Why Bike?

My bike-related thought (which consumes much of my total thought) breaks down approximately as follows:

Longing or nostalgic thoughts about biking and touring: 60%
Planning thoughts about future biking and touring: 30%
Epistemological thoughts about my bike obsession: 10%

I shall reflect for a moment on the third category. The first two categories are self-explanatory to any biker, and even, perhaps, to non-bikers such as my wife. It's an obsession, so I obsess. It's easy to guess what I obsess about. But why do I do it? What is it about this child's toy do I find so fascinating?

Aside from the obvious gear-head love of shiny machines, be they cars, motorcycles, guns, boats, sailboards, bicycles, etc, the bicycle can also be seen as a vehicle of escape. Escape from the house, neighborhood, or town, escape from real work, escape from worry. Mostly, though, it's an escape from death. Well, not exactly an escape from death. An escape from thoughts of mortality. An attempted solution of the mid-life crisis, the realization that Dammit I'm going to die and I'm halfway there already.

Somehow, knowing that I'm halfway there makes me want to do something to shake up the status quo. I'm not the type to get a girlfriend or a sports car (classic solutions to the mid-life crisis), so instead I opt for the other classic solution: extreme behavior. Although sky-diving looks appealing, I'm probably not going to do it--too expensive and complicated. Same with hang gliding (which really looks fun). So I bike, both longish distances for recreation, and as a means of commuting, even in the snow and slush.

Does it help? Do I escape my midlife crisis by riding away from it?

Maybe. A little. I do find it comforting when I get in a panic about things to go to my biking "special place" and think about rides that have been and will be, and equipment that I might put on my bike. I try not to spend too wildly on bike doo-dads but I do love to browse the beautiful stuff at Rivendell, Velo Orange, etc.

Not a totally rational justification, but there you have it. Of course, I was obsessed with bikes when I was 15, too, so this isn't new. I doubt that I was having a mid-life crisis then. Maybe I find it comforting to be as obsessed with something now as I was then. I won't grow up.

Winter Again!

Winter has hit mid-Michigan early this year. Obviously not as a
result of global warming, but perhaps it's as a result of global
climate change. Or maybe it's just the weather cycle doing its thing.
I can remember winters in Michigan when I was kid that seemed more
severe than we've had in the last 20 years.

In any case, the snow and ice make it necessary for me to pull out
the slushmobile for my daily commute. But that's OK. I'd never want
to ride it across the country, but for riding five miles through snow
and slush, over slick ice and crusty ice ridges, it's pretty fun. I
put a big Wald basket on the back, so it can carry a big load. I
added a brake enhancer to make the road lever work better with the
canti-brakes. I added an old retro generator and light that I had
lying around for a little supplemental "hey! here I am!" lighting. I
have been riding to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 am, and
home on Wednesdays at 9:00 pm, so I've needed the lights (which also
include a battery powered halogen front light and two LED blinkies on
the back).

The huge Wald fenders do a great job keeping the snow and slush off
me, and because they are quite high above the tires, snow and slush
doesn't collect very much under the fenders or in the brakes.

By the end of last winter I was pretty tired of riding over ice ruts
and through cut up snowplow detritus, but so far it's OK.

The Seat Experiment Continues

Not only does my Avocet Touring I woman's saddle still provide good
comfort, I splurged and bought another one on ebay (for $10). This
one has a leather cover, which should be nice on my touring bike.

Bike Fetishists

I suppose I'm guilty of it myself, but I like to think that my affliction is not as severe as it could be. Although I obsess endlessly about my bikes, I'm not Felix Unger about it. My beautiful Rambouillet has a big black ugly seatpost rack on it (because it only cost $25) and a Nashbar rack trunk (about $20) instead of a more appropriate Nitto rack ($100) and Carradice seat bag ($140). After all, I just want to ride the bike and carry stuff. The seat post rack is really ugly, but I figure it's really functional, since it keeps the load's center of gravity close to the middle of the bike. (I never carry a very heavy load, so questions of whippiness and bounciness don't really apply. As far as I can tell, it doesn't whip and it doesn't bounce.)

I care what the bike looks like, sure. I think the blue Rambouillet is the most beautiful of Rivendell's bikes (other than the red Glorius). I would have had trouble buying the green Rambouillet. OK. I admit it. And don't ask what I think of the butterscotch Saluki. Ick.

But really, although I care what the bike looks like, I don't care so much that I'm willing to put hundreds of dollars into racks and bags and handlebar tape and hammered aluminum fenders that are no more functional than gear that costs a tiny fraction of the fancy stuff.

Go to any bike forum, in which pictures are posted (and why should such a thing even exist? Pictures of bikes?) and read the comments. "Well, it's nice enough, I guess, but I would have gone with the brushed aluminum brakes." Excuse me? The color of the brakes makes a difference? Isn't this a thing to be ridden, not put on display?

I guess it's the equivalent of fussing over cars, going to the A and W, popping the hood, and comparing notes with your friends.

It seems like most of the fetishists are men. What's the matter with us? Is it because we don't have 100 pairs of shoes and dozens of purses? We need something else to throw our money at? And do these guys who seem to spend endless hours looking at and commenting on other people's bikes actually ride the things? I suppose they must. But still, you have to wonder whether someone who cares so much about his authentic $150 French-style handlebar bag would be willing to get it all dusty and faded by the sun by actually riding on a real road in the real outdoors. And all that gunk on the hubs, sprockets, and chain that riding creates!

I mostly resist the fetishistic urges, but it isn't easy. If I didn't have to answer to my wife, I would have joined in the fetish spending. Carradice! Nitto! Brooks! Phil Wood! Instead, I buy little things that I don't need, here and there. A set of Falcon shifters ($1 at Nashbar). A saddle on eBay ($10). Maybe an occasional Nitto stem ($40).

But really, we're all pathetic.

More Comfort!

I went and did it: I finally started making the Rambouillet mine by taking part of it apart and reconfiguring it. I have been reluctant to do it because it's so beautiful and so authentically Rivendell. But my neck hurt. I needed a shorter (and taller) stem.

So I cut the hemp wrapping, cracked the shellac on the handlebar tape, unwound the tape, removed the brake levers and shifter on one side, and pulled the bar and stem. The original was a Nitto Technomic Deluxe. Very nice. The replacement was a Nitto Technomic (also very nice, if perhaps slightly less nice), which is taller and about 20 mm shorter (i.e. the bars are closer to the rider). When I had it reassembled, I didn't rewrap the bars because I didn't know if I'd need to try yet another stem.

So I rode 100 miles with the bars (Nitto Noodle) unwrapped, and I decided I sort of like the bars au naturel. They look nice with the silvery fenders, and they feel nice and smooth. Let's face it: cloth handlebar tape, even cushy cork tape, doesn't do much to cushion one's hands. That's what high bars and gel gloves are for.

So I still haven't rewrapped the bars. It's just that they're so beautiful and smooth. I should post a picture for my 0 readers to admire.

In addition, in my quest for comfort, I put the woman's Avocet Touring back on, this time sloped slightly toward the back. This is a cheap seat with a plastic cover that I bought on eBay for $10. I like my Avocet men's touring saddle (with a leather cover), but it's just a smidge narrow for my fat ass. So I thought that maybe a woman's saddle with a flared back end and slightly short nose would be comfortable. Nice hard foam padding beneath the cover, so it doesn't cause raspberry butt.

And lo and behold: High handlebars, woman's saddle sloped slightly back so that I can rock back on my buns a bit, very comfortable. Even after 30 miles I don't find myself continually wiggling around to find a comfortable perch. Nice.

Like anybody cares.

Late September Ride

Man, what a beautiful day. Temperature in the 70s, light north wind.

I had to drive my mother's car down to Chelsea (44 miles away), and I decided to take a little detour on my ride home. So I rode to Dexter (along with dozens of other bikers), then along Huron River Drive to North Territorial Rd, then to Dexter-Pinkney Rd, MacGregor Rd, to Fox Point on Portage Lake, where my family used to own a cottage.

Coffee from my thermos while looking out over my boyhood haunts, then continued the ride around the lake and across on Pleasant Lake Rd, Doyle Rd, Morton Rd, to Stockbridge ,where I had a milkshake and an orange juice. Then continuing on Catholic Church Rd (so named because of the . . . catholic church), Meridian Rd, Jolly Rd, Dobie Rd, Hatch Rd, and home. A total of 64 miles.

It was lovely, but I have to say, I developed serious shoulder/neck pain. I'm afraid I'm going to need to put on a taller/shorter stem. I have resisted fussing with the Rambouillet (other than swapping seats on and off), but I'm afraid this is a fuss that I'm going to need to make. I have a Nitto Technomic stem lying around, so I won't need to buy anything. But I hate replacing stems, because you need to disassemble the handle bar--tape, shifters, brake levers--in order to get the bar out of the stem.

Well, I can use the opportunity to put on cork tape, I guess, so it won't be a total waste. The current tape (shellacked cloth) is getting pretty grimy.

I rode the Avocet Touring I saddle today. Not too bad, really. I've been riding an Avocet women's Touring saddle recently, which I like pretty well, except for the vinyl cover. The Touring I has a leather cover, which is more pleasant.

I was also wearing wool undies and nylon shorts from Rivendell. Pretty nice.

Stealth Camping

Ken Kifer got it (mostly) right when he argued in favor of stealth camping (not his term) rather than staying in formal campgrounds while on a bike tour. (He was motivated to a large extent by a strong anti-social streak, so one must take his views with a certain skepticism.)

He advocated camping off the road wherever was convenient, thus avoiding the pitfall of having too many miles to reach a camping destination. I have applied the term stealth camping (borrowed from other sources), because this style of camping requires one to be out of sight (and, to use a bad pun, out of site). Whaddaya think this is, Europe? You think you can just camp anywhere along the road. Hah! Socialist.

Here in the US of A, camping along the road is frowned upon. (Actually, it mostly never occurs to us, it's just so obviously wrong, so there's not much frowning.) According to Ken Kifer (and other advocates of the practice), it's quite easy to find a spot along the road that is hidden by vegetation, with enough room for a small tent. (And if you have a camping hammock, all the better!) When you're ready to stop at the end of the day, you keep your eyes open for a good spot, and when you find it, you stop. It requires a little planning, food- and water-wise, and it involves roughing it, personal hygiene-wise.

But the advantage is that you can stop when you're ready. We should have done this outside of Manistique. But we weren't in that mindset, and it would have been a terrible night to experiment with it. (Thunderstorms and torrential rain.) Still, one of the things we were dreading about the campground we were shooting for (90 miles away) was the two-mile ride down the dirt road just to get to it. Most nice campgrounds are not right on the main highway, and even a few miles is a long way at the end of the day.

But you know, in reading Ken Kifer's trip journal of the trip to New England and Canada, the whole trip sounds horrible, particularly the effort to find places to pitch his tent. One night he slept out in the open next to a freeway. Nice.

Maybe the compromise position is to be ready to stealth camp when necessary (that Manistique day, for example), but to have campgrounds in sight as much as possible. Ken Kifer may have thought a shower is a luxury, but really, after a long day, it may be well worth the cost of the campground to take a nice hot shower. That was always the highlight of the evening for me, when we stayed in campgrounds that had showers.

Well, just an idea. I have stealth camped before. (In fact, Jon and I have done it.) Mostly, it was OK. With a camping hammock, it would be much easier, because it would not require flat ground or a clearing of any kind.

Next trip, maybe.

Further reflections: I have learned since posting this that it is officially permitted to camp anywhere on National Forest land (private property included) unless otherwise posted. So that day east of Manistique should not have been a problem at all; we could have picked any open space and set up our tents. Unless the sheriff doesn't know this law.

Cowboy Coffee

I wasn't too worried about food on our semi-circumnavigation of Lake Michigan. I could be fairly content eating convenience store sandwiches for ten days.

But I was worried about coffee. Convenience store coffee is OK now and then, better (just barely) than nothing, but it is nice to have a cup of real (strong) coffee either first thing in the morning or after a long day's ride.

I fretted about this. I am committed to traveling light, and bringing a French-press pot did not seem very light.

But then I stumbled on the concept of "cowboy coffee." (I wish I could remember where in metaverse I found it. Googling "cowboy coffee" will turn it up.) Cowboy coffee is simply coffee made in a pot without filters.

The basic principle of cowboy coffee is that coffee grounds settle if given enough time. The challenge is giving the grounds enough time to settle without letting the coffee get cold. (You can't keep heating it, because the convection currents keep the grounds stirred up.)

I used more water and coffee than normal, to give a little room for sludge at the bottom of the pot. I used six heaping tablespoons for about 1.5 quarts of water (maybe, although I didn't measure carefully--I just filled my pot). This made enough for two large cups of coffee and a little extra to put in Jon's thermos.

Bring the water to a boil (using a catfood can stove, preferably), dump in the coffee, stir it in to be sure the coffee isn't just floating, and then (here's the secret) put the whole pot into some kind of insulator. I used an insulated lunch bag, but since the trip I have fashioned a foam sleeve that should work nearly as well while taking up almost no room. (Traditional cowboys just sink their pot in the sand.)

Then, let the coffee sit. Five minutes? Ten minutes? I don't know. Enough time for the grounds to settle.

Carefully pour the coffee off the top, and voila! Quite good cowboy coffee.

Day 10, The Last: Morley to Muskegon

Note to self: If you need to buy a handgun, Muskegon seems to be the place to go. The approach to Muskegon featured many billboards advertising breathlessly "500 Handguns to Choose From!" And those were just the hardware stores. Anywhere else, these would have been ironic ads for gun control. In Muskegon, they were serious attempts to get more handguns into the community.

And a charming community it is.

We left Morley at 6:30, a record for us. Took the FMWPT and roads to Cedar Springs, where we turned west a final time on M-46. This was a fairly miserable way to end the trip. The road was narrow, busy, and boring. We were just humping out miles. As we got closer to Muskegon, the traffic got heavier and heavier, particularly the truck traffic. Entering a dismal city that seems in love with handguns on a miserable stretch of road was not the best way to end the trip. Still, the pull of the final goal is always good to get you through some bad riding.

The end was a race with a thunderstorm. It got blacker and blacker up ahead. We toiled along, thoroughly beaten down by Muskegon. I wasn't sure we were going to make it. I kept saying, "C'mon c'mon c'mon hurry hurry hurry!" But we made it with time to spare (well, 30 minutes), before the heavens opened and the wrath of the gods flashed down. As we were eating our victory meal in the Subway across from the ferry, the power went out.

And that was it. Trip over. I left Jon at the Lake Express Ferry terminal and headed home.

Day 9: Lake City to Morley

One of the reasons we had left the coast in Charlevoix was to ride on the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail (FMWPT, a "linear state park"!), which stretches 91 miles from Cadillac to Grand Rapids. A converted rail bed, the trail is mostly crushed rock, with a few paved stretches. We thought it would be interesting to ride most of the trail on Day 9.

It was interesting, but not always pleasant.

We hit the FMWPT in downtown Cadillac near its northern terminus. There had been recent storms, so there were trees down across the trail for the first 15 miles or so. We actually had to lift our bikes (fully loaded, remember) over several of them.

The first stretch of trail is pleasant. It winds through the northern woods, and it has a nice firm crushed rock surface. The advantage of a rail-trail is that trains don't like hills, so the trail is almost completely flat. Also, the trees and bushes on either side of the trail provide cover from the wind.

But about 20 miles from Cadillac, the trail deteriorates significantly, becoming a two-track with weeds growing between the tracks. Now, I'm a big supporter of rail corridor acquisition by states, and rail-to-trail initiatives, but I have to say that much of this trail seems to be almost never used. Around cities like Cadillac, Reed City, Big Rapids, yes. But in the stretches more than ten miles from cities we felt like trail blazers. Perhaps when Fred Meijer's big bucks are used to pave the whole trail it will be used more in the remote stretches, but I doubt it. I just don't think there are many bikers interested in riding from, say, Tustin to LeRoy, or Big Rapids to Stanwood. I think we're kidding ourselves if we think those stretches of the trail will ever be used. (At least in summer: I suspect the trail gets heavy use by snowmobiles along its entire length.)

Obviously, some stretches get moderate to heavy use. From Cadillac to Tustin seemed to be used quite a lot. The 12-mile paved stretch leading in to Big Rapids was heavily used, as was the paved stretch between Sand Lake and Grand Rapids.

But the bit south of Big Rapids? It may as well have been the old Santa Fe trail. The weeds were waist high. Clearly, no one uses this stretch of trail. We finally gave up on it and took to the roads. But we had been spoiled by the flat trail, so the hills on the roads were not welcome. We returned to the trail as soon as we could.

The final stretch of the day, leading in to Morley, was odd: There were horse hoofprints in the center of the trail (despite the posted prohibition against horses), and the edges were perfectly smooth. We learned that this stretch of trail is used (illegally) as a road by Amish buggies. Funny. It made for nice riding.

All told, we rode about 60 miles of the FMWPT this day. I'll bet not many people have done that.

In Morley, we found the Mecosta Pines Campground, a tidy little private campground that gave us the "bikers' rate" of $5 each. Good deal. Dinner at a funny little cafe in "town".

We were poised for our final push to the ferry. About 60 miles, which we needed to accomplish by 4:00 PM.

Day 8: Charlevoix to Lake City

This was the day we had been dreading. When it became clear to us that we had too many miles and too few days, we decided that we would need to do one big day of 90+ miles in order to stay on schedule. For some reason, Day 8 was chosen, even though we should have known that it would have the biggest hills of the trip.

This day had it all: monumental hills, including a two-mile whopper out of the Torch Lake basin, uncertainty about which roads to take (we didn't quite get lost, but I felt at times that we were riding in circles), mechanical failure (my Panaracer Pasela rear tire developed a near-catastrophic bulge in its sidewall--I was a few miles from a blowout, which would have been, uh, unpleasant on one of the big descents). It also had a stiff tailwind (thank goodness) and an absolutely lovely stretch of state highway (M-66) at the end of the day.

We thrashed around the Torch Lake area all morning, huffing up several pretty good hills, finally getting to Torch Lake's eastern shore with its flat (and quite lovely) riding. We were feeling encouraged by this flat riding, thinking that maybe we were done with the worst of the hills, when the two-mile beast hit. It just went on and on. Every time we thought we were near the top, another sign appeared warning of a curving (i.e. climbing) road.

We were really demoralized at the top of this hill. It was mid-afternoon and we still had about 55 miles to go. We didn't have many more hills in us.

At this point, we gave up any pretense of seeing the scenery. We needed to cover miles on straight, flat roads, which meant state highways. So we reluctantly jumped on to M-72, the main road from I-75 in the center of the state to Traverse City, the largest city in the northwest.

But like US-2, M-72 had a good shoulder the whole way to Kalkaska, which came sooner than I expected. That doesn't happen very often.

After a large lunch at McDonald's in Kalkaska, we set off on another state highway, M-66. We had abandoned our goal of Mitchell State Park in Cadillac, which would have been 50 more miles (for a total of more than 100 miles for the day). Instead, we spotted on the map a city park in Lake City, just 30 miles away. (I say "just" 30 miles ironically, since 30 miles on a bike is an eternity.) But the road was straight and wide, the traffic was light, the scenery was quite lovely, and the tailwind was divine. This was actually a very nice bit of riding.

Lake City was cute, the campground was just the kind we like: in the middle of town, very basic sites, but with a nice shower. Jon's parents drove over from Frankfort (an hour and a half) and brought us dinner. Afterward, I walked to Dairy Queen and had a turtle sundae AND a milkshake. When you ride 80 miles, you can indulge yourself.

Day 7: St Ignace to Charlevoix

We (I) were (was) overjoyed to leave Mudville with its slumbering drunken muscle-car lovers. I tried to rev my engine and squeal my tires as we left, but it didn't quite have the desired effect.

Being responsible for route selection and research, I had carefully figured out how to get across the Straights of Mackinac: All sources (including the Adventure Cycling route guide) told me that we needed to take a ferry to Mackinac Island, then another to Mackinaw City. Complicated and expensive, but necessary. Jon, not respecting my expert opinion, not trusting me to be thorough in my research, had the nerve to ask around anyway. I assured him it would do no good; he was wasting his time and insulting me in the process.

Of course, just like my wife tells me all the time, it usually pays to ask. What's the easiest way to get a bike across the straights? Just go to the Bridge Authority offices, pay $2, and get a ride in a Bridge Authority maintenance truck. Gosh. We didn't even need to explain ourselves. As soon as we peeked in at the cashier's window the nice lady said, "That'll be $2 each. A maintenance truck will be along soon."

To celebrate our saved time and money, we had a nice sit-down breakfast in Mackinaw City when we arrived.

This day had some of the nicest scenery of the trip. The road out toward Wilderness State Park looks exactly as it looked when I was a child camping there with my family 40 years ago. The roads south from there, past Bliss (the town) and toward Harbor Springs, went through lovely rolling meadows. This would be a nice place for day rides. (In my touring scenario #2 below, one could stay in a nice hotel or B&B in Cross Village, and take 75-mile rides from there.)

Near Harbor Springs, we jumped on the Little Traverse Wheelway, a paved multi-use trail that runs (almost continously) from Harbor Springs to Charlevoix. Although there were some spots where the "wheelway" looked suspiciously like city sidewalks or US-31 shoulder, it was mostly a very nice route. The bit before Charlevoix was particularly nice, running right along the lake with occasional lakeside rest areas.

For some reason, we were pretty whipped by the time we rolled in to Charlevoix. It hadn't been a terribly long day, although we had had some good (bad) hills and a headwind between Petosky and Charlevoix. We picked up dinner fixings in Charlevoix and headed out to Fisherman's Island State Park. Again, the last few miles of the day, into a stiff headwind, competing with trucks on a busy state highway, were the worst.

Fisherman's Island was lovely. Nearly empty, it was a classic Michigan State Park. Large spaces, nicely shaded by white pines, right on Lake Michigan. Because it's a rustic campground (no showers, no electric, no flush toilets), there were no RVs or casual "campers". Although we missed showers, we liked this campground. As usual, some animal or other ate our food in the night. The moral is, when you're bike camping you really need to hang your food even if you're not in bear country.

New Concepts in Bike Touring

As has become clear in my entries for days 5 and 6, there was a serious flaw in planning for this trip. I take most of the blame, both in the specifics of leaving too few days for too many miles, and in the subscribed-to philosophy of the tour and bike touring, in general. (Jon probably can share in some of the blame for both of these, but I won't insist.)

First, as I mentioned before, I should have started with 50-mile days, assuming that each would expand to 60 or 70 miles. And we should have allowed one catch-up or layover day.

But an even more fundamental problem was the tendency to make the tour's purpose a journey from point A to point B, in which success was defined by the completion of the journey. In this case, we decided it would be a nice accomplishment to ride around the northern half of Lake Michigan. Simple, easy to describe, easy to define.

But with this definition of success--finishing the journey from point A to point B--we did not allow ourselves any escape hatches. Anything less than a timely arrival in Muskegon would have been a failure. (Remember: I speak for myself here, but I suspect Jon would at least be sympathetic to this view.) So in Manistique and St. Ignace, as we were pondering the apparently impossible distances yet to go, we never considered the possibility of bailing out, even though we had a good bail-out option.

My family owns a summer place in Empire, just west of Traverse City. It would have been 150 miles short of our goal, but we easily could have detoured there, picked up a car and finished the journey to the Muskegon ferry the fast way.

Here's how the trip might have unfolded: We would have stopped in Manistique on Day 5. On Day 6 we might have stopped in a stunningly beautiful state forest campground right on the beach just east of Brevort. On Day 7 we might have stayed at my favorite campground in the whole world, Wilderness State Park, just west of Mackinaw City. On Day 8 we would have had a relatively easy ride to Fisherman's Island State Park (where we stayed after the actual Day 7). On Day 9 we would have had a longish ride to Empire, but no longer than many of our other days. On Day 10 I would have driven Jon to the ferry.

The advantage of this schedule is that it would have spared us the grinding out of miles necessary to reach the ferry by bike, and it would have allowed us to really enjoy some of the most beautiful spots in the country.

As my posts for days 7-10 will show, I had a good time even on the grind-out-the-miles days, so I don't want to convey the idea that it wasn't fun. But it was partly fun because we accomplished a daunting (at times nearly overwhelming) task. We slept well every night because we nearly killed ourselves. It might have been nice to be a bit less daunted and near death.

In any case, I propose that all future bike trips have a bail-out option, one that will represent merely course correction rather than failure. On this trip, keeping the Empire option open would have been the logical bail out.

Another way to do it would be to leave a car in a central spot, then head out as if along the spoke of a wheel; the actual tour would be around the rim, with the option of following a spoke back to the center if necessary. For example, a nice tour would be around the tip of Michigan's lower peninsula. One could leave a car in, say, Grayling, head straight east to Lake Huron, then proceed up the Lake Huron coast, down the Lake Michigan coast, and straight across the state back to Grayling. At any time, however, it would be possible to head back to Grayling from any point on the coast if the schedule wasn't working out.

Another possible "tour", if covering X miles was the goal, would be to stay in a nice central location, and take 60- or 70-mile loop rides out from that central location. It's easy to go 35 miles out one route, and then 35 miles back on another route that's just a few miles away from the first, so you're not literally retracing your steps. I could imagine doing this in, say, the Adirondacks or Rockies, or perhaps central New York or along the Erie Canal, or the Oregon coast. Find a really nice campground (or B&B if wives are along) to serve as the home base, and take off from there. If one were feeling ambitious, it could be a week of centuries (if you know what I mean). That would be pretty good: 500 miles in 5 days.

In any case, the desire to get from point A to point B by bike (west coast to east coast, Seattle to San Diego, Fairbanks to Tierra del Fuego) just to say you did it is, I'm sorry to say since I'm guilty of it, a bit juvenile. It makes for good cocktail party boasts ("Yes, I've ridden from Seattle to San Diego and around Lake Michigan--cough cough most of it cough cough the northern half"), but it doesn't necessarily make for the best trip.

Just some thoughts. Let's continue the trip, shall we?

Biking on US-2

One of my biggest worries before the trip was riding on US-2 in the UP. It's the only east-west road across the bottom of the UP, and so it is a main corridor for trucking traffic. It could have been deadly.

Instead, it turned out that US-2 has a huge paved shoulder all the way from Escanaba to St. Ignace (except for one large hill 5 miles away from St. Ignace, and the actual approach to town that has a very not-helpful "bike path" sidewalk along the road, in which all the crossing driveways do not have a true curb cut). So although it was hectic with all those trucks roaring by, it did not feel particularly dangerous.

Except for the detour around the Cut River bridge, which was a nightmare. All traffic was rerouted onto newly paved local roads that were the size of driveways. No shoulder, winding road, one lane in each direction, for about five miles. So there we were, expected to share the road with semis and gas trucks. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say that we were expected NOT to share the road--indeed, not to be on the detour at all, although I don't know what they would have preferred we do. There was so much traffic in both directions, it was nearly impossible for the traffic behind us to pass. Every once in a while I just pulled off the road to let them by. If we had done that for everyone, however, we never would have made any progress.

I think if we had known how bad it was going to be, we might have figured out a way to hit that detour at 6 am, or ride under water, or something. It did not help to generate a calm and relaxed feeling for the day's ride.

Day 6: Slumberland Motel to St. Ignace

By a stroke of dumb luck, we picked the one night of torrential downpours to stay in a motel. It was still raining when we departed, but we at least got to start the day dry. (The rain gave up after several hours, and it eventually turned nice.)

This day had the most beautiful scenery of the whole trip. I'm not sure why we didn't stop to appreciate it more. US-2 runs right along the coast for quite a while as you near St. Ignace--absolutely perfect sand beaches that go on forever. But we just kept grinding past them, even though we had a reservation at the St. Ignace KOA, so we really didn't need to hurry. Maybe because it was still a bit chilly, we didn't feel like swimming or strolling the beach. Or maybe we had slipped into grind-out-the-miles mode. In any case, the beach would have a been a much nicer place to spend time than the mud-hole KOA that awaited us.

In defense of the St. Ignace KOA, it seems like a perfectly nice campground. But for our visit, it held two bad surprises: standing water in every tent site (and slurpy mud on the roads), and a full house of cig-smoking, tattooed monster truck and muscle car aficionados. It seems St Ignace hosts a big car show every year at this time. The town fills up with lovingly preserved and demuffled muscle cars from throughout history, and their jacked-up demuffled pickup truck cousins, all driven by tire screeching engine revving morons. It was like a mating call: all muscle cars must rev their engines and peel their tires in exactly the same way when entering the highway. All night long, we heard the same roaring sound of cars calling to each other.

One woman complained to the camp proprietor that they were thinking of not coming back next year, since the police were actually trying to prevent drag racing on the main highway. The nerve. No appreciation for historical reenactments, for verisimilitude.

As I do post-tour research, I find that the state park right on the water in St Ignace has 255 sites and doesn't take reservations. We might have been able to get a site there. Of course, it was Saturday night of the car show of the weekend before the 4th of July. Probably not.

[Author's note, years later: Michigan State Parks have an unwritten policy of never turning bike tourists away. They will always find an empty patch of ground for you to pitch a tent on. I wish we had known that.]

With my ear plugs I slept fine, so what did I care? We were long gone before the hung-over car buffs staggered out of their tents.

Fat? Lose Five Pounds The Easy Way!

Jon and I both lost five pounds on this trip. My son was impressed that I had lost five pounds in only ten days, until I pointed out that it involved at least six hours of exercise every day. Try that at the health club.

Day 5: Escanaba to Blaney Park

The day started well. This was our first day on US-2, the main east-west route across the southern upper penninsula. We would be following it for two days, 140 miles or so.

The first bit, from Escanaba to Gladstone and on to Rapid River, made us feel like supermen. It goes northeast, along Little Bay De Noc. The wind was on our starboard quarter, and we just flew along. This was going to be an easy day.

But when US-2 turned eastward, we knew we were in trouble. First, we lost the water. The scenery could have been central Indiana. Worse, we lost the tail wind. In fact, we gained a head wind. So for the next 40 miles, we humped along US-2, looking forward to Manistique and a return to the water.

But once we reached Manistique, we realized we didn't have a good plan for ending the day. We had gone 52 miles, but if we stopped in Manistique we would be hopelessly behind schedule. Jon would never reach the ferry by Wednesday, in time to return to work on Thursday. But ahead of us stretched plenty of nothing. No real towns, no campgrounds near the road, for another 30 miles.

We had a long, leisurely lunch/dinner at Arby's (I had TWO jamocha shakes!), trying to decide what to do. Suddenly, our casual old-man circumnambulation of Lake Michigan was turning into the normal, frantic, grind out the miles kind of bike tour we swore we'd avoid. We're too old for that.

I take much of the blame for the bad planning. I had casually said, "And on day 5 we need to get to Lake Whosis campground . . . it's a pretty long day." I'll say. 90 miles.

What we should have done is limited ourselves to 50 (hypothetical) miles every day, with the assumption that 50 miles would turn into 60 miles by the time we were done taking wrong turns and getting back to the road from the campground and going to the store. We also should have built in one blank catch-up day, either to be used catching up lost miles, or just staying put in one particularly nice spot for an extra night. But if we had done these things, our trip would have lasted two full weeks.

Anyway, after our Arby's lunch/dinner, we decided to set off and see what happened. Perhaps we'd just camp along the road or in a rest area. Perhaps we'd actually get to the campground. In actuality, we got to the Slumberland Motel after 20-some miles. It was a shining oasis along US-2. We decided that one night in a motel wouldn't kill us, especially not at $45/night. And it had a restaurant for breakfast, which sounded good to us. We were far enough along that we would be able to make St Ignace the next day, which would keep us on schedule (although the schedule itself was still seriously flawed). Next.

Day 4: Marinette to Escanaba

We entered into Michigan on Day 4 (Thursday), destination Escanaba, riding on M-35. This was probably the longest stretch of unpleasant road--unpleasant because the shoulder was relatively narrow and the traffic was relatively heavy, with many trucks. The view was nice, though, as the road runs along Green Bay the whole way.

The big event for Day 4 was Jon's broken spoke. He had warned me that he was having spoke problems before we left, including a rather alarming incident in which a spoke broke as he was changing a tire. That's really really not supposed to happen in a healthy wheel. I chose to hope for the best. Alas! The wheel really wasn't healthy, and a spoke broke for no obvious reason.

So there we were along M-35, trying to save the trip. We first tried one of Jon's spare spokes, but I was too stupid to force the spoke through the other spokes; I chickened out when it become necessary to bend the spoke into a pretzel. So then I pulled out my secret weapon: a Fiberfix kevlar (except they're not allowed to call it "Kevlar", so they have to call it "aramid fiber"--so let's call it Kevlar-like) emergency spoke. I had never used one, but I carried two, just in case. These are really slick deals. You don't even need to take the wheel off. Just attach the threaded end to the spoke nipple, and thread the braided cord through the hub hole, attaching it to the clamp at the nipple. Then screw the clamp assembly into the nipple, twisting the fiber spoke as you go. It becomes twangy tight and functions exactly like a spoke.

But here's a word of warning: It's really really easy to tighten. Indeed, it's easy to overtighten, and it's easy to figure that because it's just string, it needs to be REALLY tight to substitute for a metal spoke. Big wrongness. I broke the first Fiberfix by overtightening it. On the next try, I got it a little tight, and then started truing the wheel, pulling the wobble back to the middle. It helps to have a little wheel-truing experience (and a spoke wrench), so that you can adjust the spokes around the Fiberfix.

With the second attempt, the wheel was more true than it had been before the spoke broke. Probably stronger, since I eased the tension on the some of the neighboring spokes, which were seriously overtight. The repair easily got Jon to Escanaba. It suspect it might have finished the trip, except I was worried about the other spokes.

So in Escanaba, we went to Mr. Bike bike shop. Seemed like a nice place. Friendly people, lots of Treks. We decided that the safe bet would be a new wheel. I told Jon that it would probably cost $100. So when Mr. Bike said he could sell Jon one for $50, GREAT!

Note to self: Trust your first guess. Wheels don't cost $50. The spokes alone, even cheap ones, would cost about $20. The rim, even a cheap one, another $20. The hub, even a cheap one, another $20. We're already up to $60. There's no way a wheel will cost $50.

And, indeed, Mr. Bike's $50 wheel turned into a $150 one when it came time to fork over the dough. He swapped a wheel off an existing bike. So he needed to take its tire off. Charged Jon for it. Then he needed to put Jon's tire on. Charged Jon for it. Then he replaced the useless spoke protector. Charged Jon for it. And, of course, since he needed to have Trek ship up another wheel to replace the one he swapped off, he charged Jon for shipping. He probably charged for the air to inflate the tire, too. Jon should have charged Mr. Bike for the old hub and rim, which he let them keep.

Now, Mr. Bike had a right to make money off the deal, and we were grateful that they were there in our supreme time of need. But come on: $50 for a wheel? I suppose he wasn't intentionally lying to us. He knew we wouldn't go somewhere else. But did he really think a wheel would cost $50?

Oh well. A potentially catastrophic day turned out well, if a bit expensive. That night we camped in yet another city campground, this one in the middle of the UP State Fairgrounds in the heart of Escanaba. There was a hot-air balloon show going on, so the fairgrounds felt festive. Good showers. Total mileage for the day: About 60.
Next:

Green Bay Wildlife

This is a picture of a bald eagle, one of two that were flying around the De Pere fairgrounds, virtually in the middle of the Green Bay metropolitan area. Why were they there? No idea.

Days 1-3: Milwaukee to Marinette, WI

I started my part of the trip on a Sunday afternoon when I caught the fast ferry from Muskegon to Milwaukee. I was a little worried about how I was going to secure my loaded bike on board, but the ferry has hooks that swing out from the bulkheads and hold the top tube secure. Very easy and stable.

Jon met me at the Milwaukee ferry dock, and the ride began with the 11.7 miles to his house in Wauwatosa. I had fears of crashing or equipment failing on this first tiny leg of the trip, which would have been a bad omen indeed. But all went well. Jon's 16 year old son announced, "Here come a couple of losers" when we rode up. Maybe so, but we had made it 11.7 miles.

The trip began for real the next day. Again, I was hoping to avoid the aggravation and humiliation of crashing or breaking down two miles from home on the first day. We waddled out of town on bike paths and city streets, eventually finding our way onto county roads.

We spent the first night in the Long Lake campground of Kettle Moraine State Forest. Nice enough. It had a shower, lots of mosquitos, and a raccoon that was smarter than we were. When it finished eating our trail mix, I actually heard it belch.

The first day was OK. We took our time (too much, probably), didn't have a lot of hills or traffic, and made it to a campground with time left in the day. Dinner of leftover chicken that Jon had carried in his insulated bag.



The next day was hillier and longer. Again riding on county and local roads (especially Irish Rd, which took us many miles), we rode through various small Wisconsin communities that I had never heard of, buying orange juice at BP stations the whole way. (Half the gas stations in the midwest are BPs, it seems.)

Eventually, we found ourselves on the Fox Valley Trail, a converted rail bed. Very nice hard pack. Clay-like more than gravel-like. We ended up riding about 25 miles on that trail, all the way into De Pere (just south of Green Bay).

That night was the first of several spent in campgrounds located in the middle of towns and cities. In De Pere it was the county fairground campground, right on the Fox River. Very nice, even though it was just a big grass space with picnic tables, water spigots, and electric boxes. It had a shower and, across the street, a (you guessed it) BP station. Lots of traffic noise, but with my ear plugs for sleeping I heard not a thing.

The next day, our third full day, we spent a good deal of time trying to get out of Green Bay. After winding around on city streets on the northwest side of town, we made it onto the county road along the coast. By the end of the day, we had made our way halfway up Green Bay (the body of water) to Marinette, where we stayed in a town park campground. Also quite nice, except for the locals shooting fireworks at us. The worst ride of the day was to the grocery store along US 41. Not worth the beans and franks we bought there.

This night was our last in Wisconsin.
Next:

Trip Equipment

I was vacillating before the trip whether to go with my dream, namely baskets on the front and back to carry all my gear, or knuckle under to stodgy tradition and use panniers. Stodge won, partly. I pulled off the front basket and installed the low-rider front rack and panniers, the quite large panniers which probably held more than the basket would have, anyway. I already owned the rack and bags, so it didn't require an extra purchase, which would have been unacceptable, considering all the other crap I bought for the trip.

First (for those who care about such things), the bike: I bought this Trek 620 in 1984. At the time, it was Trek's second-best touring bike, the best being the near-legendary 720, with its super-long wheel base. It has 531 double-butted tubing (lugged, of course) with quite-long chainstays, Huret derailers (which work fine, despite all the trash talk you read about them) . . . I can't remember what else was standard. Obviously, much of the bike is not original equipment. I retrofitted the wheels to 700C (Shimano 105 hubs, Velocity Synergy rims with asymmetrical rear rim), added Nitto Albatross bars (really nice for touring when set up with interrupter brake levers and taped forward curves), MKS touring pedals (no straps or clips), full fenders, Busch and Mueller light system, and a Brooks B.17 saddle. (Perhaps I'll discuss my saddle sores, perhaps not.) The gearing is particularly nice for touring. The small chainring is 24 teeth, and the large rear sprocket is 32 teeth--truly a LOW gear. I could ride up cliffs with this gear.

I added a front top rack fastened to the brake studs on the fork and the fork hole (for the "handlebar" bag), and also a low-rider pannier rack. The rear rack came with with the bike.

At first glance, the set-up seemed good. The front panniers held my sleeping bag and air mattress, miscellaneous personal items (towel, rain gear), cooking gear, and food (not much). The rear basket held my clothes in stuff sacks, my rack trunk turned sideways for loose items (tools, maps, toiletries) and things I wanted close to hand (plastic bags, spare parts), and my tent. Really, it all seemed quite wonderfully distributed.

But here's the problem: It wasn't stable. The front of the bike shimmied disconcertingly. I never thought I was going to crash as a result, and I didn't hesitate to go fast, but I held on tight. I think if I had carefully weighed and balanced the loads in the panniers I could have solved the shimmy, but it was easier just to keep going and hold on tight.

I think the front basket would have been better. For my next overnight trip, I'm going back to the front basket. I don't care that it looks dorky. I AM dorky, so my bike should be, too.

The back basket, with the heaviest load located right behind me but piled high, was great--it was so stable I didn't even know it was there. Much more stable than rear panniers.

In terms of gear, I had just about the right amount. I brought one pan too many, which I pitched at the Dreamland Motel, and I wished I had brought flip flops, a second cargo net, and padded biking shorts (although I don't think they would have helped my saddle sores--they never have in the past--but a change under my behind would have been nice).

The three-season down bag (with a supplemental sheet for warm weather--it was a fitted sheet because it's smaller and fits better inside a sleeping bag, and the elastic corners didn't bother me) was fine. Several nights I pulled the sleeping bag up around me and zipped it all the way up. Lovely.

The cat food can stove worked beautifully, as long as it wasn't windy. I made several dandy pots of cowboy coffee (recipe in a future post), and I even made good spaghetti sauce on it. Wind makes the stove unusable, I'm afraid. Still, for a trip like this that didn't depend on cooking every night, it was fine. And stoves don't get much smaller than a small can with holes punched in the sides. (More about it later, too.)

Jon brought a water bag, which was worth the extra bulk and weight. For future solo overnighters, I'll need to devise a way to store quantities of water. Perhaps a crushed gallon milk jug. They actually have multiple crushes and re-inflations in them before they crack, and they weigh almost nothing.

The spare tire was a life saver, as was the kevlar emergency spoke. The bike shop owner in Escanaba had never heard of such emergency spokes. I swear by them now. I need to get another one for my other bike. Because you don't even need to take the wheel off to install it, you can be back on the road in about 10 minutes after a broken spoke (once you learn how to use it. I actually had two emergency spokes and broke one as I was rigging it up the first time. More about emergency spokes in the future, too.)

The table cloth proved an unnecessary luxury. The coffee thermos was nice, but we probably could have lived without it, too. I brought an insulated bag (designed for soda cans), but I only used it to keep the cowboy coffee pot warm as the grounds settled. (This it did wonderfully, but it was more bulk than I needed. I'll look for a lighter alternative.)

My gear's total weight was between 35-40 pounds. I think I could get it down to 35 easily, maybe even a little less, and still have plenty of gear for a long trip.

Trip Report, The First

We did it! A couple of nearly-50s rode nearly 700 miles, our first big trip together since 1976. That's pretty good. Over the course of the next few (many) entries, I'll detail the trip. For now, just the snapshot.

Overall, the trip was a complete success, if there can be such a thing on a 10-day bike trip. I suppose finishing makes it successful. Or finishing and remaining friends. With no broken bones. Or rabies. (I hope. There's a raccoon story from early in the trip. Stay tuned.) Maybe it's having the fun-to-not-fun ratio be greater than 1.

The trip went from Milwaukee to Muskegon, MI, over the top of Lake Michigan. (Actually, it went from Muskegon to Muskegon, including a crossing of the lake by ferry, but we didn't actually ride it.)

We camped every night but one, we cooked some of our meals, but mostly ate at BP stations. (At least, that's how it seemed.) Our short day was 56 miles; our long day was 82 miles.

The weather was very nice: a few hot-ish days, a few headwind days, a little rain, but mostly sunny and cool with favorable winds.

We had a normal amount of equipment failure: Jon's back wheel started breaking spokes and needed to be replaced. The tire on my back wheel suffered sidewall failure (and would have burst if I hadn't caught it) and needed to be replaced with the spare I carried.

We had a few accidents. Actually, one real accident (I picked up a large stick in my front wheel, which caused my wheel to stop turning, with predictable results) and one near accident (Jon was nearly plowed into by an SUV soccer mom on a cell phone).

We had lots of nice flat riding near the lake, and several monster hills away from the lake, the worst of which was a steep two miles long.

We rode on county roads and state highways, busy and deserted, and bike trails, paved and not paved.

We stayed in campgrounds located in town parks and county fairgrounds, public state parks, and private campgrounds. Our favorites were the campgrounds in the middle of towns.

We met interesting people and saw places we had never seen before, or saw familiar places in a new way.

I'm glad I did it. I don't think I'll be taking another such long trip anytime soon, but it did open up possibilities for short trips of one or two nights, which I might have been reluctant to do by myself. Now, there's enough about the bike touring experience that I like that it might be fun to do it in short installments, pending that ultimate trip . . . around the world. More later.

Fat? Forget Exercise

Trust me: The secret to losing weight is eating less. You can bike relatively hard for two hours every day and not lose an ounce if you compensate for the extra exertion by eating more. I am the living proof of it.

I see people laboring by on their 30-minute jogs, thinking they're going to lose weight as a result.

They aren't.

Hey, people: You want to lose weight? Eat less. And I don't mean diet. I mean EAT LESS ALWAYS. Don't eat lunch, or at least not more than an apple. Don't take a large portion at dinner, and certainly don't take seconds. Do have a little Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heathbar Crunch every night--BUT NOT THE WHOLE PINT, YOU KNUCKLEHEAD!

And forget the once a day, 30-minute jog. It'll just wreck your knees. Walk more, eat less, jog not at all. You'll be thinner, healthier, and happier.

Now if I could practice what I preach. Actually, I do, right up until evening, when I start snacking, and then I snack all night. And I mean all night. I don't sleep. All I do is snack, dusk to dawn. Cases of Fritos. Dozens of Krispy Kremes. Gallons of ice cream.

At least that's how it seems.

Riding Suits

I wonder if people who wear matching biking outfits (stretchy tops and bottoms with bright colors and a snappy tour-de-france look) also wear matching baseball uniforms (say, pretend NY Yankees outfits) when they play softball. Everybody wears the biking suits, so no one notices how silly they look.

Baskets, Again

Although I took several rides with the front baskets fully loaded (tent, sleeping bag, air mattress), and it wasn't too bad, I decided to put the front racks and panniers on. I already own them, the bike is designed to take front racks, the panniers are huge, and it will probably will handle better with the center of gravity near the axle. Plus, the front top rack was jury rigged a bit to support the weight of the baskets, and that seems like a bad idea. And I found that I never used the front basket in daily life. I'll still use the rear basket for the trip (although with the huge front panniers, there's not much to put in it).

The Tour Approaches

The planning proceeds for our Lake Michigan circumnavigation (or partial circumnavigation, since we'll be skipping the lake south of Muskegon and Milwaukee, also known as Chicago. I have ferry reservations for June 22, and away we go!

I have yet to load everything onto my bike and give it a test ride. I am still hoping to use baskets . . . insane perhaps, but I like the idea. I rode home today with two gallons of milk in my front basket, for a total weight of 16 pounds (which is more than I propose to carry, and it was 16 sloshy pounds). It was odd, but not impossible. Not even unpleasant, really. The turning was very slow, but very stable. Would it have felt much better with the load down eight inches? I don't know. It would have been forward a few inches, also, which I think is at least as bad as being high.

Given a choice, I would rather have a load that has a high but narrow center of gravity than one that has a low but wide (far forward and backward) one. I never liked the whippiness of rear panniers. I don't know about front ones because I never used them.

Well, I'll just need to load the bike up and take it for a spin to see how I like it. Perhaps I can then try it with low front panniers, too. Or not.

Bike Lanes

Boy, did John Schubert get it wrong in his recent editorial column in Adventure Cyclist Magazine. He argued, in essence, that bike lanes are dangerous because they put bicyclists in motorists' blind spots at intersections. He advocates pulling out into traffic at intersections to avoid being turned into. (In itself not a bad idea.)

But the underlying implication of his article was that bike lanes are bad for biking and bike commuting. I suppose his point was that ultimately bikes are legitimate vehicular traffic, too, with all the rights vested in vehicular traffic by the highway gods.

Hey! Give me one of them dangerous bike lanes ANY DAY! Bikes are not cars and they have no place in the traffic lanes of, say, Grand River Avenue (the only road I can ride on to get to work). Don't get me wrong: I do have a right to ride on Grand River Avenue (curbs, four lanes, heavy traffic moving 50 mph), but I'd be insane to exercise it.

Without bike lanes, I ride on the sidewalk. How safe does John Schubert think that is? Yikes. Talk about being invisible to turning cars. With bike lanes, I ride on the side of Grand River Avenue, no one honks, no one gives me the finger. At intersections, I'M CAREFUL. And that's the simple solution to John Schubert's perceived hazard. Be careful at intersections. Use a mirror and look to see if a car is about to cut you off. Don't trust green lights. Etc.

But please, give me bike lanes!

Wait. Hold the phone. Here's a wrinkle. In winter, when I'm riding on snow and ice, I like being on sidewalks, away from cars. That way, when I fall, it's not under the wheels of an SUV. (My worst fall this winter saw me go down on ice and then slide on my stomach in the direction of Dodge Durango's undercarriage. Luckily, the Durango was still creeping at a light, and I wasn't going fast when I fell.)

Before I started commuting all winter, I thought bike lanes were the solution because they get plowed with the rest of the road, whereas sidewalks only get sort of plowed and shoveled. But now I realize that it's much better to ride through several inches of snow, or glare ice, or icy ruts on a sidewalk, away from traffic, than to ride next to traffic on a plowed but still slippery road. So I probably wouldn't use bike lanes in winter anyway. But they're nice in spring summer fall.

Bikes For Congo

As I was working on resurrecting the Fuji from scrap parts, I was watching Bill Moyers on PBS. He was doing a show about food aid for Congo. It seems that the best way to transport tons of relief food into the inner parts of the country is by bicycle. There aren't enough trucks, they aren't reliable, and there are lots of people with bicycles willing to ride the food aid (seven TONS of it on 70 bicycles--hm, is that possible? That's 200 lbs per bike. Perhaps making multiple trips?)

Anyway, they use bicycles to deliver humanitarian aid. So there I was with a wreck of a bike, patching it together so that it could be ridden again, and I thought, there should be a way to get other junker bicycles to countries like Congo, where they are needed.

Every large university in the country has hundreds of abandoned bikes, many of which they almost give away. It doesn't take that much to get those bikes rideable. They might not have 27 gears and the wheels might be a little out of true, but really, a single speed with working brakes and a sturdy frame would be put to good use in a place where they're needed.

I should start a "Bikes for Peace and Prosperity" foundation. Encourage bike riding in the U.S. to reduce our insane use of oil, and get bikes to countries like the Congo. Probably not going to happen. Still, it's a pretty good idea. Maybe when I'm fired from my job.

In any case, when I'm feeling like a nut case for obsessing about bikes and bike riding, a story like the Congo one reminds me that there's something fundamentally right about bike riding. Although most of us ride for light recreation or exercise, and so never completely grasp it, being able to propel ourselves at 15 mph, even carrying a 50 lb load, really is a marvel.

The Fuji Lives!

I was feeling grumpy this evening. Didn't want to do anything but nap or watch my email, hoping someone would send me something. (Constantly hitting "Check Mail". Sad.)

But then I remembered that my son needs a bike to ride, so I dragged out the Fuji frame and my old Trek wheels (27"), checked to make sure the 27" wheels would fit the frame that originally had 700c wheels (they did), and I got to work.

I had removed all the old cables, the rear derailer, and all the brake levers and shifters when I decommissioned the Fuji. But I still had the old handlebars from the slush mobile, complete with brake levers, shifters, and cables. I also still had the derailer (a late addition Shimano 105, put on when the original one--hardly a Shimano--broke off).

So I put the derailer on, reconnected the chain (after several tries in which it got routed wrong—damn! I wish I were more careful!), fished out pieces of cable housing that fit the job, ran the cables and got it working. (I had to jury rig a bit, but not too much.)

I was impressed with how bad the old wheels and freewheel are. The freewheel wouldn't even turn, and the wheels are not exactly silent. I guess it was time to replace them when I did.

But it seems to be put together. I need to take it for its maiden voyage and load it up with reflectors, since my son will occasionally ride it at night (without a light, of course). He's 16, so I can't expect him to be too careful. Perhaps I'll get a blinky light for the seat post. Maybe he'd humor me by turning it on when he rides at night.

So even though my wife thought I was nuts for not throwing out the Fuji, I knew better. Old bikes never die. They just get put back together with scrap parts.

Today I (ugh!) Drove

Forgot to set my alarm this morning. Normally not a big deal, since most days I have some buffer time built in to my schedule—I usually get to my office several hours before I teach. But on Fridays, I teach at 8:00 am. My inner alarm went off at 7:15. It's a 30-minute ride. It took me 10 minutes to do the math, and by then it was too late: I'd never make it by bike.

I have ridden in such wretched conditions this winter that I no longer look for excuses not to ride. It was raining this morning, but that never entered into the debate. Rain? Big deal. Put on the rain gear, hop on the slush mobile, and away! But I couldn't defy the laws of physics and make time stand still. I had to drive. I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have enjoyed the ride. Even in the rain.

Frogs

Here's a small, but not insignificant, benefit of commuting by bike:

Today I heard the first spring peepers of the season. I was surprised to hear them. It's been a hard winter, with no real spring weather so far. We had a measurable snow fall just a few days ago, and the temperature still goes down into the low 20s at night.

Still, there they were, somewhere in the marsh: tiny little chirping frogs proclaiming the spring that must surely be on its way.

In my car I never would have heard them. I'd still be thinking winter will never end.

Smelly Sunscreen

Why, I asks, do they put fragrance in sunscreen? Who could think that's a good idea? Smear it on your face, under your nose, and smell flowery stink the rest of the day. Wonderful.

Poll

While I'm taking polls, there's a real poll (well, sort of real) at the bottom of the page (way down there). Go take it. Let me know you're out there. Free tickets to Cedar Point.

The Urban Biker

I'm taking a poll here: Who thinks I should invite our friend Chris (well, my friend; Jon's brother-in-law) to contribute to the blog? Chris would add the unique perspective of the New York City biker, and not a neoprene clad carbon frame ride the palisades on Saturday. No no, Chris rides his vintage Raleigh with its cottered cranks (ick!) to and from his studio and downtown. (He lives on the upper west side.) Right in the street, down the avenues, dodging car doors, lunatic taxis, and out of control bike messengers. He's even gotten a ticket for riding on the sidewalk. Used to ride a girl's bike, until it got stolen.

Fatties

Why is it that there are so many fattish people in pictures of hobby bikers and touring bikers? Perhaps because we think that exercise is a substitute for eating less, which it isn't. Biking isn't even that much exercise, unless you average 35 mph or so.

I've certainly fallen into that trap: I ride 40 miles then stuff my face because I figure I've burned off more calories than I'm consuming. There's a reason I didn't lose any weight last summer, despite riding 200 miles per week. I told myself it was because I was gaining so many nice dense muscles. Wrong, said my doctor.

As usual, I was eating too much. Gotta stop that. Note to Jon: We're eating nothing but celery on our bike trip this summer.

Guest Blog by Jon

Well, this is the aforementioned Jon again. I see Bruce has been talking about me. That's OK. I crave fame.

Took my bike out yesterday and rode for the first time in two months. It had been warm the day before, so I expected warmth again. But this is Wisconsin, and it was probably about 20 degrees, with a sharp little wind. I made it to work, felt good, then came out at midnight to ride home -- and it was sleeting. This is Wisconsin, as I say. Damn the luck. I had my wind pants and raincoat, so I got home without much injury, except to my humor.

I had put little generator light on the bike, but the @#$#@! thing only flickered weakly. The sidewalls of my tire are smooth and I think the little generator top didn't turn very well. So today I'll tinker with it. You know, for me, riding in bad weather is one thing, but when the friggin' equipment doesn't work, that really pisses me off.

See you again!

My Safety Experiment

So I took the Trek out for a 20-mile night ride on Saturday. With my nice lights and reflectors, I felt pretty safe. But I tried one extra thing that could revolutionize safe riding in traffic:

I bought a driveway marker, a large red reflector on a thin fiberglass pole, and fastened it to my back basket. But to enhance safety, I had the reflector stick out straight to the left three feet, or about six inches beyond my handlebars. (I trimmed it so that the rod didn't stick out to the right.)

Here's my thinking. Cars think that they and you can fit in a lane if there's oncoming traffic. But if there's something sticking out into "their" space, they'll be skittish about trying to squeeze by. Also, because it looks so bizarre, they'll attend extra well as they go by. Also, because the rider is clearly a dork and a weirdo, they don't trust him not to do something wacky like swerve far to the left. So it's three psychological safety phenomena in one. Finally, for night riding it must be helpful to have a large round reflector sticking far out to one side (in addition to a taillight in the normal place). That should get drivers' attention.

Cars did seem to be passing me nice and wide, or waiting to pass with oncoming traffic or blind curves.

The problem is, it's just SO dorky. What price safety? Perhaps on tour I'll use it, when I'm already looking odd.

Helmets

Here's one that I never thought I'd agree with:

Perhaps the need for bike helmets is bogus. (You'll never convince me that there's no need for motorcycle helmets, so don't bother trying.)

I've been reading various articles on bicycle helmets, and several things caught my attention.

1. After crashes involving head impacts, when bike helmets are inspected, often (almost always?) the foam in the helmet is not compressed, even though that's how helmets are supposed to protect heads. That means that the skull was compressed, instead. And children's skulls are softer, and thus more compressible, than adult ones. That's not to say that I wouldn't prefer to slam my head into a hard piece of foam rather than a hard piece of concrete. There's incompressible and incompressible.

2. The statistics for head injuries by bicyclists are no worse than those for pedestrians. So why don't we wear helmets while we walk? (And mirrors: I've often been tempted to hook my mirror to my cap visor when I walk. My wife won't let me.)

And then I started thinking about all the falls I've had in 40 years of biking. In all that time, with easily a dozen falls in which I ended up sprawled on the ground, I have never once, not a single time, hit my head, whether it was in a helmet or not. That includes all the times I've gone over my handlebars or wiped out on ice. The only time my helmet has suffered an impact was when the car stopped in it after I fell. (The helmet was tied to my panniers.)

And, of course, there's the issue of the goofy aero helmets that don't protect the back of the head. Why is that desirable? And the issue of people who wear their helmets incorrectly (which is, like, everybody).

Am I going to stop wearing a helmet? I guess not, although, really, when you're riding a fully loaded touring bike going 12 mph, what are the chances of a head injury? But I am going to stop worrying about my 16 year old son who doesn't wear one.

Anybody There?

Jon, are you out there? If so, send me an email.

Anybody else out there? If so, make a donation to The Central Asia Institute in my name (Bruce).

Getting Old

I've been visiting randonneuring sites, reading narratives by participants in the extreme events (you know: 10,000K in 24 hours), and feeling old. Some of their exploits are truly heroic.

Now that I'm old, I've slowed down and lowered my sights. I take it easy, enjoy the scenery, smell the flowers, never race. Now, if I'm going more than 200 miles in a day, I try not to average more than 25 mph, in part by using my 52/17 granny gear even when I don't really feel like babying myself.

Here in Michigan, we have lots of hills that are 10 miles (or more!) of 40% or so grade. Used to be, I'd stay in my 60/11 cruising gear and just power up. No more. Of course, on the downhills, I still hate to use my brakes, so I sometimes get going 70-80 mph. Don't tell my wife! ; )

Gone are the days when I could average 35 mph over a 350 mile stretch. No more racing (good naturedly, of course) with my pals, when we'd go 50 mph for 10 miles before collapsing with a chuckle and some good natured ribbing for the loser. (Of course, that was at the end of a long 500 mile day. When we were just doing sprints on a Saturday, we'd have some serious velocity.)

At the beginning of one of our big rides, I used to have for breakfast two pounds bacon, three dozen eggs, one coffee cake, and then I'd have something really awful: four kippered herring on a waffle. . . .

Now, I need to watch my waistline and try to keep my blood pressure from creeping above 80 over 30.

Growing old is hell.

Do I Need Therapy?

I won't quote all parties involved in the conversation at the dinner table last night, but the basic core of the discussion was that perhaps my obsession with bikes is a bit . . . unhealthy. No threats of divorce, no pleas to "get help", no tears, but still, the question of my aberrant bikeophilia was raised.

I labored mightily to find equivalent obsessive behavior in my wife, but it was a losing battle. She gently pointed out that two out of three of my sentences have the word "bike" in them, all day long, dawn to dusk. I spend an inordinate amount of time tinkering with my bikes. Now that Jon and I are planning a trip, I get to spend even more time studying maps, figuring out optimal routes. And let's not even mention all the online orders for bike stuff I place. (I just got a new stem from Rivendell; it really helps the slush mobile. More later.)

My argument was that lots of people have hobbies. My wife kept getting back to the 2-out-of-3 statistic. It's not a mere hobby if you can't stop talking about it. EVER. I believe the clinical term is "addiction". Maybe that's reserved for substance abuse. No, you can be a sex addict, too. I suppose over-eating can be a kind of addiction.

OK. It's an addiction. My name is Bruce and I'm a bikeaholic.

But is that so bad? I wake up in the morning, stumble out of bed, and think, well, what do I have to look forward to today? The answer ALWAYS is bikes. I can have a miserable day ahead of me at work, too much to do, too many unpleasant people to deal with, but I know I can always escape to my "special bike place." I can be fretting about my own mortality, conjuring up psychosomatic illnesses (I've had some doozies), worrying about my kids, but I know that I can calm myself by visiting rivbike.com, or installing a new basket on my bike, or spending a few minutes poring over a map.

Escapism? Sure. But the beauty of it is that I love riding bikes. So I may be obsessive, but I'm also healthy. And it's probably unhealthy--mentally--to want to ride 30 miles a day in summer, but it's got to be healthy, physically. (My wife thinks it's unhealthy to the point of insane to want to ride from Lansing to Empire--240 miles or so--in 24 hours. I say it's my Paris-Brest-Paris equivalent, give or take a few hundred miles. I have good lights. I figure traffic will be light at 3:00 am, so I can ride on more direct roads. I'll do a few more centuries first, in preparation.)

But all you need to do is roam the internet a bit, read some bike discussion boards, visit the web sites of randonneuring groups, to realize that there are lots of us nuts out there, some even nuttier--much much nuttier--than I am. Although I obsess about bikes, I don't get into online arguments about which derailer is better, nor do I irrationally take the reflectors off my pedals to save weight (at least, not since I was 16), nor do I have the desire to own every bike ever made. (Well, I may have the desire, but I'm able to resist the urge.)

And talk about unhealthy obsessions: How about all those summers I spent looking at the sky, looking at the trees, wondering when the wind would be perfect for windsurfing? Do I go now? Or wait? How long? What happens if the wind is perfect now and I don't go? How will I live with myself for making the wrong decision? Now, I get up, I schedule the day's ride, and go about my business. (I windsurf, too, but I don't obsess quite so much about it.)

But still, why the bike thing? What is it about a beautiful bike that turns me on so? Why does the thought of spending the day sweating away in the hot sun to go exactly nowhere (in the end) excite me?

The fact that bikes can make me so happy just means that I'm an unhappy person, I guess.

Hybrid Shmybrid

The White Pine Trail (now the "Fred Meijer White Pine Trail") literature describes it as being perfect for "hybrid" bikes.

What do they mean by that? Simply that tires should be at least 35mm? Surely it doesn't matter what kind of handlebars you have. On a converted rail bed, it doesn't even matter what gears you have, since it's all flat.

So why not just say "35mm or wider tires"? Why the "hybrid" label (which makes people with non-"hybrids" feel like they can't ride it)? Because we love labels, and because we deal in extremes. "Road" bikes have teeny tiny skinny little 21mm tires, and "mountain" bikes have big fat knobby 50mm tires. Therefore, a bike with 35mm tires must be called something else. Hence the term "hybrid". OK, a hybrid has 700c wheels. (Unless it has 650B wheels, which most--other than Rivendell's--don't.)

It makes "hybrids" seem like oddball bikes, not quite this and not quite that, unable to make up their minds what they're good for. Bikes for amateurs.

But if you hang out around Grant Peterson (or his site or catalogs) long enough, you realize that a bike that can only take 21 or 23mm tires is ridiculous. A decent, useful bike should be able to take 35mm tires, as all hybrids do.

But doesn't hybrid also mean not-quite-straight handlebars? Well, sure, but any bike can have any handlebars, so that's a largely meaningless distinction. A bike is a frame and components. The components are completely interchangeable. (Well, mostly interchangeable, depending on how the frame is set up and what braze-ons it has.)

What else does hybrid mean? Maybe a slightly longer frame, or maybe not. It's never discussed as a feature (even though longer frames are more comfortable to ride). Probably nice low gears, but all bikes should have nice low gears. That's swap-outable, too.

It should be easy to turn any bike into a "hybrid" by putting on 35 or 37mm tires and upright handlebars, perhaps a 24 tooth small chain wheel. Put on 28mm tires and drop bars, and it becomes a "road" bike. Of course, there's no reason not to have drop bars on a hybrid. (Or, to be complete, upright bars on a "road" bike.)

But I get annoyed by labels. Either your frame will take 35mm tires or it won't. Either it has beefy tubes, or it doesn't. Either it has long chain stays, or it doesn't. Either it's big enough (allowing sanely high handlebars), or it isn't. Seems like those are the differences, the unchangeables, in a bike. Everything else is details.

OK, OK. Overall frame geometry differs, but that's not necessarily a hybrid vs. road thing. The package of components on a "hybrid" is usually pretty useful. So the idea is right: a bike that is comfortable to ride and usable under a variety of conditions. I have trouble with that being considered the exception, a "hybrid" of two "real" bikes that are, in fact, of only limited usefulness.

Enough. No one cared in the first place. But my next bike is going to be a mixte (low top bar) with Albatross (swept back upright) bars and 37mm tires. Hybrid? Hoo-boy, you betcha.

More About Sidewalks

Fairly unpleasant ride in the cold rain today. Not miserable, just unpleasant. Actually, more uncomfortable than unpleasant.

The thing about riding on sidewalks is that it's fun. It's like being a kid again, going on "bike rides". When I was ten or so, my parents said I could ride anywhere within an area of about four square miles: Stadium Blvd (on the west) to Liberty St (on the north) to Main St (on the east) to Stadium Blvd (which curved around to the south). We'd pack a lunch and set out, exploring every neighborhood, every street, every parking lot, every park, riding the whole time on the sidewalks. Those bike rides are among my fondest childhood memories. With whom did I ride? I don't quite remember. There are several possibilities. Not Jon.

Anyway, riding on the sidewalk is fun. It's like trail riding. Add a little snow and ice, and it's downright exciting. Road riding is more proper, more vehicular, but it's a little more boring.

When I first started commuting by bike (ten years ago?), riding on the sidewalk was what made me want to do it every day. It didn't feel like work (mostly).

I took an alternate route for part of today's ride, one that took me on the (wide) shoulder of a very busy two-lane highway. It was not fun. The road was smoother, and I was able to keep up a nice steady pedal cadence, but it felt a little hectic and, well, dangerous.

I rode the sidwalk home.

Jon vs. The Law

In the last post I accused Jon of conscientiously obeying traffic laws. Perhaps he does, now that he's pushing 50. But I remember a time in southern California when he not only flouted traffic laws, but boasted about it to the police.

We were on the last day of our West Coast ride, riding from Newport Beach to San Diego. A long day, but doable after a month on the road. In fact, we were without our packs because of a little interruption that involved Jon being sliced open and taken to the hospital. My parents came and got us and our packs, but left our bikes locked up at the hospital. So on this last day, we were driven back to the hospital for our bikes, and we set off.

Parenthetically, I still remember how much harder the bikes were to ride without their packs. I think we expected to be able to average 25 mph, so we rode fast fast fast, much faster than we would have tried to do with 50 lbs of panniers on the back. As a result, we burned out fairly early on the ride.

Also parenthetically, that day involved riding across Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. That was an interesting experience.

Anyway, there we were, humming along south of L.A. when we got to a red light that we didn't like. So we ran it. Blatantly, willfully, defiantly.

When the police car pulled us over, we had this conversation:

"Where you boys coming from?"
"Seattle." Did he believe us? Without packs? But we must have looked pretty road seasoned by then, so perhaps he did buy it.
"Did you run red lights the whole way?"
And this is where Jon's charm and honesty shone through: "Yes, when there was no one coming."

I could have killed him.

Sometimes honesty is the best policy. The answer seemed to stump the policeman. He was briefly silent, and finally said, "Well, you'd better not do it around here any more."

And away we went.

Sidewalks?

Here's an interesting question, one that I think Jon and I have argued about:

Is it OK for me to ride on the sidewalk on my way to work? The only convenient route is a four-lane state highway with heavy car traffic going 45 mph. Curbs? You betcha! No shoulder, no way. Because of a river that winds its way to campus, there are few roads to choose from that cross the river and head west. Basically, it's M-43 or another four-lane road with curbs and no shoulder.

I see that in Wisconsin (or at least Milwaukee), it's ILLEGAL for adults to ride on the sidewalk. So I would just boldly ride out into traffic and smile at the honks. Yikes.

It is true that riding on the sidewalk is dangerous due to cars cutting you off, and in winter the sidewalks are sometimes nearly impassible. But still. Compete with cars going 45? At night? Even with lots of lights?

I'd be perfectly willing to obey all traffic laws and stop at all traffic signals if I thought I would be accepted on M-43, but I know I wouldn't be. Would I? I should convene a traffic forum just to find out if I would be run off the road, cursed at, threatened, or otherwise made unhappy.

I don't know if Jon and I have argued about this. He lives in Wisconsin and probably very conscientiously follows the traffic laws. I don't disagree that I "should" ride in the street, and if there were a state law that required it (and if cars knew about it), I'd be happy to. I'd be even happier if the idiot county road commission would put in bike lanes when they do a major resurfacing, which they did about ten years ago. (But no bike lanes.)

For now, I'm going to ride on the sidewalk.

From The Give Me A Break Dept.

While visiting a bike discussion group somewhere, I ran across a thread dealing with the Huret Alvit derailer (to use Sheldon Brown's spelling), in which it was universally agreed that it's a piece of junk and of course it should be replaced. One poster went so far as to say that the Huret Alvit shifted so badly that it caused him to give up biking for ten years. Gosh.

The discussion was of interest to me because my Trek 620 has an Alvit rear derailer. Guess what? It works fine, friction shifting and all. It never occurred to me that one derailer was so much better than another that anyone would bother to notice. I've used Simplexes, I've used Shimanos, I've used the Alvit. They work fine. I mean, if the chain moves from gear to gear, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing in between working and not working. So maybe I need to tweak the shifters a little more. So maybe the chain takes a little longer to get from one gear to another. Big deal.

When I'm riding in the Tour de France, I'm sure I'll care, as I'm powering up les Pyrénées, that I can't shift as quickly from my 3-tooth cog to my 4-tooth cog; but for powering up les Hills de Michigan, I don't care.

Guest Blog by Jon

Well, this is the aforementioned Jon, debuting on Bruce's blog. I started riding with Bruce in high school, did the West Coast with him, and many long crazy rides across southern Michigan. You'll find me less of a bike theorist than Bruce, less into innovation and bike experimentation, and, perhaps, less hardy.

Where I'm at bikewise: I've been riding steadily all these years, mostly the 5.5 miles to work and back, even occasionally into the winter, but when the roads get bad, my gumption generally declines and I settle into a winter torpor that has me driving to work and just trying to get by. I had a bad bout of sciatica about two years a year ago, spent a month on the floor, saw many a doctor, and finally got some relief with physical therapy. The woman I worked with said I should get a bike with shocks and a more upright profile than my old Trek roadbike. I resisted this, my image of myself as a biker defined by a sleek, z-shaped riding posture, even if I never would be Lance Armstrong. I tried the old bike, raised the handlebars, even added an extra stem segment, but felt a suspicious little crick in the back that I didn't like. So finally I went and found a Trek hybrid, I think it's a 7300, in a big, 25 inch frame (I'm 6-2, longlegged), that I could live with, and I've been riding it and enjoying ever since.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO FAST, this is the thing I tell myself.

So I bought the bike on March 23 last year, put almost 3,200 miles on it since then, aiming for 4,000 by the 1-year anniversary. But we've had 80 inches of snow, temperatures steady in the single digits, and a couple of miserable rides home -- my chain froze a couple times, I felt nearly nauseous with cold a few times, and of course I fell hard more than once -- made it clear to me that 4,000 is out of reach.

Still, I had some transcendent rides in December and January. I work 4 to midnight, and there's nothing like coming home through the Menomonee River Valley on Canal Street, nobody out but me, fog pooling in the river cut, the world utterly different, a planet like Venus. One night wrapped in thoughts I came upon a place I didn't recognize -- big iron beams curving out of a gray soupy sky like 8-story mantis legs. I was frightened and had to stop and think. It was the stadium, its roof looming high, the lower portion barely visible. I rode through the parking lot and a different route home, grateful for such a moment.

For the time being, I'm content riding an exerbike, with my real bike in the basement, where I happily fuss with the lights and attachments. Every sunny day, every inch of snowmelt brings me closer, though, calling me back to the streets.

Today's Ride, February 26

Pretty nice snowy ride today on the slush mobile. Two or three inches of snow had fallen (and continued to fall), but the sidewalks (on which I mostly ride) hadn't been crudded up with plow excrement, and there weren't even too many footprints. Not at all unpleasant.

Even when the car went through the pothole and drenched me with muddy, salty, black water, well, it was just part of the winter biking experience. Not my first choice of things to have happen, but it didn't kill me or even make me particularly uncomfortable.

The goggles make riding in the cold and snow possible. (So, for example, the waterfall covered my goggles but not my eyes.) Get some.

And I maintain, I strongly maintain, that it's worth tinkering with a commuting bike, even an old beater of a slush mobile, to make it more fun to ride, because fun is what it's all about. Commuting by car may be comfortable, but it's not fun. Commuting by bike may be uncomfortable, but it's fun. I prefer that.

The Technomic stem is just too long (forward sticking). My back has started to hurt from all the leaning over. Time to get a shorter stem, I guess.