Bike Dandies

I have been amused and a little disgusted by the debate taking place
on the Velo Orange Blog this week concerning, among other things,
fork shape and logos.

It's a special kind of man to fuss incessantly about what his bike
looks like. Most recently, someone has been grumping about the
presence of logos (and we're talking pale, barely noticeable etched
logos on handlebars), saying he prefers it when he can polish the
logos off his bike components. What kind of anal fussbudget is
willing to spend time polishing a logo off a pair of handlebars?
What, exactly is the point? Is he creating a work of art? Is he going
to hang it in a gallery?

The Velo-Orange guy (who is doing very nice things for artisanal bike
goods) is very concerned about the bend of the forks on the new bikes
his company is developing. That's legitimate; they're his creation,
and he should make them as nice as he wants, particularly if they
sell better when they're beautiful. OK, I'm good with fork bend, so
far. But for the bike dandies in the peanut gallery to start weighing
in is pathetic. What do they care what the fork bend looks like? All
they're doing is buying a bike to ride (supposedly, although I have
my doubts).

I'm about to put a second basket on my touring Trek. It looks silly,
and it makes the bike a bit heavier, but it's really handy. I picked
up packages at the post office today, and I was just barely able to
get them to fit under the cargo net in the back basket. A front basket
would have been nice. But it certainly wouldn't draw too many
admiring looks from the dandies who drool over bikes in Flickr.

And the fork! It's rusty and it doesn't match the frame! The bike
must be unrideable!

Actually, it rides fine. I couldn't ride for five miles no-handed
(OK, it's a bit shimmy-ish--I can hardly ride 100 feet no-handed),
but it works well for commuting and touring.

Enough.

On The First (And Probably Only) Century of the Season

Now that I have finished my mid-April 100 mile day, I can look back on the recent "companions wanted" posting in Adventure Cycling magazine, in which someone was looking for a companion on a trans-am ride, and laugh. He didn't have a lot of touring experience, he said, but he figured he could average 100 miles a day.

Ouch. I hope he doesn't have a job he needs to be back at after 40 days. Even though brevet riders go 180 or even 240 (how?) miles in one pop, let me just say that for this reasonably fit regular biker, 100 miles is a long way. The first 80 miles were OK. The last 20 were pretty bad. Not awful, but pretty bad.

I averaged 15.2 mph, which is pretty good. There were a few stretches of hilly country and headwind.

The good news is the equipment worked well. The Avocet plastic woman's touring saddle was quite comfortable the whole time. No bad butt boils. The handlebars were high enough and close enough. The fact that they were untaped was not a problem. In fact, I liked it. And, of course, the absences of click-in or toe-clipped pedals was not a problem. On the contrary; being able to move my feet around on the pedal is good for my knees, methinks.

I know I'll forget how unpleasant the final 20 miles were, and I'll probably want to do it again. It was fun covering a lot of ground today, from the Lansing area down to Stockbridge, over to Unadilla, down to Chelsea, over to Waterloo, up to Munith, down to Pleasant Lake, and finally up Meridian Rd to my home turf. Very pretty rides through the Pinkney and Waterloo recreation areas.

I only got honked at once (by a rich pig in a BMW, of course) and given the finger once (by a redneck in a Corvette). Mostly, the traffic was well behaved.

I didn't wear my penny loafers, but I bet they would have been more comfortable than the New Balance running shoes. Not horrible, but not great.

Aside from very sore buns, I am fully recovered, two hours after ending the ride.

Biking Penny Loafers

I have discovered the perfect biking shoe. I recently had my Rockport penny loafers resoled with nice rubbery Rockport soles, and to my delight I discovered that these newly renovated shoes are quite lovely for biking. The sole is stiffish but not too stiff; the rubbery sole grips the pedals nicely; the loafer design keeps my feet loose and comfy. And they're stylish.

I don't suppose I'd have the nerve to do real non-commuting biking in them. (They'd be hilarious as touring shoes; maybe I'd wear a bow tie, too.) But for commuting, they're lovely.

Hand Made Tires?

Velo Orange has started selling hand-made tires. At $65 each, these must be special tires.

So, why would someone spend $130 on a pair of tires just because they're hand made? I guess that's the answer. Just because they're hand made, they must be better. Anything for our precious bikes.

They say they roll so much smoother. Right. I'm sorry, but if these people actually rode their bikes, they'd stop noticing the smoother rolling after about five miles.

My $15 Kendas continue to satisfy me.

Toe Clips

For two years now, I have ridden without toe clips (or step-in pedals). I rode on a 700 mile loaded tour without toe clips last summer. It was fine.

At the time I gave them up, I was having knee pain. I have had none since. Cause and effect? Maybe.

In any case, I've had two strapless, unclipped years (six thousand miles, or so). My one complaint is that sometimes my foot slips on the pedal. Not a big deal, but for the sake of tinkering I decided to put the old strapless (plastic) toe clips on the commuting Trek. I figured, strapless clips, ugly though they may be, are a compromise. They keep the feet from sloshing around, but they don't lock them into any set position.

So here's what I've noticed in the week of semi-clipped in riding: It's ok. I think my pedal stroke is smoother, and I can pedal in a lower gear without fear of my feet flying off. Perhaps if I can remember to do that, I can avoid knee pain. There's no way that toe clips give a lot of power from pulling up on the up stroke. But the smoother spinning may make a difference. And it's nice to be able to adjust the pedals when stopped at a light.

So I'll leave them on for now. I may take them off later, particularly if my knees start hurting again.

UPDATE:
I was not liking the "toe clips" today, so I rode without them. I liked it better. My feet, legs, and knees are more relaxed, and I don't think the spinning is any worse. The only thing I don't like is not being able to adjust the pedals while standing at a stop light. Not a big problem. So I guess I'll take the "toe clips" off.

I do this once a season. Deep in my psyche is the conviction that a bike needs toe clips. I grew up with that idea. I've tried to convince many biking novices about the necessity of toe clips. So I put the clips (or the Power Grips) on, ride for a while, then get over it. They just aren't necessary.

Rainy Riding

I went to the opera tonight (a university production). Even though
the forecast was for rain, I went by bike (carrying the appropriate
rain gear).

Sure enough, at 11:00 I emerged from the opera to be greeted by cold, steady rain. Suit up! I cried.

Now, I frequently ride in the rain. Since I'm committed to commuting
by bike, and considering that I rode through snow and over ice all
winter, rain does not pose much of a challenge. But it's nice to stay
dry. And at night, it's nice to have my sidewall generator work. Both
have not always been true.

Here's what has always worked: My cheapie cheapie Nashbar plastic
raincoat (about $15). Pure, 100%, waterproof, unbreathable plastic.
But with the vents all down the sides, open waist, and (my
innovation) the elastic removed from the wrists to allow air flow up
the sleeves, the condensation inside is not bad. I was basically dry
tonight after riding five miles in steady rain. Sure, the velcro in
the front started to tear out a while back, but gray tape fixed that.

Here's what has never worked: Coated nylon rain pants. I have tried
several brands, and they all leave me wet. The current ones (J and G)
are pretty good, but I'm still wet when I arrive. Condensation?
Maybe. I have recently taken to rolling them up a little so that I
can leave the bottoms loose (rather than fastening the velcro straps
that seal the legs off). That seems to help a little. I was only a
little wet tonight.

Here's what is gradually getting better as I work on it: The
"waterproof" shoe covers from Campmor. The coated nylon may be
waterproof, but the seams certainly weren't. So I've been applying
seam sealer, and they're drier. One more coat should do it.

And what do I do about the helmet vents? Buy an expensive helmet
bonnet? Nope. A little gray tape works wonders. With the vents taped
shut, the helmet is warmer and totally waterproof. (Obviously, I
don't wear it for recreational biking in the summer.)

Now for the sidewall generator. For years I had the B and M generator
set high on the Panaracer Pasela, right on the edge of the tread.
(Paselas don't have a generator strip.) As soon as the tire got wet,
the generator skipped, so much that it was pretty much useless in the
rain. But with my new cheapie Kendas, which have a generator strip,
the generator gripped the tire the whole way home, almost never
skipping. Problem solved! I don't need to buy the wire roller.

To my colleagues who watched me head out into the rain, I must have
looked insane. It was 40 degrees, dark, raining, windy. But you know, once you commit yourself to it, and have adequate gear (I was thankful for
my gloves and hat), it's not so bad. My face got wet and a little
chilly, but not too bad. The rest of me was warm and relatively dry.
I wouldn't have been happy after 20 miles, probably. But I was fine
for five miles. And it was such a pleasure to have all the gear
working right. And, of course, it helps to have a bike that is fun to
ride. That's the real secret.

Misc

A blog that no one reads is also known as a "diary". I'm a modern Samuel Pepys. This will be a "primary source" for future historians researching biking in the early twenty-first century.

Hah.

A the risk of making my bike an utterly outrageous collection of bolted on doo-dads, I have ordered a set of Reelights, the battery-less blinkies that use induction created by magnets on the spokes passing a fixed magnet to light LED front and back lights.

I already have generator lights on the bike, so this will be a second set of lights. Probably ridiculous. But I like the idea of having always-on blinkies, day and night. I can't run the generator all the time. Tires would wear out faster, and the increased drag and steady (if soft) whirring would drive me crazy. So I'm going to put these Reelights on as the always on lights.

Although it's a new toy, so important for maintaining my good humor, I also like to think it's a good idea to have blinkies on during the day. Bike riders do get hit by cars; the more we can do to get their attention has to help. I'm not willing to install safety flags or giant warning triangles. (But perhaps I should.) But I'm going to try this.

More Tinkering

Not that anyone cares . . . This is like putting notes in a bottle
and throwing them into the sea.

Anyway. Not that anyone cares, but I decided I didn't like the bent
fork on the touring Trek. Even though I rode it 1700 miles last
summer with only minor (ok, fairly major) shimmying and instability,
and my feet hit the fender whenever I turned the wheel, and the lower
water bottle didn't fit in the holder any more, and the steering was
indexed (that is, it had a noticeable preference for straight ahead,
with a significant resistance to being turned off center). Hm. In
retrospect, those were pretty good reasons.
So I took the old fork off, which involved disassembling the front
end of the bike, taking off fenders, racks, lights, speedometers. I
had the old fork from the Gitane (which was itself a replacement, I
suspect for a curb-induced bending), so I put it on. Then all the
gear had to be put back on. Because the original Trek brakes were
cantis, I used the old Mafac Racers from the Gitane. They are
actually much better with fenders, and they do a dandy job of
stopping the bike, even with 35 year old pads. I should replace them.

I solved several niggling issues while I was at it. I fastened the
front rack lower, attached it directly to the front axle, and moved
the connection points closer to the front of the rack. I also moved
the front light down low, onto one of the rack stays. This gives a
better light pattern, and also prevents the front light from being
blocked when things are piled on the front rack (or in the front
basket, which isn't installed yet). (This problem has never occurred,
but it could have.) And the new-old fork has much more clearance for
fenders, so I was able to restore the front fender to one-piece and
mount it directly. A little metallic duct tape on the underside (and
brackets on the upper side) closed up the seam where I cut the fender
to fit over the fatter 35mm tires, with the old fork.

The big test came in how it rides. I'm happy to report that it's a
big improvement. The bike feels much more stable. Cornering is now
smooth, not jerky and scary.

Does anyone care? Will anyone read this?

No. And no.

Crank Talk

And I don't mean cranky talk. I was reading a discussion about what
people like and don't like about various cranks. That's right:
cranks. The things the pedals are fastened to. Now I have some
opinions about cranks (such as, I don't like cottered ones), but
mostly, I just want my cranks to connect the pedals with the chain,
spin freely, and not break. I'm not too worried about Q factor. I
don't care how shiny they are. I don't care how light they are. And I
don't care whether the crank arm swoops or goes straight.

People who do care aren't artistic bike savants. They're--ahem--
pathetic. Get a life!

I have my pathetic attitudes about other things. Perhaps the fact that
I don't care about cranks makes me pathetic. But seriously. Who cares
how lustrous a bike's cranks are? Do we polish our bikes every time
we take them out on a sunny Saturday? Maybe so.

Maybe that was cranky talk, after all.

The Touring Trek, Revealed

My 0 readers have been clamoring to see the latest incarnation of the touring Trek. All right. Your wait is over.

But first, to review the changes:

1. Extra long stem AND extra long stem raiser added.
2. Drop handlebars that are way above the level of the seat. Tilted abnormally far, so the drops point almost down. The brake levers are abnormally far around the curve, which leaves a single hand position on the drops, from which the brakes are easily accessible. The drops are high enough that they are completely comfortable for long stretches (but still low).
3. Thumb shifters put on the inside of the drops, just behind the brakes, which makes them completely accessible from the ramps. One advantage of this configuration is that they work in parallel: Up is easier for both, down is harder. They are also accessible from the drops. I got these for $.99 from Nashbar.
4. Interrupter brake levers on the tops.
5. Women's Avocet Touring saddle with a nice leather top. Wide and comfy for my fat ass. I got it for $10 on eBay.
6. Kenda 700x38 tires. They ride fine.

Here it is:

More on Rims and Tires

Well, maybe it isn't the rims. Maybe it was the tires. But a set of
Pasela 32s, 35s, AND Schwalbe Marathon 37s? They're all super loose;
the wire bead tires don't stay on the rims at all.

But now I put on these Kenda folding 38s, and they fit perfectly.
Will they be junk tires? I don't know. At $14 each, I'm willing to
take my chances.

But what's the deal with the other tires? Are the Kendas (and the
rims) extra small? Are all the other tires extra large? None of those
options seems very likely.

I'm happy to be able to try 38s on the touring bike. They fit under the fenders and within the stays and forks. They even have a generator strip! I like to have the touring Trek be different from the Rambouillet, tire-wise. I have a set of Pasela 32s that I'll put on the Rambouillet, so both bikes will be upgrading to fatter tires. The 32s, after all, are the same as the 1 1/4s that were the standard size on clincher tires for years and years. They should be nice on the Rambouillet.

Velocity Synergy Rim Problems

When I had Rich at Rivendell build me a set of 700C wheels for my touring Trek, he used Velocity Synergy Rims, with the asymmetrical rear holes to minimize tension disparities. Supposedly really nice rims.

But here's the problem: Most 700C tires don't fit. The first tires I installed were Panaracer Pasela folding 700x35, and although they seemed loose, they worked. But when I went to put on a set of Schwalbe Marathon 700x37 wire beads, they were so much too huge that they nearly fell off on their own. There was no way to get them to stay on the rims. Thinking it might be a bad pair of tires (what are the chances of that?), I tried some Panaracer Pasela non-folding 700x32s. Same problem. It really looks like the rims are simply the wrong size.

The photo above shows a distinct gap between the tire and the top edge of the rim flange. I am easily sticking a tire iron all the way through. I could install the tire with my elbows, or with my hands tied behind my back, just using my lips. I could take the tire off using only my left pinky. There's no way that tire can hold an inner tube under pressure. The tube just squirts out--explosively.

When I contacted Grant at Rivendell, he said he had never heard of this problem, thinking (I'm sure) that I just don't know how to install tires. But I'm 50, and I have installed probably hundreds of tires over 35 years of bike tinkering. I know how. And these don't fit. Not that he was unhelpful. I just think he couldn't imagine that I was sane. (Although he was nice about it.)

That was a lot to pay for wheels that don't take most tires. They're only just barely useful.

If Rivendell were closer, I'd take the wheel in for them to try mounting the tires. Or if I had another set of wheels, I'd send one to Rivendell. But they're in California, I'm in Michigan, and I need these wheels. At least the folding Panaracers fit.

Supposedly, Paselas are good tires, but I had one fail last summer. I was within a whisker of a disasterous blowout on tour (carrying 35 lbs) when the sidewall developed an unhealthy bulge.

As an experiment, I've ordered some Kenda folding 700x38s. I know, I know, Kendas are junk. But that Panaracer last summer was junk, too, so you never know. I'll report back how (if) the Kendas work.

Remember The New Crankset?

Really, the Shimano crankset that I got for $15 on eBay worked pretty well until I fell on ice and bent the drive side crank arm. This is getting ridiculous.

In case you think helmets don't help (see my post previously), I was glad to have one as my head slammed into the very hard ice. And who says you can't ride with a bent crank?

Sigh.

But the commute must go on. It's only February, but at least we had some nice warm weather that melted the bulk of the January buildup. Now I have to watch for black ice on sidewalks from refrozen snow melt.

I decided that not having functioning front brakes was a bad idea, so I took a V-brake off a bike carcass and put it on the slush mobile. Works better, I think. We'll see when I ride to work tomorrow.

We're supposed to get three inches of snow tomorrow, so winter is still here.

And rain.

But really, I don't even mind riding in 35˚ rain. With the right protective gear (or even marginally tolerable protective gear, which is what I seem to have) it's ok. Beats driving.

Back In The Saddle Again . . . Again

The eBay crankset seems to work well. Cheap Shimano triple, but it's certainly good enough for the slush mobile. I put the old pedals from my Trek on it, since I was sure the original slush mobile pedals would be the next to break.

The commute today was fine. The new knobby rear tire gripped well, and it didn't have the wobble of its predecessor. We'll see what happens when the cold hard snow softens up again, letting me sink in and wallow.

But for now, it's nice to be commuting by bike again.

Still January . . . hard to believe. There's been quite constant snow on the ground since mid-November. I haven't seen the driveway in weeks.

Back In The Saddle . . . Briefly

I'm a brute. Hard on equipment. So is the weather.

I returned to winter commuting this week. It was awful. Almost
impossible riding on the sidewalks, what with two inches of packed
down snow that was just soft enough to sink into, but not packed
enough to allow a purchase. And cut up by footprints, which throw the steering off. Still, it was biking, better than driving.

Until the chain broke. I was standing up on the pedals, laboring
through the deep, cut-up crap, when the gear went to infinite
easiness. There was the chain behind me. I walked the remaining 2.5
miles to work. At home, I swapped in a spare chain that I had lying
around. The next day the snow was still awful, but I made it to work
and back.

But today, on my way out for a little errand, trying out the new rear
tire I put on, standing (again) to get through more crap, and snap!
the crank broke. Right through the drive-side crank arm. Perhaps the
freezy coldness and excessive saltiness weakened it. Who knows?

So I'm without a slush mobile again, and it's still January. I don't
want to pull out the touring and nice-weather commuting Trek. I've
seen what these conditions do to a bike.

I ordered an equivalent used crank on eBay for $15.

I tried to replace the bottom bracket, now that I have the cranks
off, but I just managed to break the plastic lock ring on the old BB,
which is totally fused in place. I can't loosen the non-drive side,
either. I'm going to try to get an 8MM bolt to hold the bracket
cartridge remover in place, and a long length of pipe for increased
leverage. But I'm not hopeful. I may just leave the grinding BB the
way it is.

Discouraging. Bikes aren't meant to be ridden in these conditions,
I'm afraid.

What a January!

In the middle of a record snowy January, I took last week off from
riding to work. I was sick at the beginning of the week, and the
temperature went down to -10 at the end of the week. Ordinarily, I
would have given it a go at 10 below, but I had my wife's car with a
parking permit at my disposal (she was out of town), and I needed to
get to my office by 6:30 a.m., so I drove. I don't regret it. I rode
the route yesterday, and it was miserable. New snow on top of cut up
old snow. I had to walk the bike a few times.

It should be better next week.

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.