When you have a fuel tank that holds barely more than a gallon, refueling is always a concern on a road trip. Even at 100mpg, that’s not much more than 100 miles. That can be a serious issue in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula and western Ontario.
On one previous trip through the UP, the only way I could get from Point A to Point B without running out of fuel involved a 20 minute detour from the route I wanted to take, to get to a little shop with gas. On another trip, the gas station I was counting on turned out to be out of business, and I was narrowly saved by a mom-and-pop general store several miles away that had an old gas pump for snowmobiles and ATVs.
So I’m doing a little extra scouting for my ride around Superior. Not just checking for flags in Google Maps, but confirming that they have current gas prices and/or the shop’s web site is still up.
It looks like I’m going to be alright, as long as I remember to stop when needed. It helps that I’m mostly sticking to the shoreline, which is where most of the towns are located. And when I get to Ontario, I’ll be riding on the Trans-Canada Highway, which is the only road that goes through that area, so it gets all the traffic.