You're Too Close!

Thank goodness for biking. I can still get out on the roads and trails I love, experience the dawning spring, and pretend that all is well in the world, which it isn't.

Obviously, I think about you-know-what a lot as I ride. Can bikers catch the virus from each other? How close do they need to be for the virus to be transmitted?

Let's say the virus is a gas, or at least gas-like, carried by exhaled aerosols. A gas will will disperse quite quickly in the great outdoors. How quickly? Hm. Do we have other personal gasses that need to disperse? How long do they take?

The answer, of course, is yes: Farts. Farts are gasses that we wish to have dispersed as quickly as possible, and for which we have outstanding detection monitors built right in to our noses.

So do bikers' farts spread from biker to biker? Not really. In all my days of riding with other people, I can't recall a situation in which I was aware of the fart of another person. Unless one drafts tight against the person ahead, and unless there's a tailwind that exactly matches one's velocity, making the air virtually still, I think there is virtually no transmission of farts between bikers.

So here's my new motto, one which I will allow the CDC to use:

If you can smell my farts, you're too close.

Bike Trip 2019, In Transit 1

As I write this I am on board the Empire Builder. We just cut through the bluffs along the Mississippi, to be greeted by the golden glow of the setting sun through the early summer foliage. It has been a long, but basically successful day, travel-wise.

I left Glen Arbor at 5:45 am, heading south. I parked my car in the ample parking lot in Dowagiac (SW corner of Michigan), and heaved my 48 lb suitcase/bikecase and my 35 lb. duffle onto the Blue Water. It was a relief to have that first obstacle out of the way. I had been fretting about the great schlepp for several days. After my agony of luggage on my Portland, ME, trip, I was worried about having more than I could handle again.

It mostly worked, although when I got off the train in Chicago and marched down the platform, I had misgivings. The duffle is really too big and heavy to ride on the top of the roller suitcase. I was quite uncomfortable by the time I reached the very crowded lounge in Union Station. It clearly needs some rethinking.

But at least everything fit in the luggage rack, and no conductor said, "Sorry, Pal. That's too much luggage." 

There certainly was no trouble with luggage on the Empire Builder, since I have a sleeper car in which, if necessary, I could put one of my bags. It wasn't necessary, of course. The bags fit nicely into the luggage rack. 

Bike trip 2019

In four days I will go west, young man, to start the epic 2019 bike tour. Well, Jon's trip is epic. Mine is fairly ordinary.

Jon is finally scratching the itch that he has had for 40 years, namely the ride across the country itch. He and Tom J started the trip in 1982 (I think), but had to abandon when tendnitis reared its ugly knees. Ever since, I think, Jon has dreamed of the great transit.

He has encouraged me to dream big, too, but it was never in the cards.  Three months on the road? In my unmarried days, perhaps, but certainly not now (even though I, as a college professor, wouldn't even need to take time off).

We have done exploratory tours, reunion tours (as it were), but no grand tour.

But now he's doing it. He'll turn 61 in transit, his health becomes progressively more precarious, he is between (or perhaps beyond) jobs, and it's time. 

So I'm going along for part of the ride--quite small, actually, but better than nothing. I started my "cross-country" ride in Portland, Maine several years ago. I got as far as Rome, NY.  Cindy and I rode from Buffalo to Clyde, NY, along the Erie Canal. I have also ridden, in stages from the Mississippi River to northern Michigan, by various routes. So there are only a few discontinuities in the eastern portion, namely, Michigan to Buffalo, and Clyde to Rome. Now I am going to start at the other Portland (OR) and head east.

I'll meet Jon (and, for several days, a cousin and friend) in Astoria (I think), and follow the Columbia River to Walla Walla, then into Idaho, and finally to Missoula (700 miles, or so) where I'll bail out and jump back on Amtrak for the trip home.

I'm taking the clown-bike-in-a-suitcase, which I bought specifically for this purpose. The suitcase turns into a trailer, and then, at the end, back into a suitcase. Odd looking, to be sure, but it actually works pretty well.

Winter, Again!

The snow is flying, the studded tires are back on the bike.

What kind of fall was it, bike-wise? The most interesting thing that happened was the steer tube breaking inside the head tube of the commuting Trek. I was riding along and the steering felt a little funky, but I couldn't see a problem. I wiggled the bars back and forth, and they felt solid.

But as I was heading to work, they felt weirder and weirder, so I slowed way down. Luckily. Suddenly, the handlebar was no longer connected to the front wheel. The steer tube had just worn through from years of use and, probably, rust. Try riding a bike that way. I ended up pushing the bike the rest of the way (three miles, at a brisk trot because I had to get to a meeting.) I had to old on to the seat and steer the bike by tilting it this way and that.

That was the second time in 2017 that a bike suddenly had no steering. On the Rivendell this summer I went wobbling off the road when the stem came undone from the threadless adapter. Very glad it didn't happen as I was barreling down a Leelanau Hill.

Brushes with death, indeed.

The Cult Of Rivendell

Those of us in the cult are firm believers that carbon fiber is bad, swept-back upright handlebars are good, and wool is the year-round fabric of choice.

I more or less agree about the wool (although I don't wear it in summer), but I have problems with the other two.

First, I'm sorry, but swept-back upright handlebars are not very comfortable. The "Albatross" bars that Riv sells look great, but they put your hands in an awkward position, and they put your upper body in such an upright position that you can't get leverage on the pedals. Even Cindy thinks they're uncomfortable. I tried to like them. I even rode a 700-mile tour using them. Uncomfortable.

Second, if carbon fiber is so delicate, how come the TdF bikes don't snap in half every time there's a crash? I admit, they don't always survive the crashes, but c'mon. They're going 40 mph. The fact that any of them DO survive, and are still rideable, means that they can't be the death-traps that Grant says they are. Furthermore, my STEEL bike broke--snapped!--at the drive side chain stay. That would have been uncomfortable going at speed down a hill. So much for bending and not breaking.

OK, one more. I understand the need to sell less expensive unlugged bikes, but hey, to say that they are as good as my gorgeous lugged Rambouillet, well, sorry, no. "It's the Rivendell ride that makes them special." Nope. I love the way my bike rides, but I bet I could get a similar (for me at least) ride from a much more modestly priced Surley. It's the lugs, stupid.

June 5 Sub-Century and More about USBR 35

I rode 90 miles today. Why not 100? It just worked out to 90. Sue me. Empire to Traverse City (30 miles, to pick up new glasses which had been prepared with the wrong prescription so I didn't actually pick them up). Then, because I was peeved about a phone call I received while I was waiting for my incorrect glasses, I decided I needed to take the long way home just to purify my mind.

At the Suttons Bay Marina

So I rode up the Leelanau Trail to Suttons Bay (always a nice ride), then followed USBR 35 across the peninsula to M-22 down the west side.

Time to vent some more about USBR 35 in Leelanau County:

First, I think M-22 south of Leland will soon be very rideable. (I got caught at a flagman, waiting for the pavers.) No longer an officially designated death trap. HOWEVER, my good will does not extend to M-204 from Leland to the town of Lake Leelanau. Horrible, high traffic, lots of trucks, pathetic shoulder, dangerous road. There are so many MUCH nicer roads in the county. It is criminally irresponsible putting people on that one. I don't care about the local politics involved in setting up an official bicycle route. There is never an excuse for putting people on a dangerous road. We count on "official bicycle routes" being suitable for biking. Duh.

Here's a great alternative: When you're coming up from Traverse City on the Leelanau Trail (which is part of USBR 35), get off on County 641, going north, and ride over to the east shore of Lake Leelanau. (Or go a little farther on the trail and go west on Bingham Rd, County 618, to 641.) Follow 641 up the lake to the town of Lake Leelanau, where you can rejoin USBR 35 (M-204), which has a lovely shoulder the rest of the way to M-22. THAT's where USBR 35 should have gone!

You miss Suttons Bay, but who cares? You were just in Traverse City. Why do you need another town so soon? Glen Arbor and Empire (on the west side of the Penninsula) are nice. You can get coffee in a nice coffee shop in Lake Leelanau. Take a little spur up to cute Leland if you can't wait for Glen Arbor.  Shops, restaurants, grocery. Get smoked fish at the dock.

Google Developing Self-Riding Bike

Google announced today that it is in the testing stage of a self-riding bicycle. Riders have been seen in the Bay Area on bicycles that have no handlebars, which are replaced by a control unit that contains an antenna, camera, and onboard computer. As the bike weaves through traffic, the riders read newspapers, catch up on their social media, eat breakfast (using the attached meal tray), even take naps.

"We have been pleased, so far," says Edward Merxx, Director of Development for the project. "We are still refining the programming, to make the bike more predictable when sharing the road with cars. To that end, we have programmed it to run red lights and stop signs, ride the wrong way on one-way streets, without lights at night, and up on the sidewalk when traffic is heavy. We are still working on the synthesized speech module to make it sound more insistent and peeved when shouting, 'On your left!' at the last minute."

Experts vs. "Experts"

It's funny/sad to read reviews of bike products on Amazon. It illustrates why we are able to believe the darndest things in an election year.

The country is full of "experts" writing reviews of their recently bought products, very confidently telling all about their virtues and flaws. They all have the air of truth, of someone who knows what he's talking about. (Are they mostly men in this category? I fear we men are the ones most likely to pose as experts.)

Problem is, they typically have no idea what they're talking about. None. For example, the first review of a bicycle tire stated that the specification 26x2.125" refers, respectively, to the tire diameter and the height of the treads above the rim, which is, obviously, wrong. Not wrongish, not a difference of opinion, not an alternate way of looking at it. The second number refers to tire WIDTH, only. The tire height will obviously change, but that's not what the number refers to.

When someone left the comment to this effect, the original reviewer belligerently said, basically, "Well, that's YOUR opinion."

And that, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with us. Facts don't exist. If it feels right, it IS right. I say the sun rises in the west.

(A reviewer of another tire said that the tire didn't work right for the first few rides, but then it got broken in and worked great. Sigh.)

Women's Road Race

I enjoyed watching the women's road race at the olympics. Every bit as exciting as the men's race. Too bad the women can't have their own Tour de France that would be sponsored and televised. I'd watch.

Les Studs

Watching Chris Froome's crash on the second to last mountain stage, in which his front wheel squirted out from under him when it went over a slick white stripe on the pavement, I concluded that he should have been using studded tires. Duh. What could be the downside?

Summer Biking

I am back in biking paradise here in Leelanau County. I have been pretty consistently doing my 30-mile loop around the Glen Lakes, first up the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail, then on roads.

Here's the mystery: When you Google "How many calories does biking burn?", you get the answer 1800 or so for a 57-year-old man riding 30 miles. If that were the case, I would weigh approximately 0 lbs by now. In order to gain weight, which I have, slightly, I would need to eat, let's see, 4500 calories a day, or something. I hope I don't do that. Maybe I do . . . More likely is that the 1800 calorie figure is wrong. Really wrong.

The secret to losing--or not gaining--weight? Eat less. Bummer.

Winter Biking

One of our few snowstorms of the winter is underway today. No snow when I biked in at 6:00 AM, quite a lot of wet heavy snow when I biked home. Mostly more fun than not.

Winter Bike

USBR 35

There was an article in this month's Adventure Cycling in which the author rides US Bicycle Route 35 from Traverse City to Indiana or so. Most of the article was fairly mundane bike-travelogue (with not nearly enough nice things said about Empire), but what got my attention was his comment that he couldn't believe the stretch of M-22 south of Leland was part of the route. Amen. As I have commented before, that stretch is downright dangerous. To put unsuspecting bike tourists on a road that is that narrow, windy, rough, and busy is almost criminal, and it makes me suspect that the rest of the US bicycle routes can't be trusted. USBR 35 on US-31 north of Elk Rapids is another dangerous stretch.

I understand that the creators of the route had no choice of roads in those dangerous spots (even though there are beautiful quiet alternate routes they could have chosen). But in such a case, they simply should have left those stretches of road off the route. One of the hardest things about bike touring is picking safe routes. When we're not from somewhere, we have no way of knowing about road conditions or traffic. Some state highways are beautiful and safe, and some small county roads are congested and dangerous. It's impossible to know. We rely on route guides to choose the right roads. It's a pity when those route guides let us down.

Update, Feb 2017:
At last! MDOT has announced that they are finally fixing the bicyclist death trap on M-22 south of Leland! The road repairs, which will include a rideable shoulder, will happen next summer. About time.

Whoa, Trigger!

I put the Shimano Acera trigger shifter/brake lever on the RH side (back derailer, obviously) of the 620. I had been using a cheapy Falcon friction shifter, which was proving hard to shift with mittens on. And I was tired of it.

So, although the Rivendell aesthetic is all about friction shifting, I said to hell with it! and put on indexed trigger shifters.

I like them. A lot. Click! Change gears. Click! Do it again. Up. Down. All around the town. I'm perfectly happy with the double-trigger setup, which some people find confusing. Not I. Maybe I'll put it on the slush mobile, too.

So I'm getting a trigger shifter to put on the LH (front) side, too, despite the less than ideal indexed shifting in the front. I think I'll be able to live with it. Click! Shift. Click! Etc.

More Winter Musings

For that matter, I need to change handlebars on the slush mobile. One of the reasons it's not fun is because of the Riv moustache bars. I know I know, I'm supposed to love them. I don't. Perhaps with a shorter stem (so the bars are closer to me) I'd like it better. But I don't like the straight-back nature of them. I like a "shoulder" to rest my hands on.

Maybe I can dig around in the parts bin for a better alternative.

Winter 2016 Musings

I have only ridden the slushmobile once this winter, and I didn't really like it. Slow and sloggy. So I put the studded 700x32s (more like 35s) on the Trek 620 and decided to ride it as much as I could, even in the snow. It's just more fun to ride. The studs aren't as aggressive as those on the slushmobile, but I figure they'll help on surprise ice or mixed snow/pavement. So far, so good.

The next project is to put trigger shifters on the 620. The current friction shifters on the underside of the trekking bars are just too hard to use with mittens. Maybe the trigger shifters will be easier.

Mostly, I've been wearing light wool, light polar fleece, windbreaker on top, even down into the teens. Works pretty well.

OH NO It's Winter Again!

Time for more incessant obsessing about winter biking garb.

Today: 25˚ no wind.

I wore my light merino base layer, Melanzana light fleece, and windbreaker. I forgot to put on the vest, and a good thing, too. I was plenty warm. Perhaps I don't need the vest until the teens.

Lovely merino long johns, by the way. Nice.

I'm looking forward to this weekend's rutty ice melting. We're going back up to 50˚ by Thursday. Good. I paid my winter dues over the last two winters. A nice warm snow-free winter would be fine.

Ultra Distance

I keep coming back to this, folks who ride hundreds and hundreds of miles in a single session. The latest comes from a discussion of the relative merits of various tires. There are those who, like me, love Schwalbe Marathons for their toughness and can't imagine that any lack of "suppleness" makes a noticeable difference. And then someone responds (and I paraphrase) that, in a 600 KM ride, using Marathons would slow him down by an hour.

How do I process that? He's saying that when he goes out for a 360-mile ride, he wants nice supple tires so that it will only take him, say, 24 hours of riding instead of 25 hours.

Who does that? And so what if it takes 25 hours instead of 24 hours? He's missing the central point, that he's insane. Or nonexistent. I mean, I have to believe these people do what they say . . . but how? And why?

I suppose most would respond the same way to my 132-mile day last summer. But come on. I did that in 12 hours, with lots of rests. And I was plenty ready to be done at the end. Tripling that distance?

Rain Gear

Like all foul-weather bikers, I have struggled to figure out the best rain gear for my daily commutes and for longer duration exposure to the rain while touring. I have tried everything from cheapo plastic raincoats to fairly expensive "breathable" fabric raincoats, to ponchos, to just getting wet.

For commuting (5-7 miles, working up a good sweat), no raincoat has worked well. Breathable fabrics don't breathe when you are sweating hard and it's raining hard. Where can the moisture go? I haven't noticed a big difference between "breathable" fabrics and cheapo plastic.

I know some swear by dense-weave "ventile" cotton and the like, but I'm not willing to spend many hundreds on a raincoat.

So today I wore my J&G biking poncho, along with my "breathable" rain pants (with merino wool long johns underneath) and my Riv "splats" (shoe covers). Worked pretty well in a steady mist. I still swat (past tense of sweat) on my shoulders and upper back, but there's nothing to be done about that. Most of me was pretty dry. I'll continue this experiment.

I think for touring, I'll only bring the poncho in the future. The day I rode in the rain wearing my "breathable" raincoat, I ended up exactly as wet as I was on the day I rode in the rain with no raincoat. I was perhaps slightly warmer wearing the shell, but I could have achieved that by wearing wool.

Update:
After several sessions using several different ponchos, I must conclude that they have exactly the same problem as any other rain gear. I end up soaking wet from sweat on my upper back and arms, since that's where I sweat when I ride. A waterproof poncho is just a plastic bag with a head-hole, open on the bottom. In order to be effective, however, the venting would need to be on the top, where I sweat. That, of course, would let in the rain.

Perhaps the solution is to resign myself to getting wet, wearing wool for warmth when wet and a windbreaker to prevent evaporative chilling. Always have a change of clothes.

Bike Garage

And now for a compliment to my university! They have created enclosed, locked bike garages! I don't know why am so pleased by this. It has always worked fine to drag my bike up to my office. But now I'll be able to lock my bike up in a locked space that is protected from rain and snow, and just a five minute walk from my building. I hope I can rest assured that my lights and other expensive doodads won't be stolen. No more melting slush on my floor! No more amused looks as I carry my loaded bike down the stairs, in my winter biking regalia, lights flashing, gear laden baskets creaking.

I'm happy to pay the $60/yr for my two bikes.

And, in their defense, I must say that this is just one part of their obviously determined effort to promote biking on campus, from an active and fully functional bike store and repair facility, to an apparent effort to put bike lanes on every campus road.

Now if we could just get a bike lane to run to campus from the eastern suburbs, where so many faculty live.

No Bikes On Sidewalks!

The Powers That Be here at my university have been trying to figure out how to keep bike riders from killing pedestrians on campus sidewalks, a worthy goal. These young people are lunatics on their bikes. (I, on the other hand, am a paragon of caution and consideration.) It's a tough problem. The obvious way to do it would be to impose a speed limit, maybe 5 mph. Ha ha ha. The other obvious way to do it is to ban bikes from the sidewalks.

I would have said ha ha ha to that, too, except that the signs just went up: "It is ILLEGAL to ride bikes on the sidewalk. Your bike will be impounded if you ride on the sidewalk." My first reaction was good luck with that. I can just see a herd of bike-mounted police officers chasing after sidewalk riders. Or perhaps roadblocks to catch offenders. And then the obvious question: Where are the thousands of bike riders going to ride, if not on the sidewalk? The Powers That Be say that they should ride in the (only partially existent) bike lanes and to the right on roads without bike lanes.

A few observations: First, Michigan law says that bikes can ride two abreast. Is that going to be OK? Michigan law also says that bikes can ride to the left in the left lane when there are two lanes in the same direction. Is that going to be OK? What about when bikes want to turn left from a bike lane that's on the right-hand side of the road. Cut across traffic? Turn left from the right lane? And what is the likelihood that bike riders will ride all the way around the one-way circle drive to get to their building that's "just over there"? Not a chance. They'll ride the wrong way in the bike lane, a la NYC. And what will the campus streets be like with thousands of bike riders? It will be Peking in the 20th century: Wall to wall bikes. I actually like the idea. The car drivers won't be so crazy about it. Too bad. They can bike to campus. Except there are no bike lanes or paths that go to campus from the south, east, or north. Mixed messages. Don't drive to campus because there's no parking. Don't bike to campus, because there's no safe way to do it. We don't want you to have a discount to take the bus to campus, either.

So I am going to start following the rules. I shall take my proper place in traffic. I shall wait at stop lights and stop signs. I shall avoid sidewalks. When I turn left, I'll move over to the left lane. Let them honk! I wish I had a sign that says "Don't Blame Me!"

I Should Be Windsurfing

It's windsurfing season here on the Leelanau Peninsula, the time when my covetous gaze once turned ever lakeward, the better to gain a peep at the piping breeze. 

"Wind's up!" I would cry and then drive frantically to the beach, rig, wade in, sail for sometimes as little as 15 minutes, then wade out, unrig, drive home, and get back to my life, only to keeping peeping lakeward to see if maybe I missed the best wind of the day. It consumed every waking minute.

Now I windsurf a lot less and bike a lot more. And I worry that I'm cheating myself out of the pleasure of regular sailing. But yesterday as I was grinding up the hill at the south end of Glen Lake I decided that I get equal pleasure in biking, in being able to grind up that hill and cruise at 19 mph in the flats and easily ride 30 miles as my daily outing. My legs felt good, the bike was smooth and responsive, and the scenery was lovely. Not Alpe d'Huez, not TdF speeds, but lovely and fun. Perhaps I am trying to ride away from old age; perhaps I won't like biking as much with old weak legs and gaspy lungs. But for now, it feels OK to neglect windsurfing in favor of biking. It's nice not to obsess as much.

B17

I've been trying to get back to the B17 saddle. Wonderfully comfortable leather, but the hard interface with my ass has caused welts in the past. So I slid the saddle forward (contrary to rivish philosophy, which holds that the saddle can't be too far back), which helps me use the wider part by rolling back onto my natural (ahem) cushion. Quite comfortable (relatively speaking, which means not actually comfortable but better than other saddles), and no welts thus far.

Interesting (and not often discusssed) how a saddle's comfort depends in part on the height of the handle bars and the relative forward placement of the saddle.

Update:

Nope. At the risk of TMI, let's just say butt boils are back. There's discomfort and then there's discomfort. The nicely padded saddle is back.

It has nothing to do with sweat or bacteria or chafing. It has everything to do with a bony butt on a hard leather saddle.

Enough said.

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.

Okemos to Rome via Canada and the Erie Canal

The itinerary is set. Next Wednesday I set off from my house heading east, toward the Canadian border. I'll spend the first night near Lake St. Clair (north of Detroit), then two nights in Ontario, then two more nights in New York, along the Erie Canal (most of which I've already ridden). The long day will be 104 miles; the short day will be the last one, something like 68 miles. I'll catch the 4:30 train in Rome headed for New York City, where I have obligations.

Why do this?

Good question. I know Jon wonders why I have started doing these bizarre endurance tours. I do, too, a little bit.

First, I don't really like camping by myself. Other than saving money, I don't get much out of staying in campgrounds that are close enough to the road to be convenient. (I realize saving money can be an important advantage; if I were doing a two-month tour, staying in motels wouldn't be acceptable.) These trips are about the biking, not the camping.

So if I'm staying in motels, I want to maximize the distance between nights. As long as my body can take it, I don't mind riding 8, 9, 10 hours; if there's no setting up or cooking to do, rolling in at 7:00 PM isn't a problem. My trips last week and last year proved that I can do up to 130 miles in a day, even into the wind and over rolling hills, and I can do at least three long days in a row. I'll do five long days, plus one normal day this trip.

Why not just ride five 100-mile days out and back from my home? Somehow, a large part of the pleasure is actually getting somewhere, even if it's not somewhere I really want to be. (I have no interest in Rome, NY, even though that's my destination.) There's a metaphor there somewhere, the compulsion to keep moving forward through life or something. It's all about setting a personal goal and accomplishing it; setting the goal of riding 500 miles in five days without actually getting somewhere doesn't do it for me. In fact, I'm not sure I could make myself stick to it. After two 100-mile days, I think I'd say, "Just kidding. Didn't really want to do five of these." When I'm in the middle of nowhere, 300 miles from home or my destination, I've got to keep going. Plus, I just like exploring, studying maps (I love maps), figuring out how to get from point A to point B.

 Stay tuned. The ride reports will commence in five days.

Summer 2015 Shake Down Trip

As I sit here in my quite nice Days Inn in Clare, I feel that I can start to understand my desires and capabilities for the big trip of the summer, which has been planned as Okemos to NYC, but not without   a great deal of apprehension. I want to use my 100-mile-day model, staying in motels, but I'm not sure that I can sustain it for 8(!) days. Now that I have just finished a very reasonable 97-mile day (into a brisk headwind, no less), I feel confident I can do a multiple-day trip. Eight days? Maybe, but do I want to? Perhaps I should compromise and end in Rome, NY, where I broke off my first leg of my "cross-country by installments" project. If I end in Rome, I will have continuously ridden between the Atlantic coast (Portland, ME) and Okemos. I could then start the next leg of the project somewhere in Wisconsin, since I have ridden from Okemos to Muskegon (assuming I allow myself to take ferries).

Instead of 8+ days, a trip to Rome would be 5+ days, which seems much more manageable. In Rome, I could catch Amtrak for NYC, where cindy and I are going to a bash in Central Park, but that's another story. Stay tuned. 

Anyway, about this trip. I have ridden from Okemos to Empire (or the reverse) three times. Once under the old model of four 60-mile days, once in two days using the shortest possible route (which, as a result, wasn't very pleasant), and last summer's trip down the west side of the state in three 95-mile days. 

The old-school trip with Jon was the most satisfying, since we camped and cooked and did what we always have done. But of the trips by myself, last summer's long days that ended in hotels that had been pre-reserved was the best. I don't like camping by myself. Either I only go 60 miles and arrive by 2:00 and then kill time, or I go long days and arrive late afternoon and must set up and figure out food, and still kill time for a few hours. Much better to arrive at a hotel after a really long day (I arrived at 4:00 today), soak in the tub (or, even better, in the hot tub!), wander over to the inevitable nearby restaurant for a nice dinner, watch a little TV, turn in early, partake of the included breakfast, and be on the road by 7:00. Costs more? Of course. Worth it? Absolutely. It's the difference between doing a trip and not doing it. 

I am riding my preferred touring bike, the fold up Bike Friday. It's just a great riding bike. Super comfortable, with no performance downside. I averaged nearly 13 mph today, into a stiff wind, no less. I couldn't have done better on my touring trek. 

The big innovation of this trip is the lovely rivendell saddle bag. Their biggest bag, it holds a ton. Supported by a seat post rack, it is rock solid. Unlike any other touring bags I've used, it's very easy to get at the contents of the bag during the day. Just flop it open, grab stuff, and flop it closed. Expensive but highly recommended.

My Bike Friday with seatpost rack and huge Riv seat bag. The carrying bag for the bike is strapped to the underside of the rack.

The other (expensive) innovation is an iPad (on which I'm typing somewhat successfully right now). In a stroke of small genius, I photographed (with the iPad) detailed county maps for all the counties I'll pass through. In moments of doubt or route planning, I call up the county maps (no wifi or cell service required) and get a precise view of roads and routes. It saved me a couple of long detours today by showing me better routes than the ones I had planned with the regional and bike maps I was using. 

As I ride, I prefer just to have a big state map that shows me the really big picture. That map is not very good for planning, if you want to avoid the biggest roads. It shows the nicer grey-line roads, but it doesn't say what they're called. My pictures of the county maps do, and they show the even smaller but still paved roads. And I don't need to carry all that extra paper. 

Day 2

What a day. Because I didn't want to ride the hypotenuse (M-115), I added 20 miles to the total. They were mostly beautiful, but by the time I finished I had ridden 131 miles. My second longest day ever, eclipsed only by the day that Jon and I rode from Douglas to Ann Arbor, something like 160 miles. And I was 16 at the time. I am (wait for it) 40 years older now.

The weather continued cool, mid-30s at the start, never getting out of the 50s, mid-40s by the end. My Melanzana tights were lovely for all 226 miles of this trip. Gloves, hat, fleece top, windbreaker, not my normal biking garb, but it worked.

The first part of the day was on the newly paved Pere Marquette rail trail from Clare to Evart. Absolutely lovely. Woods and wetlands, lots of birds, no other people, lots of quiet. Speaking of birds, this was a good trip for them: A flock of turkeys ran ahead of me on the trail for quite a long way, their claws clickety-clicking on the pavement; a flock of vultures perched high on an old grain elevator along the trail, spreading their huge wings to warm them in the sun; a bald eagle landed on the road just a little ahead of me, then flapped off, harassed by a little bird.

I added a few more miles by taking the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail Linear State Park (known to its friends as the FMWPTLSP) from LeRoy to Cadillac. It's all paved in this stretch, and quite beautiful, so I figured it was worth the less direct route. I was pretty tired by the time I got to the Cadillac McDonald's, which was slow and ineptly run, as usual.

The final right-angle roads of the day took me up to the former M-42, which runs from Manton to Mesick. Pretty road, but lots of hills. The fact that it was clouding over and getting colder didn't help my mood. By the time I hit Mesick, I had gone 92 miles. 

From Mesick I took the hypotenuse of M-115. Perfectly good road, relatively light traffic, and the sun was peeking out again. I was on well-known to me roads the rest of the way. 

I was tired but not destroyed by the time I got to Empire at 7:30 (after 12 hours on the road). I even made it up the big hill on Indian Hill Rd out of Honor in relatively good shape.

What worked: 

The Rivendell large saddlesack was fabulous. I opened it, grabbed stuff, closed it numerous times during the day. I've never been able to do that with panniers or dry bags, which are a hassle to open and fish around in. As a result, I stored stuff inside the bag rather than strapping it all over the outside, which is what I do with other bags.

The Melanzana fleece tights were great (directly against the skin, if you know what I mean). No butt boils, even after 225 miles.

The Schwalbe Marathon tires continue to amaze me. They're tough. I've ridden this same rear tire for four tours, and it's barely showing wear. No flats, knock on wood.

The iPad was very handy, worth bringing. It just fits in my handlebar bag, so it's easy to use during the day. I took it out every stop, checked email, consulted county maps, read newspapers. 

I had my stool with me, but I only pulled it out once for a little sit down. In retrospect, I would have been happier if I had done it more often on the long day. It's worth bringing.

Finally, just for the fun of it, I walked a little bit each day. Late in the day, after many miles, it just felt good to get off the bike and walk for a half mile. Not up a hill, necessarily, just when I needed a break, but didn't want to just sit in one place.

As an aside, how do people ride brevets, 400K, 600K, 800K, 1000K? The rules state that you must finish 1000K (600 miles) in 75 hours. (That's about three days.) Really? I did 400-ish K in 36 hours, which is significantly over the allowed 27 hours. And I'm proposing to do 1000-ish K in about 120 hours, way over the 75-hour limit (like, more than two 24 hour days). To do 1000K (600 miles) in 75 hours, I'd need to ride 200 miles per day for three days. So twice as far, per day, as I'm proposing. Zowie. I think not.

Is it possible? Unless all these people (none of whom I have actually met, I must point out) are fictional, yes, it's possible. I'll try to keep that in mind on my fourth 100-mile day. "Wimp!" I'll say to myself. "You should be going TWICE this distance!" Of course, it requires riding at night, so I'd need lights. Hm.

On second thought, these people are fictional. It can't be done.

Mackinac Island

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

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

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