Mackinac Island

We just got back from Mackinac Island, where we spent the night at the Grand Hotel (at a seriously discounted rate). The hotel was fun (although my dinner was awful), and biking around the island was fun, even though it was 43˚ and raining. Biking in the rain is better than not biking at all.

But what I liked best was seeing all the working bikes on the island. All the locals ride big, sturdy bikes with front baskets and fenders, many with dyno hubs and lights, which they just leave lying around when they are not riding them (as opposed to locking them up like precious artifacts). We didn't have fenders, which, on a rainy day, was a mistake. Since the island is covered with big old working horses clip-clopping on every road, dropping their "exhaust" everywhere, when it rains, the roads are covered with eau de horse shit. By the end of our ride, we were thoroughly coated from butt to brain pan.

Interestingly (to me), it wasn't so much the absence of a front fender that mattered. Cindy had a front fender (although one that didn't reach down far enough), and her shoes and down tube were still coated. But no back fender? Bad idea. Ideally, we would have had front fenders that reached nearly to the road (as does the fender on my commuting Trek) and full back fenders. Think of the neatness.