets.
We saw several hunters along the path as we pedaled north, each dressed in blaze orange. A couple of times we saw deer standing along the path. Both times we waited for the gunshot, not entirely clear whether the bullet would be coming for us or for the deer. Or, for that matter, how we would feel about seeing Bambi get offed right in front of us.
It's scary enough just being in the woods during hunting season. But on the first day? When everybody's a little twitchy and eager to shoot at something? Well, maybe it wasn't the best idea. So far as I could tell blaze orange was the color of choice in the north woods last weekend for everything from walking the dog to mowing the lawn to showering. Fortunately, our bright yellow jackets seemed to be close enough.
Poor timing aside, there was a reason for this particular bike ride. Or, if not a reason, at least a goal. The three of us set out a little before 7 a.m. from Hugo and biked north to Duluth. Like I said, "reason" might be a little strong for this particular situation. Our reason for biking to Duluth is a lot like a mountain climber's reason for going up Everest: because it's there, and it's a challenge and we can tell attractive women we did it and make them think we're manly and want to buy us drinks. At least that's what I'm hoping.
In any case, our bike trip involved significantly less chance of falling off a cliff or dying of frostbite. And we didn't need to hire asherpa.
The ride is a long one, about 140 miles in all. But it's almost all on flat bike trails. The nice thing about biking 140 miles on trails that used to be railroad tracks is that there are no big hills to go up. The unfortunate thing is that there are no hills to go down. That's a whole lot of pedal strokes without a lot of chance for a break.
It can be mildly depressing to look ahead of you and see nothing but a perfectly straight trail disappearing somewhere over the horizon. This was the perfect ride for someone who has yet to master the art of turning a bicycle.
And scenery? Northern Minnesota is beautiful early in the fall, when the leaves are changing. Once they're all gone, though, that's a whole lot of naked trees and empty fields to stare at. It doesn't exactly stir the soul.
All told the trip took us about seven hours and 40 minutes of riding time. That's a lot of opportunity to think about hunters or how uncomfortable your bike seat has gotten in the past 20 miles or how warm you'd be if you were still in bed. Or how maybe attractive women aren't as turned on as we might hope by stories of long, flat, non-scenic bike rides. At least outside of Belgium.
It was hard. The last six miles, riding into a stiff wind from the end of the trail to our hotel, was the worst. We were tired at the end, but not exhausted. Overall we averaged just over 18.2 miles per hour. We felt like we had accomplished something.
And best of all, we didn't get shot.