2021 - Thank You Dick Allen

Sometime during the summer of 1973, on a visit to my favorite bike shop, I picked a flyer for a bike ride.  It described a four-day ride from Lansing to Mackinac City, Michigan over Labor Day weekend.  The ride was called Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinac, or simply DALMAC.  It explained there would be maps, a century ride, meals, overnight campsites, baggage trucks, a ride across the Mackinac Bridge, and a bus ride back to Lansing.  The total cost would be something like $200, almost twice what I had paid for my new bike in January of that same year. That ride brochure went on my bulletin board at home.  I didn’t know how I would manage the dollars and logistics, but I decided I was going to do that ride the next year.

Dick Allen at the Michigan Capitol,
DALMAC 74

DALMAC was a complete list of things I had never done.  I had never ridden that many miles in that many days in row. I had never traveled overnight from home with anyone but family.  I had never been camping or slept in a tent.  I had never been north of Lansing, and most of my knowledge of “up north” was from my Michigan history in school or TV, and what I heard from friends. But I don’t ever recall even thinking about those “nevers” as I went about the next 12 months.  It was just all a leap of faith and youthful optimism.

That was my first summer for real cycling.  With Christmas money I had purchased my first drop-bar and derailleur “speed bike” after 3 summers on a 26” wheeled “English” 3-speed.  My longest ride to that point was an 80-mile charity ride, and though my bike was new, I was already planning for my next bike, one with alloy wheels and quick release hubs.  I was working a hodge-podge of jobs, including a paper route, sweeping a small drapery shop on Saturday mornings, mowing lawns and a few weeks of putting up hay on a local farm.  By mid-summer I was washing dishes at a local bar  & grill 3 nights a week, a job that might last through the winter.  

But somehow, it all came together.  Over my junior year of high school, I earned enough money for the new bike, and for DALMAC '74, and was signed up before school was out.  I would share a tent with a high school friend also on DALMAC, but I did buy my first sleeping bag.  I started to acquire cycling clothing, as I quickly learned that jeans or gym shorts weren’t very good for rides of 20 miles or more, along with my first cycling shoes and jerseys.  I bought a set of panniers for my baggage, since you were supposed to be able to carry your gear on your bike.  I was very popular at the bike shop in Jackson, and I never seemed to have a lot of savings!

Finally in late August, my bike and gear were loaded in the family pickup, and my Mom was up with me at 5 in the morning to drive me the 60 miles to the start in East Lansing.  I unloaded my bike, hugged my Mom good-bye, with a promise to call home every night, and checked in at registration.  For the first time, I carried my tagged bags to the ramp of a U-Haul van, and then fell in with the hundreds of riders for the first leg, the ride from East Landing to the steps of the Michigan Capitol building.   From the start, my 35mm camera (I forgot mention I saved up for that too!) was out and I started taking color slides.  As we gathered at the Capitol, walking among the riders was Michigan’s Governor Milliken, in a suit and tie, talking with Dick Allen, who was wearing a polo shirt and cotton hiking shorts.  Most 17-old kids don’t expect to be standing next to their governor, but there I was.

Those next 4 days of bicycling were a blur of new experiences, as I rode north with almost 600 other riders in every type of gear imaginable:  t-shirts and cuts-off, hiking shorts, gym shorts and the few of us in black cycling shorts and real bike jerseys.  There was every type of bike: old 3-speeds, steel Schwinns, and the elite bikes with names like Holdsworth, Bob Jackson, Motobecane and Peugeot.  Regardless of the walk of life, on the road we were all just bicyclists, all riding to Mackinac, all because of a guy named Dick Allen.

Every mile of every day was new to me, each town my first time there, and I had done it all on my own power.  By the second day, I was already in tune with the touring rhythm of RIDE-EAT-SLEEP-REPEAT.  As I pedaled my way north, the changing landscape drew me in even more, until the last day of riding along Little Traverse Bay, Lake Michigan, through M-119’s Tunnel of Trees, and finally the Straights of Mackinac.  I had ridden to the Mackinac Bridge, seeing it the first time and then crossing it by bike.  We arrived in St. Ignace, and made our way to the high school for the last night of camping before our bus ride back to East Lansing, 

On that bus ride back I already knew I would be back.  I thought about all I had seen and learned, and the people I had met.  I was already planning what what I would need for the the next trip, what I had to upgrade, and how to prepare.  But there were things I didn’t know would come out following Dick Allen’s ride to Mackinac.

I didn’t now that bicycling those 4 days would become the anchor in my life through some challenging months ahead.  Rather than more destructive escapes, I would come to rely on a bike ride to get me through the day.

I didn’t know my next DALMAC, the following year, would part of an 11-day adventure of bicycle touring, and the miles of adventures that would follow that trip over the years ahead.

I didn’t know it would kick start my urge to volunteer for bike clubs and events, and the hundreds of hours I would invest in them almost every year since.

I didn’t know that I would pick Lansing as my first town when I left home, all because of it’s great bike club, the TriCounty Bicycling Association, and the lifelong friends I would make while there.  

I didn’t now I would meet my wife to be on one of those TCBA rides.  We would soon begin our own bicycle adventures, riding our tandem for thousands of miles of touring, adventures that continued with boys Tyler and Justin.  And I also shared a DALMAC with Justin when he was just 14.

I didn’t know that life, family and work would result in a 30-year gap between my DALMACs, but coming back in 2008, 2009 and 2017, I was able to say hello again to Dick Allen, and chat with him in camp or on the road, just like in the `70’s.  I can't say I was a personal friend, but everyone who rode DALMAC was a friend to Dick.

With Dick Allen at check-in DALMAC 2017

For 2021, my 7th DALMAC,  I had a great time riding with friends I had made over 40 years before, friends I had made through DALMAC and TCBA.  However, Dick Allen did not make the ride, probably the first time in 50 years.  His joyful presence and smiling face was missed by all.

I know that Dick Allen alone is not responsible for DALMAC, and know most of the people that worked with him in those early years, and the many that still make it possible today. But he is the guy that they all coalesced around.  It was not a memorial ride, he would joke many times on those latter rides.  

If there hadn’t been a DALMAC, it is possible that another event might have had the same impact on my life and my bicycling.  Maybe. But I am forever grateful  there was a Dick Allen and a DALMAC, and that I picked up that flier.  And every time I crest that first hill out of Harbor Springs on M-119, I am once again, and always will be, that same 17-year old kid riding it for the first time.

Thank you Dick Allen, and I wish you smooth roads and tailwinds.

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2021: Knitting with Stainless Steel

Yes, I know how to build and true bicycle wheels. 

I would guess most bicyclists today seldom go beyond oiling a chain and changing a tire.  Growing up in a family of boys (and 1 sister) with a Dad who was a mechanic/welder/farmer/heavy equipment operator, you learned early that you always fixed it yourself first (or at least tried to).  And while I didn’t have the aptitude for cars and trucks that my dad and  a few of my brothers had, once I I was hooked on riding bikes, I was soon hooked on working on them.  Building on all that early experience, and my years in bicycle retail,  I don’t mind taking on just about any bicycle repair.  Over the last 3 years, I have even been learning the finer points of disc brakes that are now on our 3 newest bikes.  

Ready to get started.

And every few years, the opportunity comes along to build another bike wheel.  When I started riding, hand-built wheels were in the same league as a hand-built frame, the benchmark of quality and reliability.  And while today’s machine built wheels are incredibly reliable, I still enjoy the satisfaction of lacing and finishing a wheel for one of my bikes when the need arises.

The spoked bicycle wheel is beautiful piece of engineering.  Your hub is actually hanging from the top of the wheel, while the tension on the other spokes works to keep the hub centered in the rim, and the rim true and round.  One of my favorite descriptions is that bicycle wheel is round suspension bridge!  A wheel’s spokes can be laced in a variety of patterns, depending on the intended usage, and what you decide in trade-off’s of weight, performance and reliability.  

While a radial spoke wheel has spoke going straight from hub to rim, very common on front wheels today, most wheels have a pattern that incorporate spoke crossing over and under each between the hub and rim. A 2-cross pattern goes over 1 spoke and under the second, a 3 cross goes over two and under the third and so on (and my reference to knitting).  You must also start the spokes correctly in the rim; the eyelets are offset in the rim, to match with the side of the hub, and you want be sure you don’t have spokes crossing over the valve opening, which can make inflating the tire a challenge.

Once a wheel is laced, the final tension on hand-built wheel used to be more of an art, the proper tension achieved through practice and experience; simply building more wheels and seeing how they held up.   However, when it is years between wheel sets, some of that “touch” is sure to be lost.  And has the design and materials have changed, past experience may not be as useful.  However, time gathered skills can now be aided by tension gauges and software that allow you to measure and compare the tension of each spoke.  I started using the Park Spoke tension gauge and wheel building apps a few years ago, first to repair wheels, and now to build them, and it is an amazing resource.

My first interest in wheel building came about after a challenging couple of days of riding with broken spokes.  I had purchased my second road bike in the summer of 1974, just in time for my first double century and in anticipation of my first extended tour, DALMAC. I was on DALMAC, with probably less than a 1,000 miles on the new bike, when a spoke in the rear wheel broke late in the third day.  In camp that night I found the mechanics truck, and he was able to replace the spoke and true up the wheel.  I assumed it was just a one off, and I would be fine.  (I didn’t expect to be like the tandem on DALMAC that year, that was breaking 5-6 spokes per day, but that is another story!)

I started the next day only mildly concerned.  It was a century day, and would end with biking across the Mackinac Bridge.  At 70 miles, I heard a ping, and a spoke had broken.  It was crossed under another and not causing an issue.   But then at 80 miles, another ping.  This spoke I had remove, because it was hitting the back of the freewheel.  I loosened the rear brake a bit, and continued, trying to ride “softly”.  By the time I reached the pullout for the bridge, 6  (out of 36) spokes were gone, the rear brakes was disconnected, and the tire was barely clearing the frame.   And that is how I crossed the Mackinac Bridge the first time, gingerly riding “light” and hoping my rear wheel would make the remaining 8 miles across the bridge and to St. Ignace High School.

After returning home, I made the trip to the bike shop, and they rebuilt the wheel for me.  This was my first lesson in the art of wheel building.  The spokes used by the manufacturer were smaller than hub was designed for, and the spoke heads were failing at the hub flange.  The shop re-built wheel with a the correct diameter, or gauge, spoke for the hub, and the wheel worked for many years after.   And from the point forward, I worked to learn everything I could about repairing and building wheels.

After lacing comes the finishing.

I started with adding spoke wrenches, I then picked up a copy of Robert Wright’s Building Bicycle Wheels.  As part of a bike upgrade, I bought a set of Phil Wood hubs, then I ordered rims, and the correct length and gauge spokes, and over a week of winter nights, I laced my first set of bicycle wheels while Matt Assenmacher was building my custom touring bike.  A more experienced friend helped me with the final truing, and then the were road ready. I used that the first set of wheels for almost 10 years, before rebuilding them again with a more modern rim.   That set is still on the Assenmacher, probably 10,000 miles later.  

I started the working in bike shops a year later, and was building wheels more frequently, probably 5-6 wheels a year, when a special request would come in, and if the regular wheel builder wasn’t available.  The most challenging wheels I did build were the 5-cross, 48 spoke tandem wheels of the 80’s.  

Along way I picked up the intricacies of selecting the spoke gauge and cross patterns, the lacing order and tricks of when to use lube or Loctite on eyelets and spokes.   The final step in truing was stressing the wheel; wearing a pair of leather work gloves, you worked around the wheel, grasping each the parallel pairs and squeezing so that and twists in spoke is relieved.  When it is done right, the wheel is silent on the first ride, as every spoke is seated and ready to share the load.

My latest wheel, built this past winter, was for the rear wheel my Trek 920.  An errant strap during an after dark commute had resulted in broken a spoke I had repaired a couple of years ago, so that wheel was no longer factory true.  And while cleaning my 920 last fall, I found another broken spoke, as I prepared to replace that spoke I found a crack in the rim at the eyelet of the bad spoke.  The wheel then had over 8,500 miles, and over half those miles had been with my regular work commute load (laptop, lunch and clothes) along with 10 days of self-supported camp touring, so all things considered, including that errant strap, it was not bad run for a rear wheel.  Thankfully, despite the COVID bike and components shortages, the replacement rim was readily available from Trek.  After few weeks to gather the rim and and spokes, the new wheel went together in a couple of nights, first lacing the original hub into the new rim, and then truing it into a finished wheel. The new spokes are stainless steel rather than black spokes, and I already have ridden it for couple of hundred miles since it was installed.

Two of my bike now roll on wheels I have built, and the same tools are used to keep my other wheels round and true.  So while the tools have changed, the satisfaction of the results remain.   While a dozen different technologies are responsible for the component parts, the final product is still handcrafted.

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2020: A 5,000 Mile Miscalculation

In September of 2019, I decided it was time to celebrate rolling over 200,000 logged road bicycle miles. That was when my latest Excel summary spreadsheet had me rolling over 199,999.   Or so I thought.  It turns out I was off, by about 5,000 miles, through a simple error in data entry, the result of combining 4 decades of records scattered across 3 different systems.

Finishing ride in September 2019

Scattered in some boxes, I have all of my early mileage logs.  They are a mix of simple ledger books, Year-on-a-page logs sheets from the League of America Wheelman (now LAB) magazine, and free monthly logs from Bicycling.  All told, I have reasonable approximations of my early riding, especially considering that the first 10 years relied on mechanical peg cyclometers and simple dead reckoning for most of that portion of my mileage history. It wasn’t until 1982 that I had my first electronic speedometer/ odometer from Cateye.  And has a side note,  ever since that first one, in our household, any, bike “computer” has been a Cateye, regardless of brand or capability.  

The first bike computers were clunking affairs, relying on AA batteries, and offering only speed, trip and total miles.  You could actually buy a little external battery pack with alligator clips to keep your milage while you changed the batteries.  Thoughout the `80’s they decreased in size and increased in sophistication, and began their gradual transition to todays offerings with GPS Navigation and tracking, heart rate and power output.

About the same time I started using electronics on our bikes, in 1983 we purchased our first home computer, a CPM based KayPro II. It included a simple spreadsheet program called PerfectCalc.  I used it to begin collecting all those early mileage logs into annual cumulative summaries, with categories for the 4 types of bikes I was riding;  Touring, Sport, Tandem and Mountain.   Those early spreadsheets, and daily records, were my first electronic record keeping, through the late `80s. 

By 1989, I had begun working on a Mac at home, and was also doing relationship data base development professionally, also on the Mac.  So using those developer tools, I put together a bicycle data base that would track my daily miles by bike and ride, and created summaries for annual reports.  I kept adding features; types of rides, the state where the ride occurred, time and distance.  I basically keep that database running through about 2016, which coincidentally, was when I started using RidewithGPS.com.   In 2016 that aging data base database finally hit a platform limit, and unless I spend about $500 for a new license, or until I take the time to rebuild it in a shareware SQL, I was back to Excel.  And that brings back to my 200,000 mile year.

Also along the way, I had to start backing trainer miles out of the road total.  That meant backing about 22,000 miles out of the total.  There is a screen shot of hitting 200,000 TOTAL miles in may of 2015, but that is sort of sidebar.

My annual mileage summary, circa 2015,
with indoor trainer miles.

My bicycle database had an annual summary, and that included a 200,000 ROAD mile forecast.  Back in 2015, I knew it was going to happen sometime in 2018 or 2019, based on my average annual daily miles (yes, I had that calculated too!).  But I sort of lost track of that forecast with the database.  I then dowloaded some data and began tracking annual miles in Excel.  Based on that work, I settled on September 2019 as the month I rolled over 199,999 road miles.  And I didn’t think much about it until last month of this year.

This year I rolled over 5,200 miles in mid-October, and I wanted to look back at my string of 5000+ years.  So I pulled up the spreadsheet with the summary from the summer of 2019, and started adding things up, and I finally saw that when I built that sheet, I had missed a column entry and 2005 was recorded as 468 miles.  I did a bit of double take, and looked back through a couple of other summary files, and corrected the error (5251 miles), and looked again at the total.   When it was all said and done, I had probably logged 200,000 road miles about the time of the 2018 Hilly Hundred.  It would have been nice to have celebrated it there, but my September 2019 celebration was fun too.  

For now, I have everything agreeing, and I have winter project to rebuild the database, and get a few more totals fixed, like the the total number of rides logged, (almost 13,000) and my average ride (around 16, a lot of 10 mile commutes).  And of course, the milage on each of my bikes.  And then I have my next distance goal to celebrate, in about 5-6 years, when (and thanks to my brother Jeff for the reference), I will complete my first “lunar”.

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