2024: A Bit of Touring - Day 3

My second day on the road had been very satisfying. I had moved along quickly despite the rain, and almost 2/3 of the miles were through parts of Indiana I had never ridden before.  I had great nights’ sleep in the tent, and the campground had been very quiet.

A rarity, sunrise visible from my tent

I was up early and enjoyed a quick oatmeal breakfast à la JetBoil.  I make my own travel oatmeal, with 1/2 a cup of quick oats, a heaping teaspoon of brown sugar, and a couple of tablespoons of dried cranberries, all mixed in a small baggie. To prepare it, I just dump the mix into my collapsible silicone bowl and add a cup of boiling water and mix, and then cover the bowl with my plate for 2-3 minutes.  Along with my fresh fruit— apples, oranges, and grapes— it’s a good first breakfast.  After finishing breakfast, I sliced up an apple, and that went into a reusable Stasher silicone zip-lock bag for on-the-road snacking.  My trail mix is another larger Stasher bag.  Along with being reusable, the silicone bags don’t break open at the wrong time and are very easy to reach into while moving.

Another cloudy start, with rain to follow

Unfortunately, there was more rain in the forecast for later in the morning, so I moved right along to break camp.   By 7:45, I was wrapping up my last pit stop to brush my teeth on the way out of camp when I realized my rear tire was soft.  Since I had fixed the flat using CO2 2 days earlier, I assumed it was just the bleed-off, so I topped it off with a frame pump.  I was quickly on my way, with just a quick photo op on the gate sign.  

The day’s plan was a new route for the ride home, with an estimated 75 miles.  Rather than head south after leaving the campground, I first headed east.  At 10 miles, I would turn south on the Nickel Plate Trail.  I have ridden sections of trail all the way from Kokomo to Rochester over a number of rides, but today I would be continuing through Kokomo, with a straight south route to home from there. 

As I had ridden east, the skies to the northwest had grown darker, and there were intermittent sprinkles of rain.  I turned onto the trail a few miles north of Bunker Hill, and by the time I entered the small village, the rain was starting to increase its intensity.  I paused to button things up and put on my rain jacket, and checked my weather app.  Unlike the day before, it was just solid green with no red and yellow, so I decided to just keep rolling.  

It was soon a hard rain with visibility dropping, but with no real shelter available and no traffic to worry about, I just kept pedaling.  At one point, over the sound of falling rain, I heard a loud metallic jingle near my rear wheel and stopped to see what it might be.  Everything appeared to be fine on my bike, and then I just happened to glance down the trail, and 15 feet behind my bike, my bag of tent stakes were in the middle of the trail.  The cord lock on the tent stuff had apparently loosened in the rain; I was just glad they had made so much noise when they fell out. (And this got me thinking about another solution, and one that would also deal with a soon-drenched tent.)

It was starting up after securely repacking my stakes that I realized I had a soft rear tire, again.  It was obvious now that this was not a CO2 issue.  Still without shelter, I just topped off the rear tire to 60 lbs, and was very happy I had a MightyMorph pump for doing this in the rain.  I figured I would just ride and top off the tire every 10 to 15 miles until the rain stopped or I found shelter.

The first flat of the day

Five miles later, the trail went under US-31, and I decided the overpass was as good a shelter as any.  I repeated the ritual of unhooking my panniers and my rack load, and started to change the tire.  I again found a pin-hole leak in the tube with no obvious stone or glass chip in the tire.  But lining up the tube and tire, and running my fingers inside the tire case, I finally found the culprit.  This tire had a layer of Kevlar fabric in the tire between the inner tube and the tire casing for flat protection.  What I found was a stiff strand of Kevlar, with a sharp edge poking up.  

On my previous inspections, I had been looking for glass or stone chips, and hadn’t suspected it could be the tire itself.  In looking back, I realized I had a couple of similar flats over the past year and a half with the same tire, where I hadn’t found a stone chip or glass in the tire.   With the apparent mystery resolved, I put some Gorilla Tape (part of my touring tool kit) over the rough spot, remounted the tire, and inflated it with CO2.   The tire inflated properly, but the bead refused to seat, even when I over-pressed it manually and shot water between the tire and rim.  Figuring it would pop in with some more miles, I reloaded my gear and resumed my ride into Kokomo.

At the north edge of Kokomo, the Nickel Plate Trail came to an end, and Kokomo’s Industrial Heritage Trail began. This 5.8-mile trail, built by the city of Kokomo, would take me through a number of parks, the center of downtown, and through some historic manufacturing areas on a combination of multi-use paths, sidewalks, and streets. It made for some interesting riding, though the southern terminus of the trail was a little confusing.  I managed to find my way to some southbound streets before making my way to McDonald’s for lunch.  

While eating, I checked my weather app and it looked like I was going to have more rain in the next couple of hours.  I wasn’t worried about charging my lights, but I did top off my iPhone for the afternoon as I ate. As I got back on the road after lunch, I was now on streets, and with my speed picking up, the off-center tire was becoming more of an annoyance. After topping off my Gatorade for the final push, I pulled into a strip mall parking lot to make one more try to seat the tire by over-pressuring it.  I began pumping, but rather than the ping of the bead seating, I was rewarded with the BANG of a blowout, as a 3” section of the sidewall blew out, and my rear tire, and another tube were both totaled.

Flat #2, and the tire is toast

I am not sure if the age of the tire (2000+ miles over 20 months), riding it improperly seated for a dozen miles, or just the repeated overpressure mounting that was the cause; and in any case, it didn’t matter. I already had the new tires at home, to be installed after this ride. And I always tour with a folding spare tire in my pack, and I still had 1 spare tube and patches, so I wasn’t stranded just yet. So for the third time this trip, and second time today, I began the process of changing a flat tire. (This is my all-time worst experience with tires in a single trip.)

The new tire was a little bit stubborn going on, and I finally had to start over after recentering the rim strip, but it finally mounted and reassuringly seated true with normal pressure.  But all told, I lost almost an hour, and by the time I came to the south edge of Kokomo, I was being chased by a squall line of horizontal rain, 40-45 mph hour winds, gusts, and falling tree limbs. I pulled off the road into the driveway of a dark home, and tucked myself under the eaves in front of their garage door, and watched the storm continue.

Slow clearing sky's after the rain

After about 10 minutes, I was startled by the garage door behind me beginning to open.  I turned around and was greeted by the homeowner, who had noticed me on his security camera.  He invited me into the garage, and I was completely out of the rain.  He was a work-from-home engineer for a large IT company, and we chatted for a bit while the wind and rain continued.  He had done some mountain biking and was curious about my 920 and bike touring in general.  Almost 20 minutes passed as we chatted while the last of the red bands finally passed on to the south and west.   It was going to be raining for a bit, but by now it was almost 3:30, and I still had about 40 miles to home.  I thanked him for his hospitality and started out again.  

I left the last Kokomo neighborhood, and after a few miles the scattered houses gave way to rural farmland.   A light rain continued to fall, and the southwest sky was still dark, but moving way from me.   I was still at least 35 miles of riding from home, and more rain was forecast for the early evening, so I had some decisions to make.  

All smiles with my wife and change of clothes.

I had been on talking and texting with my wife Linda throughout the morning and afternoon, and she was watching the weather as well.  I was also riding with only a patch kit now, no spare tubes, so another flat was not going to be fun.   We finally decided to meet at a tractor dealership we both knew on US-31, which we could both reach in about an hour; she would need to leave work and switch her car for our Caravan in order to have room for my bike and gear.

With that decision made, I settled in for my last 12 miles of riding.  Overall, it had been a great few days on the road, despite the rain and the tire issues.  It was good to know that I had everything along that I had needed to keep rolling.  It was frustrating to know I had the new tires at home, but I had made the decision to do all that work later, in preparation for a longer ride later in the summer, and wanted all the work at one time to seem more efficient.  I had been able to shake down a bunch of new gear, which would make the next trip easier, and also think through some ways to lighten and optimize my load for longer trips in the future.

Drying out gear after 2 raining days

Stats

• Departed 7:43 AM
• Distance 49.7 miles
• Average MPH 11.0
• Riding Time 4:30 / Total Time 9:13
• 849 Feet Ascending
• 753 Feet Descending
• Total Distance: 193.9 miles

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2024: A Bit of Touring - Day 2

After an uneventful and dry night, I was up at dawn and prepping for the day ahead.  I fired up my JetBoil and quickly had the boiling water for freeze-dried scrambled eggs.  I have had other freeze-dried breakfasts that were okay, but this meal was only scrambled eggs, and it was not very satisfying; I was glad I had fresh fruit to finish the breakfast.  Packing went well, and everything settled into place, and I was soon back on the road.

A cloudy start, but no rain early

My second day was headed north and west to the Mississinewa State Recreation area, about 75 miles away.  I have used this campground from home many times over the years, but today I would be approaching from a new direction.  After riding a few miles north from Summit Lake, I should have connected with the Cardinal Greenway, but I misread my GPS map and my first attempt had me crossing over the trail, and then I found a nature area path that did not connect with the trail. It was only after I scrambled down an embankment onto the paved trail and headed north that I found the on-road trailhead I had missed.

More wild flowers along the way

This section of the greenway was well maintained and marked, with a nice canopy of trees as it passed through rolling farmland.  A few miles up the trail, I found a small bike shop, and after chatting with the owner, who was also a long-time cyclist, I picked up a couple of spare tubes to replace my punctured tube from yesterday.  (This turned out to be a very wise decision.) 

A Mile Marker on the Cardinal Trail

As I continued north, my weather app and texts from my wife were updating me on possible severe storms in my path that were moving south and due over the lunch hour. I was almost through Muncie with 22 miles when I saw a Chic-Fil-A was just a 1/4 mile off the trail.  No sooner had I parked my bike and pulled out my charger kit, a light rain had started. By the time I had placed my order and settled in, the sky darkened and a very windy squall line arrived bringing with it very heavy rain. The rain continued on for another 90 minutes, including a second squall line of strong winds and heavy rain.  During my lunch, I was able to fully recharge my power bank and top off my iPhone battery; I had used about 25% of the power bank charging things overnight in my tent, so it was working as I had planned.

By 1:30 p.m., my weather app showed all the red and yellow storm bands were now south of me, though a light rain continued. With 50 miles still to cover to my overnight, it was time to move on.   Back on the trail, most of the rain was just the water falling from the trail’s canopy of trees.  Within the first mile, a 50-foot tree was down across the trail; fortunately, it had fallen into some open green space, extending almost 15 feet beyond the trail edge, leaving enough room to walk my bike around it.  The 

Waiting the storm out

The Cardinal continued north and west, taking me through Gas City and Marion.  On the north side of Marion, I picked up a snack and some Gatorade.  I was now off the Cardinal, but I soon picked up the Sweetser Trail, which runs west out of Marion.  It is a relatively new paved trail situated in a nice greenway.  By now I was 40 miles north of my lunch, and I had been dry but overcast most of the afternoon. Riding west, I again encountered a scattering of small trees and branches fallen across the trail.  It had been quite a storm front.  

The 9 miles of trail ended in the small town of Converse, and I made my final grocery stop.   It was now a little after 6 with about a dozen miles to go.  Even though it was 6 p.m., late June meant there were still 3 hours until sunset.  It wasn’t too long before I was on familiar roads from my other rides and tours I had done in the area. Just before 7, I reached the campground entrance and checked in, and my day ended at my campsite with 78 miles, with 6 hours of riding out of 10 hours on the road.  All things considered, it had been a great day of riding.

There were no squirrels investigating my campsite as I set up my tent.  It was damp from the riding in the rain, but it dried out quickly.  I had a full clothesline of gear including my rain jacket, gloves, and clothing I wanted dry before packing.  My gear in the back, almost all bagged in Ziploc bags, was all dry.   

Before I started dinner, I started charging my gear.  Throughout the evening, I would be charging 2 Bontrager Taillight’s and a Headlight, a Garmin Varia radar light, and a Wahoo Bolt GPS. I was using the campsite 110 AC with my Anker multiport charger, new for this year since I now needed USB-C charging.  Along with charging the bike tech, I would also need to charge my iPhone and my Apple Watch, which I usually charge with me in the tent, using a power bank. My routine for campground charging is to drop all my chargeable items in an empty front pannier, and hang that from the campsite RV outlet. As each device finishes charging, it gets moved to another pocket in the pannier.  It’s easy to keep an eye on, and can all be brought back into the tent in one trip.  

The first of many trees after the storm

With my tent up, clothes drying, and gear charging, I decided to eat before showering, and my freeze-dried dinner was much better than my breakfast.  Over the course of dinner, an awesome C-17 Transport made a high pass over the campground, apparently on a landing approach to the nearby Grissom Air National Guard base.  It brought back memories of another trip decades ago when I had ridden under a B-52 make a landing approach while I was biking toward Sue St. Marie in Michigan’s UP (yes, there was a SAC base in the UP with flight-ready B-52s until 1977!). It was otherwise a quiet evening in the campground, with the multi-family campsite next to mine ending their corn hole tournament with the sunset.

After a quick shower, I returned to my tent to start bringing in my now-dry gear.  I even had my phone battery topped off before I closed up for the night.  There was a little more distant rumbling from the airbase, but it was mostly outdoor noises as I settled in for my second night on the road.

Stats

• Departed 8:47 AM
• Distance 79.1 miles
• Average MPH 12.0
• Riding Time 6:34 / Total Time 10:24
• 1514 Feet Ascending
• 1783 Feet Descending
• Total Distance: 144.2 miles

Continue to A Bit of Touring - Day 3

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2024: A Bit of Touring - Day 1

I started my first touring day with a simple breakfast at home. I then finished loading up, said goodbye to Linda, and was on the road.  It’s nice to have a tour that starts from your driveway; otherwise, you have to load the bike, confirm you have everything, then strip it to load the car, and repeat the process at your remote start. I rolled out of the neighborhood for the easy mile to our Monon trailhead, and then started north. I had 4 miles north on the Monon Trail to Westfield, and then heeded east on Midland Trace for the 6 miles to Noblesville.

Wild Flowers along the way

Leaving the Midland Trace, I worked my way across the White River and through downtown Noblesville.  The Midland Trace trail is currently a work in progress, with a White River crossing into Noblesville due to be completed in the next year or so. From downtown, I continued east on quiet, tree-shaded streets with older homes, which gradually transitioned to newer homes and the area high school complex.   After crossing a state highway, I was riding past subdivisions on the outskirts of town. By the time I left Noblesville, I had almost 20 miles, and the riding transitioned to rural farmland on a quiet two-lane road for the next dozen miles into Anderson.

Rolling hills east of Anderson

I entered Anderson on some quiet side streets and used a state route to cross under I-69.  This brought me to a Culver’s for my lunch stop.  After lunch, I made a quick stop at a supermarket that was right next door, picking up some fresh fruit. Back on the road, the transition back to quiet 2-lane rural farmland took just a mile or so, and that would continue all the way to my overnight stop. 

Tire troubles

About a 1/2 hour after lunch and at the peak of afternoon heat, I encountered a stretch of recently applied chip-and-seal, a stretch a 1/2 mile after the last intersection. The road had streaks of oily sealant seeping through the fresh coating of sand and stone, and soon the sound of stones being thrown into my bike fenders was pretty constant. When I noticed my bike felt like it was bogging down and was getting harder to accelerate, I first thought it was the loose chip-and-seal surface, or that I had a soft tire. But then I came to dry pavement, and I continued to hear stones hitting my fenders, and my bike still felt slow. I stopped to check the tires.

Looking at my rear tire, much of the center band of file tread was filled with tar, small stones, and sand. It was almost the same for my front.  It must have added at least a couple of pounds to each wheel, and it was not coming off easily.   I assumed this was enough to make the bike feel like it was bogging down and started down the road again.  Rather than the normal buzz of tires on pavement, I was treated to the constant ping of small rocks hitting my fenders as my tires slowly shed the small stones.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the start issues which would continue over the next couple of days.

More rolling farm land

I continued on, enjoying the quiet road and new scenery, while the sound of the thrown stones slowly decreased.  But my bike continued to feel like it was bogging down. Finally, as I pulled away from a crossroad stop sign, I looked down and realized my rear tire was very soft, and I pulled off the side of the road into some shade.   Since it was a slow leak and not a blowout, I considered using my frame pump to top off the tire and see how long it would last.  But on the other hand, I had good shade, and I had time to spare, so I decided to change the tube.  I found a pin-hole leak in the tube, but there was no apparent stone chip or glass tire in the tire case.  Assuming the cause had fallen away, I replaced the tube with one of my two spare tubes, and was back on the road in about 20 minutes. 

The afternoon continued to be pleasant riding.  The terrain was mixed with short rolling hills and small creeks, but nothing challenging, even with my touring load.  What I didn’t realize until the end of the day was that I had gained almost 400 feet in elevation over the 40 miles since leaving Noblesville. As the afternoon went on, I passed through a few quiet crossroad villages and an abandoned grain elevator.  By about 4:30 in the afternoon, with 60 miles, I was riding along the north boundary of the park with a view of the lake.  It was another half dozen miles until I was at my campsite, riding 3/4 of the way around to the south side of the lake.

My first day destination

The campsites were all on fingers of land extending into the lake.  Like most campgrounds, with each passing year, it is becoming more “motorized” oriented, but I was able to find a level and soft spot for my tent.  While I was setting up, a squirrel was trying to investigate my gear and tent, and acted like it was used to hand-feeding.  As a result, I recruited a couple of kids from the next campsite to watch my tent while I grabbed a quick shower.  Thankfully, the squirrel appeared to lose interest as night came on.  I used my JetBoil to prep my freeze-dried meal, and enjoyed some cold water and cold Diet Coke, thanks to the bag of ice I purchased at the camp store on the way to my site.  With everything cleaned up, I settled in for my first night on the road.

Stats

• Departed 7:49 AM 
• Distance 65.6
• Average MPH 11.7
• Riding Time 5:36 / Total Time 10:16
• 1,612 Feet Ascending
• 1432 Feet Descending

Continue to A Bit of Touring - Day 2

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2024 - Just a Bit of Touring

During the last week of June, I completed a 3-day “mini” bicycle tour, with 3 days of riding and 2 overnights on the road.  My bike was loaded with all the gear I needed for camping, including fixing meals.  Along with a sleeping bag and tent on my bike, I also had a cookstove, utensils, and  food for a couple of days.  After starting from my driveway, my overnight stops were planned for a state park and a state recreation area. While the destinations and routes were by no means epic, it was a fun getaway, despite some annoying tire issues cutting the final day short.

My Trek 920 - tour ready

My last tour had been in 2022, riding for 4 days along the east shore of Lake Michigan. Prior to that, I had been able to manage a weekend or longer trip almost every year for almost 5 years, but I missed in 2023 due to a bunch of life stuff that just happened. This would also be my first bicycle tour since I retired; so while I was not bound by vacation days, I still had to work this trip into a schedule that accommodated all those things that come up, including holidays, travel to visit grandkids, and all that other life stuff.  My original plan was for 4 days and 3 nights; however, some unexpected dental work ended up cutting the 4th day; otherwise, the trip would have been delayed a month. And in some regards, this was a bonus trip, since I had a 5-day supported trip, DALMAC, coming up at the end of August.

After a 2-year gap, pulling my gear together for this trip took a little longer than I expected.  Everything had been put away after the last trip with the intent of being ready for a quick turnaround. But since that trip, I had rebuilt our garage storage space, and that had involved moving and repacking things, including my camping gear.  I had also accumulated some new gear, and that had never been mixed in with the existing gear it replaced.

Besides my new gear, I was also trying to be more “critter” aware in my packing and camping habits. I wanted to take better precautions against the squirrels and raccoons typical of Midwest campgrounds, and the possibility of trips in bear territory on future adventures.  One of the items I added was a small Bear Vault canister for overnight food storage, and an assortment of odor-proof food storage bags, basically heavy-duty Ziploc bags.  This included a large bag for food picked up during the day, and a smaller bag for snacks that would be accessible from my handlebar bag. I also had bags for my chapstick, sunscreen, travel shampoo, and toothpaste, all things that can attract animals.  I am probably not perfect yet, but I am improving.  

I was not going to do laundry on a 3-day trip, so I had packed riding 2 sets of riding clothing, along with in-camp clothing.  I also packed a rain jacket and a convertible jacket/vest.  With the expected temperatures,  I did not pack any cool/cold weather gear.  I know from experience that my packing at home for the first day is never quite as well organized as it will after the first night on the road. While you are packing at home, there is a tendency for that “one last item” to end up in a less than ideal location in your packs. Once you leave home, your load is final, making it easier to put everything in its place for the days ahead.

A well balanced breakfast is essential!

For this short trip, I had my 3 dinners and 2 breakfasts packed, along with an assortment of snack bars, and a couple of days of hydration drink mix.  I would pick up fresh fruit each day, and I would eat lunch on the road.  I still live by my 3 meals on the bike rule, so I have a snack food to make a fair lunch; however, my planned route had plenty of meal opportunities in the various towns along the way.  

Along with the Bear Vault and odor-proof food bags, I had some other new gear to try.  Since my last trip, I had received a new JetBoil stove with a self-igniter for Christmas. It’s a nice convenience, though I still have matches packed.  For my USB rechargeable bike lights, Wahoo Bolt and other tech, I had a new Anker USB-C/A high-speed charger, matched up with a BioLite USB C/A 10,000 mAmp power bank.  This combination was 1/2 pound lighter than my older charger and pair of smaller power banks, and actually had more charging ports and a full day of back-up power.  Other new gear included a replacement for my failed sleeping pad, a sleeping bag liner, and a new camp clothes line solution. (A future blog will cover gear in more detail and my on-tour recharging strategy.)

Keeping cool with a shade break.

For my route, a bike club friend had tipped me off to Summit Lake State Park, an easy 60ish miles from my home for my first night out.  I had not really heard of it before, and the riding there was easy, starting from home on the Monon Trail, then heading east on the Midland Trace through Noblesville.   From Summit Lake, for day 2, I would then have a short run north to pick up the Cardinal Green Way, for a long day that would end at the Mississenewa Lake State Recreation Area.  It’s a great destination I have biked to many times before. With 300+ campsites, you are not likely to be turned away.  For Day 3 from Mississenewa, it was just 10 miles west to the Nickel Plate Trail, and then a straight run south through Kokomo on a mix of trail and county grid roads.  

I wrapped up most of my packing the afternoon and evening before departure.  As I went to bed, the weather forecast looked great for the days ahead.  I was looking forward to good nights’ sleep and an early start.

Continue to A Bit of Touring - Day 1

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2024 - My 22 TOSRV Revolutions

After last riding TOSRV in 2022,  I had mixed feelings about returning again.  While my 21st TOSRV had good weather, and I had no trouble riding the back-to-back centuries, the experience was just not the same.  With less than 300 riders, and only half that number doing the classic 2-day format, so many of the elements of my prior participation were missing.  There was no group energy, and much of the ride had felt like a solo time trial. That was not the way I wanted to remember an event that had been a focus of my cycling for so many years.  

My First Revolution - 1979

I had left TOSRV as a tentative ride in my 2024 schedule through the summer.  I had a local gravel race the same weekend.  Even when the “One Last Revolution” announcement came up on, stating this would be the last TOSRV of the classic format, I was still undecided.   It wasn’t until Steve Leiby, my long-time riding friend from Michigan, called and suggested we sign up.  And when Steve said he was open to my suggestion to ride my tandem, I decided I was in.   It was going to make a pretty busy schedule for my late summer riding, but my newly retired status meant I had the time.  TOSRV’s last revolution would be my 22nd, 45 years after my first.  

Personally, TOSRV has always been 1/2 athletic challenge and 1/2 social event. For most of its 60+ year history, it was on Mother’s Day weekend, so getting ready for TOSRV’s 210 miles was a great early foundation for the riding season.  And socially, I was either traveling to TOSRV with friends and family, or meeting them on the ride. To get to my 21, I had ridden it in every decade since my first: ’70’s once, ’80’s 5 times, ’90’s once, 2000’s 5 times, ’10’s 8 times, and now ’20’s twice.  My longest break was 15 years (we lived west of the Mississippi 12 of those), so that is not too bad a record.

By the numbers, my prior 21 TOSRV rides times resulted in 42, 100-mile-plus days (also known as a century ride), for a total of almost 4,500 miles.  Century rides are like ballparks, each a little different, and the sum of my TOSRV rides averages out to 107 miles per day. The original brochures stated it was a total of 210 miles, and you still had to ride from the official finish to one of the many different overnight venues in Portsmouth.  And multiple years had 10 to 15 extra miles due to construction detours on the route. 

In the process of  training for each of those spring events, I tried to ride at least 1,000 road miles with at least 1 century, so that is another 20,000 plus miles focused on TOSRV, and another 20 centuries. That comes to 25,000 miles, or a little over 2,000 hours of riding time.   Along with the riding, there was the time spent planning, packing, and then driving to Columbus (200 miles, give or take) and home.   And while I occasionally drove to Columbus after work (my first time not by plan!), there are probably at least a dozen day-off requests coordinated with different employers.  So all told, TOSRV was a focus for 2 or 3 months of those 21 repeat years.

My first TOSRV, with over 5,000 riders, was the largest bike event I had ever attended, by a factor of 10.  From the moment you dropped your overnight baggage in one of a dozen U-Hauls parked along High Street in downtown Columbus and started riding south, you were never alone on the road, or as you waited in line for 30 minutes at the 50-mile lunch stop.  Once you were on the rural roads 10 miles south of Columbus, you would find yourself riding in the middle of a 30-rider pace line while another endless line of drafting riders was streaming past on your left, and sometimes your line was in the middle of lines of faster and slower riders. 

With regard to TOSRV weather, I can say that I have experienced all save one: snow.  I have had fog, mist, light rain, scattered rain, hard rain, horizontal rain, and road flooding downpours.  The same can be said for winds, coming from every point of the compass, and from calm to blustery.  You may think riding 40 miles into a 20 mph headwind is tough, until you’ve had to ride 40 miles with a 20 mph CROSS wind. My own way of dealing with the weather was breaking it down to a percentage.  This meant “50% rain” was only 100 miles for the weekend, which makes a century in rain not seem so bad. And for me, that full century in the rain only happened once, on a Sunday; and of course, I drove home afterward under sunny skies.  

I have ridden TOSRV on 3 different road bikes and 3 different tandems (including #22).  TOSRV #1 was on my first chrome-moly frame, alloy-component road bike, a Sekine CH-270.  That was followed by twice on a Santana Classic tandem, and 7 times on a Santana Sovereign.  Since then, it has been 3 times on a modern Motobecane Sprint (bonded aluminum with carbon fork), and since 2013 on my current Trek Domane 2.3 (endurance geometry, carbon fork, formed aluminum, and elastomer frame dampening).  

Those bikes cover almost 80 years of bicycle technology.  In the late `70s, our bikes were all friction shifting; you controlled shifts by touch, sound, and most of all experience and practice.  This shifting tech was the standard on racing bikes going back to before World War II. Friction shifting was something that took at least a season or two to learn and master.  Index shifting was something still on the drawing boards and wouldn’t be on my TOSRV bikes until the 2000s. The steel frames we rode were technology going back even farther.  It was during the `80s and `90s that all the stuff that is standard today began to appear in an explosion of revolutionary and evolutionary technology: indexed shifting, 8-9-10+ cog cassettes, clip-less pedal systems like Look and SPD, better tires, and new frame materials and construction techniques.  

My cycling apparel followed a similar technology curve.  I was wearing a hard shell Bell Biker helmet by 1979 and had a few pairs of wool shorts with chamois leather lining (we did not think of it as padding), topped with some wool and wool blend jerseys.  My cycling shoes had cleats I had nailed on myself; they were held on the pedal by toe straps (and you had to remember to loosen those straps for stops).   My early rain gear was a mix of capes, ponchos, trash bags with arm and neck holes, and the aforementioned wool.  My last hard shell helmet was probably `87 or `88, as helmets became lighter and cooler.  Lycra and other synthetics replaced wool by the late `80s. Rain gear evolved as well, with GoreTex and other fabrics making rain riding, if not comfortable, at least endurable. 

Riding into the Portsmouth mural - 2016

Needless to say, my 1979 bike had no electronics; your mileage was based on what the ride director and map said it was, along with dead reckoning, and maybe a mechanical cyclometer.  I did start riding with Cateye “cycle-computers” as they came available in the `80s.  And all through those first dozen years, on Sunday I looked for a pay phone to wish my Mom a happy Mother’s Day.  If you had told me in 1979 I would someday be riding with satellite navigation, while recording my route, speed, cadence, elevation, and heart rate, along with overtaking vehicle radar alerts, and had a mobile phone, computer/camera in my jersey pocket, I would have been more than a little skeptical.

After my first TOSRV, my next nine were on a tandem.  The first five were with a guest stoker, four different riding friends (1 a repeat), and while each was a tandem captain themselves, it worked out I was the captain. (Despite multiple tandem centuries, my wife decided early on that TOSRV was my ride.) Sometimes we had training rides prior, and sometimes we met the night before.  A tandem was my favorite way to ride TOSRV, both with other cycling friends and later with my oldest son.  At one time, TOSRV was thought to be one of the largest gatherings of tandems for a non-tandem-specific event, with upwards of 150 tandems participating.   Strong tandems were always appreciated by other cyclists on long rides, especially when for their steady draft on a windy afternoon.

My son Tyler and I at the Capitol Start - 2005

During the 2000s, Tyler, my oldest son, and I rode our tandem on 4 successive TOSRVs.  We started our run when he was just 12, and it was a great experience for us both. The last 3 years we rode, we started a Saturday night movie tradition, catching the May openings of the early Marvel action movies. One year, we even dealt with some pre-season drama when Tyler suffered a hairline fracture of his arm (goofing off with friends), the February before the ride.   We waited 6 weeks for the all-clear, and after a shortened training season together, we still made the event in May.  Those hours of training and participation with my son are priceless memories. 

When I returned to TOSRV in 2005, the ride already had lower attendance than during the `90’s, with fewer riders each year after.  It was after 2010 that the sense of change accelerated.  The riding groups were smaller and farther between.  You saw the change in  logistics, with fewer baggage trucks, no lines at lunch, and fewer overnight venues.  The finishing crowds were smaller, especially with the time spread between younger, faster riders and the older riders.  At the same time, the roads certainly felt busier, especially on the final run on the sole highway into Portsmouth.

2016 was my 18th TOSRV, and probably the last one that maintained all the “feel” of the prior 17.  After riding the first day, I wrote a blog (another tech change; I usually bike travel with an iPad now) explaining why I have kept coming back. Read the whole blog “2016:Riding Through my Field of Dreams" for the full context, but here is the gist of what I wrote that night in Portsmouth:

As I rode the first half of my 18th TOSRV today, there was a downpour of memories, something from every one of those prior rides.   With each mile came a flash of recollection, taking me back to rides 5, 10, or even 35 years ago.    Each memory brought back a smile, and each smile made the mile of pedaling that much easier.

For a time, it was as if my legs were ageless, moving the pedals with the strength of my early 20s, and yet with the fluidity of 40 years of riding.  

All things have their time, and 63 years is a very good run for any event, especially one made possible by volunteers and for a narrow interest group relative to the population at large.  And after the Last Revolution, there remains a legacy of the other events that TOSRV inspired and will continue, and of course, for Bikecentennial ‘76, which became Adventure Cycling.  That is an amazing contribution to cycling in and of itself.

But in the end, TOSRV’s final last legacy, for years to come, will be found in scrapbooks on bookshelves, or in forgotten boxes in closets and attics.  There might be a patch, a fanny flag, a faded T-shirt, a few pictures, or maybe just a certificate with a gold seal.  And when a child or grandchild comes across those bits of memorabilia, maybe, if they are lucky, they will be able to hear a story or two about a weekend of riding a bicycle 200 miles in Ohio.

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2024: High on DALMAC

 “You will be high on DALMAC.”

This was a comment of my friend Kristen, as we were discussing our plans for the next couple of weeks of late August. With her husband Nathan, the 3 of us were sitting at a restaurant in Kokomo, Indiana, eating lunch in the middle of a day of riding.  Their tandem, loaded with camping gear, was leaned against a rail next to my day-trip road bike. This was their first day of a week-long ride to a tandem rally in central Iowa. In a few days I would be driving north to Michigan for the 5-day DALMAC bicycle tour.  I was riding along on my own bike to get in a long training ride and would have 100 miles in by the time I finished that afternoon.  We would be going our separate ways after lunch, as they headed to their first overnight stop, and I returned home.

Ready to start DALMAC 1974

Their trip would be 8 days of riding covering almost 500 miles, carrying their gear for a mix of camping, hotels, and guest homes.  A simple rule of thumb is that an hour on the interstate is a day by bike; a day by bike is 7 to 8 hours of riding to cover 70 to 80 miles.   My upcoming DALMAC ride was similar, 5 days of riding on an organized tour covering 350 miles, headed north through Michigan from Lansing.  However, my camping gear would be carried in a truck each day to the next day’s campsite.  Another difference was that I would be riding with over 400 other bicyclists, while they would be riding by themselves.

My friend’s comment was based on what she knew about my history.  2024 marked 50 years since my first DALMAC bicycle tour in 1974. Then I had been a 17-year-old high school senior and was facing a year of uncertainty about my future beyond high school.  I had just been riding for a couple of years, and just about everything on that trip was new to me; traveling on my own, the camping, the group meals, even the 6-hour bus ride back from St. Ignace.  This was also my first trip in northern Michigan, riding through towns like Gaylord, Petoskey, and St. Ignace (and others), places that I had only known from the TV news, lessons in school, or friends who went “Up North”.  It was even my first time to cross the incredible Mackinac Bridge, all the more so in that I did it on a bicycle.

Along with the memories, the most important thing I brought back from that trip (though I didn’t realize it at the time) was bicycling as an anchor and center for my life. My hours on a bike helped me through my challenges during that senior year of high school and the years that followed.  It was in part an escape, as I dealt with the frustrations and disappointments, but it was also a positive focus, as I planned for the next ride, the next bike, or the next tour. Through bicycling, I made many new friends and eventually met my best friend, my wife, Linda.  It was not a direct path, but it was not a destructive one, and I was fortunate to have found bicycling so early.

After 50 years of bicycling thousands of miles from homes in Indiana, Washington State, and Iowa, and tours in the US and Canada, I still look forward to each return to ride DALMAC, the ride that inspired those miles.  One of the amazing things about repeating a route or event on a bike is that it is never a rerun.  Every trip is made unique by the weather, riders you fall in with, and the waxing and waning fortunes of the towns you pass through.  

And when you ride through something familiar or unchanged, whether it is a perfect stretch of road, finishing a still challenging climb, or pausing at the perfect view high above Lake Michigan, it does feel good to be carried back to that very first time you did it.  

That high is the best of all.

My DALMAC 2024 finish photo with "Big Mac"

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1980 - Of Bicycles, Bits and Dreams

For the first riding season since 1980, my custom Assenmacher is not ready to ride.  After 44 seasons and just over 50,000 miles, in late 2023, the 20 year-old combination of derailleurs, freewheels and bar end shifters that made up the drive train were all in need of replacement, and it was no longer fun to ride in it’s current state. I took it down to a bare frame, now hanging in my garage.  It still needs a good clean up, but I don’t yet have plan for how it returns to rideable.  

It has been an incredible bike.  While the coast-to-coast ride I had envisioned when planing and purchasing my dream touring bike never materialized, it did dozens of shorter trips and overnights.  At times it was stripped of fenders racks and was my only fast bike.  I have ridden at almost every event distance, up to a double-century on Seattle to Portland.  It even became my long commuter for a few years, fenders and racks perfect for that, when I had indoor parking. Once I had a regular sport bike, whenever I wanted to ride with my various SLR and later digital cameras, the Assenmacher, with an Eclipse handlebar bag, was was my goto bike for rides looking for the next Kodak moment.

Let's go find a sunset!

I ordered the frame during the summer of 1979, talking directly to Matt Assenmacher at his first shop in Swartz Creek, Michigan.  I first heard about Matt in 1975 on the DALMAC overnight in Mt. Pleasant where he was working out of a bike shop.  His frames had already begun popping on rides around Michigan. With their classic British paint schemes and bold white lettering on the down tube, they were easy to spot.  When I moved to Lansing in the fall of 1978, his frames were very popular there, and my new circle of riding friends soon included a handful of Assenmacher bikes.  

By then I was going on 5 seasons on my current touring road frame, and I was getting the itch for a true touring bike.  The idea of a custom bike was very appealing, especially for my future touring plans, up to and including crossing the U.S.  One of the draws of a custom built touring bikes was the option of adding custom braze-ons or “bits”.  On most of the production bike frames of the mid-70’s,  almost every thing that that went on a bike frame: the shift levers, cable stops, housing guides, and water bottles, were mounted using wrap-around clamps.  And no matter how well the clamp was made, or even if they were coated with rubber or plastic, the assortment of clamps were distracting to look at and eventually damaged the bike’s finish.

So along with a frame geometry intended for touring, you ordered a bike with all the bits you thought you needed.  My Assenmacher started out with 3 sets of bottle cages on the down tube, top tube brake housing guides, and cable stops and guides for the front and rear derailleur cables.  I also added rack mounts on the seat stays, and double eyelets on the front and rear for fenders and racks.  So that was 20 “bits” brazed on to the frame, when I took delivery in January of 1980.  I had the frame repainted 10 years later, and made few more changes based on what I had learned.  I switched from side-pulls to cantilever brakes, and the new (late 80`s) low rider front racks.  That added 7 more bits.   And that is the bike I rode for the next 33 years.

With regard to the drive train, it was originally built with a Sun Tour 6-speed rear freewheel, and triple TA crankset.  It was an arrangement called “half step and granny” with two the largest front chainrings just 6 teeth different, and dropping down to a 28 tooth inside ring, “the Granny”.  The freewheeling was 14 to 28.  A few years later, Sun Tour added a 7th cog, and largest (lowest gear) a 34.  But without the frame being updated to allow wider, modern hubs, 7 was the most cogs that would fit.  And for the last 20 years, that only worked with a 8-speed shifter that had one unused click.  That was the arrangement I assembled in the early 2000’s, for use on my Assenmacher and our 1985 Santana tandem.

As fate would have it, the summer I planned the purchase of my dream touring bike, I met a girl.  That girl became my wife, and after that, almost all of our touring was on a tandem.  Linda and I had over 6,000 touring miles on our tandems during the `80’s, on trips throughout the midwest, Southern California, New England and the Canadian Rockies.  As our two sons came along, tandems ruled the day for our riding with them.  The Assenmacher was ridden during the week and a few weekend tours, but anything epic was on the tandem.  

My last true tour on the Assenmacher was in 2014, riding from Columbia, Missouri to Covington, Indiana over 6 days, with the first 100 miles on the Katy Trail.  While the Assenmacher was still great on the road, I knew that time was catching up with it. Its mid-70’s roots could not support more modern drivetrains.  And while a sweet ride on pavement, the 700x28 based wheels weren’t suitable for any-surface, loaded touring, a point driven home by two flats in 10 miles on a rutted section of the crushed limestone Katy; and a few days later when had to choose a busy state highway over a more direct route with 8 miles of gravel.

Crossing into Indiana, 2014

By coincidence, Trek introduced their 920 Adventure touring bike that same summer, (I even read one of the first reviews on that trip on the Katy).  With our boys now grown, and Linda’s interest more in weekend B&B rides rather than epic tandem tours, I was starting to have some time again for single bike touring.  Since 2017, I’ve had a 920, now with over 1,500 miles of touring trips and thousand more of commuting and round town, and even as my camera bike.

Thought I didn’t realize it at the time, my last ride (for now?) on the Assenmacher was when a high school friend and I connected for a ride from my home.  He was on a current carbon frame, while I kept pace on the steel frame of another era.  We rolled back the years since we had last run cross country together to the buzz of Conti’s on pavement. And as always the Assenmacher was just an extension of me, following my lead without a thought.  It was a good ride to end on.

Every time I talk about a new bike, Linda reminds me of a letter I wrote early in our relationship stating the Assenmacher was “the last bike I ever needed.”  (I am sure I would have qualified that with “last hand-built, Columbus tubed, custom touring bike”!)   Obviously, it wasn’t the last bike, but through all the bikes I’ve owned and ridden since, it was the one constant.  Though my first dream bike won’t make the trip I imagined at the time, the hours and miles on that bike are an irreplaceable part of my ride so far.

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