Really?

I love/hate bike listserv discussion boards. It's such a pissing contest. Today someone said that he likes a certain handlebar for short rides . . . under 100 miles. Says he can ride in Carhartt shorts and boxers when doing 50 miles. But when doing 200 miles, well, that's different.

I could probably ride 200 miles, but it would count as epic/heroic/insane. My 132-mile day was very very long. Not insane, not heroic, a bit epic. But to go another 68 miles? I don't think so. And I'm fantastically fit (for an old guy).

So when these people casually say, "Yes, well (yawn) when I'm riding 200 miles I like to prepare a little better," I'm inclined not to believe them. I am compelled to believe them, because who could get away with such lies on a bicycle discussion board? But I'm inclined not to.

Quite frankly, when I go out for a 50-mile ride, I notice it. I can do it, and I do it often in summer. But I notice it.

Well. Humph. I guess the 200-mile guy wins the pissing contest.

Bike Trails, Good Business

I'm afraid I got in a bit of an argument in the barber shop about bike trails, specifically the new one that we have here in the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Paved, it runs through the woods from Empire to Glen Arbor. In its one of year of existence, it has been hugely popular.

As is inevitable with all good things, the trail has haters. Too many trees were cut down; the pristine wilderness was violated; the trail is too crowded with damn tourists. Cindy actually had a woman in the store argue that the trail killed too many bugs.

Anyway, this guy in the barbershop was complaining about the trail. "What a waste of money! Bikers never spend a penny in my store! What a boondoggle!" Since this was one of the dumbest things I've heard about the trail, coming from a business owner, especially, I defended the trail. I not very respectfully disagreed. I said that we get MANY bike riders in our store, many of whom say, "I never knew you were here!" They often come back and spend money. Do they spend it right then, on their bikes? Probably not that often (although earrings are pretty easy to carry on a bike). But thanks to the trail, they now know we're there. We know they come back after their bike ride.

This guy owns a sporting goods store, so he thinks that just because bike riders aren't buying fishing gear, they have no value for him. He doesn't realize that business is a multi-step process. Perhaps the most important step is simple awareness. That's what advertising is all about, after all.

I think of the High Line in Manhattan. I'm sure there were many people, business owners, even, who thought the High Line was an idiotic waste of money. "It's a walking path! How is that worth the millions we're spending on it?" The answer is that simple walking path draws, quite literally, millions of people to the lower west side of Manhattan, to an area that was a bit of a waste land. It is now a tourist hub. The Whitney Museum just opened down there. It is going from having a few hundred thousand visitors each year, to having millions. And it's all due to a simple walking path.

Bike trails work the same way. They are good business. Any businessman who doesn't get that can't be much of a businessman.

NEW New Touring Model

At the risk of repeating myself, I need to figure out a new model of touring by myself. I probably could have done the last "new" model (100 mile days, motels), but when push came to shove, when the pedals hit the metal, when the piper had to be paid, when it came time to shit or get off the pot, when . . . Well. It didn't happen.

So I slept out in my hammock last night, pretending that I was stealth camping. Actually quite pleasant. The 3/4-size air mattress was the perfect insulator. (All camping hammocks require insulation between your backside and the relatively cool air below; the traditional insulator is a car sunscreen, those foil lined fold-up covers you put on your dashboard to keep your car cool.) But the air mattress is nice because it can be used on the ground, when the hammock is used as a pup tent. 

Could I imagine actually stealth camping?

The funny thing is, I did it numerous times when I was a lad. Jon and I camped along the road on a trip from WI to MI, and another pal and I camped in various places on a trip to Maine, including in cemeteries (which are quite lovely places to pitch a tent). Even back then, I recognized how limiting it was to insist on camping in official campgrounds (or motels) when bike touring. Often, they simply don't exist.

I suspect that, mostly, people don't care when you stealth camp on public property. A few years ago, a group of Rivendell bike tourers were passing through Empire; they asked at the grocery store where they might spend the night, and they were told to just pitch their tents in Johnson's Park. I suspect no one even noticed they were there. (And if they had been questioned, they could have said, "Phil told us to camp here," and they would have been left alone.)

That's the only way to tour: camp in campgrounds when possible and convenient, motels when necessary and convenient, and otherwise stealth camp.

But can I do it by myself, or will I always talk myself out of it?

I'm glad no one other than Chester reads this. Who wants to read the obsessive musings of a self-flagellating failed bike tourist?

Letting Cars Pass

As a side note to my report of my aborted trans-Ontario trip (see previous post), I had a revelation during my inglorious ride home today. Namely, I value my safety too much to play road games with cars. So today, whenever a car came up behind me in a situation that prevented it from passing (oncoming traffic, hills, windy turns), I just pulled off the road and let it go by. Didn't cost me much time, it was safer than having a car on my tail, and it probably defused the driver's bad thoughts about bike riders.

So as I was planning my route, I picked a stretch that I knew to be just about the worst road and traffic in all of Michigan, if not the known universe. Heavy traffic, no shoulder, no room for a car to squeeze by. But since I only needed to ride about three miles on this road, and since there were no alternative routes if I was going to visit my childhood cottage, I just did it. I probably needed to get off the road ten times, but I didn't care. It allowed me to ride safely on an extremely dangerous road. Obviously, this would have been impossible without a mirror; but what moron rides on busy roads without a mirror?

Bike Trip Aborted

I'm supposed to be in St. Thomas, Ontario, tonight. Instead, I'm at home in Michigan. Why is that?

On Tuesday night, as I was putting the finishing touches on my preparations, getting ready to make a crack-of-dawn departure, I went to grab my passport. "Thank goodness I didn't forget THIS!" I says to myself.

Then I looked at the expiration date: March, 2015. Let's see. This is June, 2015, so March, 2015, was in the past. So my passport is expired.

Do they have 24-hour passport stores? They do not. I was not going to be crossing any international borders any time soon, and certainly not in two days.

I like to think I didn't intentionally try to sabotage my trip by forgetting to check my passport's currency. No, I'm pretty sure that's not what I intended. But that was the result.

So what now? I spent the rest of the evening, into the wee hours, putting together an alternate trip, one that took me to Buffalo via Ohio. I could catch a train in Buffalo, arrive NYC on the designated day. Google maps told me that it would be a 65-mile day, then four 95-mile days. Hm. Let's go!

But I didn't have good maps, which makes me uneasy. I used Adventure Cycling's new interactive map to give me a pretty good sense of their route from Toledo to Buffalo, but it would require me to use the iPad as my main source of route guidance. It works beautifully, but it's not the same thing as having a map in front of me all the time. Four 95 miles days would be doable.

So I left at noon and rode to my father's house in Ann Arbor. I even let him take me out to dinner as a special treat (for him, of course).

I did have the Adventure Cycling map for Ann Arbor to Toledo, and as I started adding up the miles, I realized that my first day was going to be well over 100 miles. And so would the other days, since Adventure Cycling rarely takes the most direct route. (Google maps, impressive as it is, doesn't really do a very good job picking bicycle routes.)

Suddenly it all seemed too much. I still needed to get to NYC, but perhaps biking wasn't the way. I checked plane tickets and found that I could fly for the price of my hotel rooms. I could still use my return plans (only they'd be easier because I wouldn't be schlepping a bike).

So I booked the flight, got up in Ann Arbor this morning, and rode back home. As consolation, the ride was lovely. I used some old favorite roads (Huron River Drive between Ann Arbor and Dexter was my first biking route when I was a kid, and it's still gorgeous.) I stopped in at the cottage on Portage Lake at which I spent all my childhood summers, I explored a completely new route that took me north to Fowlerville before turning west, and I rode on a fair number of quite nice dirt roads. So the return trip, 68 miles, was great.

But it's discouraging, bailing out on a planned trip, even one that was thrown together at midnight. Let's face it, it was cowardice, or lack of commitment or some other personality trait that I'm not proud of. I didn't think I could do it . . . no, that's not really true. I knew I could ride four 100+ mile days. But I suddenly didn't want to. I panicked.

And now I have doubts. Will I ever bike tour again? Perhaps there's no way for me to do it by myself, other than my "commuting" rides from mid- to northern-Michigan, which are actually quite fun. I suppose I could join an organized tour--Adventure Cycling has many--but that just doesn't sound fun.

Oh well. For those of you following this grand adventure, never mind. I'm going to power wash the garage, instead.