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.