1979: Touring in the UP, Part 4

(Final installment on my 1979 UP Tour)

In the shade in Trenary, MI,  1979

The next morning was my turn around day for St. Ignace and I would have to save the western UP for another trip. I started out heading south and west, through the small towns of Chatham and Trenary. One of my favorite self-portraits was taken in Trenary, sitting on the sidewalk in front of a shop, in the shade of a couple of trees. Thirty some odd years later, Google Maps Street View will let me find that spot, with the same wood siding and door, but the shade trees are no longer there. From Trenary, I continued south to Gladstone and a campground near there.

The next day I was heading east, riding a mix of inland and Lake Michigan coast line along US 2. On my last night out, I camped just west of St. Ignace, and again split the camping fee with another rider, this time a girl from from Toronto who was riding west.

Looking across to Michigan side, from
west of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, 1979

It was fun meeting other touring cyclists in the UP, headed both east and west, some crossing into Canada at the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie) to short cut the distance to the northern East coast, others riding south to cross into Ontario from St. Clair or Detroit, or riding all the way down to the Michigan-Ohio border. A few years later when I helped some friends plan a trans continental tour, the later reported that after riding from Duluth, MN to Toledo, OH, Michigan was the single state they rode the most days and miles in.

I wish I had kept my contacts with all the riders I met on those trips. I am sure that today, I would have friended them on Facebook with a smart phone the same day, but now those names are lost in journals and note pads misplaced after too many moves in the years since. Who knows, maybe they will stumble across this blog, and we will strike up a conversation again.

I finished with 6 days of riding and including all the side trips and meandering, almost 500 miles.  It was not my longest tour, though it would the longest one I rode alone.  And the changes in my life that had just begun meant that I would not be touring alone for many years to come.

Sunset from Brimley State Park, MI, 1979

A final footnote on my 1979 UP trip. As I said, many of my journals and note pads are scattered, so much of this is recalled from a normally reliable memory. However, in the process of looking through my boxes of color slides from these trips, it became obvious that some details were blurred between my UP tours of 1976, 1977 and 1979.  I have the gross details correct, but may be off a year or two. The boat tour through the Soo locks, turns out to have been on a my trip in 1977. And I know a group of kids tagged along as I headed south of out of Sault Ste. Marie, but I may not be able pin down which trip it happened on unless I find that years journal. It is not a case of a fabrication, just misplaced details.

1974: You were supposed to call home

(This is really a story about my Mom and Dad, and their support of a bicycle crazed teen ager.)

In my first season of riding, I learned about the DALMAC (Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinac) ride from friends in the bicycle club in Jackson and flier I found in a bike shop.  DALMAC, organized by the TriCounty Bicycle Association was then just a 4-day, 350 mile, supported touring ride, starting the Thursday before Labor Day (Today, there are 4-5 route options with 2,500 riders).  One of the highlights of the ride was biking across the 5 mile long, 200 foot high Mackinac Bridge to finish the ride. They expected 500 riders, and the fee was reasonable, since it was all camping for the overnights.

Getting dropped of in East Lansing for my first DALMAC,
my youngest brother Chad watching.

There were a few obstacles for me to overcome before I could go on that ride.  I was only 17 and needed to be "accompanied" by adult on the ride, I had never  been gone from home on my own for more than a overnight and I had no tent or camping experience.  Then I learned John Whitehead, an 18-year old senior in my high school (I would be starting my junior year that fall), and the other "serious" rider was also riding DALMAC. A couple of phone calls and I had my "adult" on the ride with me.  I signed up that spring, and started getting ready.

It was a busy summer; I was working three jobs (putting up hay, a paper route, and washing dishes) and I used that money to buy a new bike, a handlebar bag, panniers, and a sleeping bag.   I also picked up a couple of pairs of cycling shorts and a jersey.  I had found some books and magazines on backpacking and camping, and borrowed a tent a for the trip, and even tried it for a night.   I didn't think much of it at the time, but the riding to get ready was also pretty intense.  I rode my first century in early June, and then my first double century (200 miles in 24 hours) 3 weeks later.

The pre-start announcements.  Note the head gear!

So the big days arrives, and we leave at 5:30 in the morning for the hour drive to East Lansing.  Mom drops me off with my bike, and gear on the south side of the Michigan State campus, where almost 600 riders have gathered, about 200 of them kids my age and younger.  "Be careful and call home." says Mom as I say good bye. Then for the first time, I check-in, tag my bags, toss them on the baggage truck, and then join the line-up for the ride mass start.

The next 4 days of riding made an indelible mark, and shaped my riding from that point on.  I have since gone back to ride DALMAC 4 more times since that first ride, and I hope I will be there again in 2014 for a 40th anniversary ride.  But there were parts of the story of that first DALMAC I did not hear until just a few years ago from my Mom and Dad.

That first day, I really did intend to call home like Mom asked, but every time I got near a pay phone, there were 10 to 15 people in line.  So I missed calling the first night. Riding the next day, I never saw a pay phone that did not have a line, and on the second night we were camped on a lake with no pay phones nearby.  By the third day, calling home just became less important, and the third night didn't have a pay phone either.   I knew I was supposed to call, and should call, but it was just going to take so long, and before I knew it, it was Sunday and I was going to be home the next day.

On Labor Day morning, we board the charter busses at 8 in the morning for the 6-hour drive back to East Lansing.  It is a great ending to the trip, and I am so pumped and already thinking about the next tour, and what gear to have for next time. I think it did cross my mind that I had neglected to call home, and I hoped my parent's would remember to pick me up.   Thankfully, when we arrive at the parking lot, Mom and Dad are there for me, but I can't figure out whey Mom is crying.  "You were supposed to call" she says over and over again.  I apologize and begin to spill out the adventures of the last 5 days as we grab my bike bike and bags and load up for the drive home.

Do you remember those 200 kids under 17 that were on the ride?  Well it turns out my attention to details like having an adult along, and even having a tent, was the exception, not the rule. Many of those kid's were dropped off at the start with just a sleeping bag and some extra clothing, and few were actually "accompanied" by a responsible adult.  They became a children's crusade of problems for the ride organizers over those 4 days and 350 miles.  From the minute they left Lansing until we boarded the busses in St. Ignace for the trip back, there were dozens of little incident which resulted in calls between children, local law enforcement and families across the state.  They all finished safe and sound, but the rules were changed to keep that from happening again.

But I only heard the best part of the story while having dinner with my Mom and Dad in Brooklyn the night before Justin (then 13) and I rode DALMAC together in 2009.  I was telling Mom and Dad, that as parent's ourselves of 16- and 13-year old boys,  Linda and I had already been thinking about whether we were ready to let our our sons take off alone on a 5-day bike trip.  We both thought that it took quite a bit of faith for a parent to let a child do a ride like that.  And that is when Mom told me the rest of the story about her 5 days at home while I was on the road in 1974.

"You didn't call the first night, and then you didn't call the second or third day.  You were always so good about calling, so you had us worried.  Finally we looked at the map and where you would be that third night, and called the nearest State Police post.  We asked the officer on duty if had any news from the bike ride, and an apparently exasperated state trooper replied 'Yes, they are up here, and none of them are dead yet'.  At least then we thought you were ok."

And that is why my Mom was crying when I got off that bus on Labor Day, 1974.

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1979: Touring in the UP, Part 3

Resting and writing in the shade in Trenary, MI, 1979

I awoke to my fourth day of riding, moving inland and away from the southern shoreline of Lake Superior, which the maps I could find indicated was mostly gravel roads. So I was riding inland, through the narrow waist of the UP, the band between the eastern UP and the peninsula jutting north into Lake Superior and South into Wisconsin. It was going to be a perfect summer riding, sunny, temps headed to high in low 70’s, with little wind or humidity. After an early start and some zig-zag exploring, I was riding along at a steady pace, with 40 miles by lunch. I loaded up with groceries and continued on, and by 4 PM I had almost 90 miles, but another 5 hours of daylight.  I  decided to keep riding, which meant riding the Seney Stretch

State Highway M-28 ran the east-west the full length of the UP, but the 25 miles from Seney to Shingleton was two lane road, perfectly straight, across a huge expanse of peat bog. There were no cross roads or stops, and only a parallel railroad track and a line of telephone poles. So once I was on the way, I would be committed. I topped off my bottles and began rolling west out of Seney.

It was a quiet mid-week afternoon, and I was riding at a steady cadence for 15-16 mph. (No bike computers for another two or three years, so speed was just dead reckoning from cadence, the axle mounted cyclometer and mileage markers.) The first thing I noticed was that the overtaking cars were literally coming up over the horizon, and disappearing into the vanishing point ahead of me in a 6 to 7 minute process. The road was that straight and that flat, and only a handful of cars would pass either way during the ride.

And then came the deer flies.

After the first 20 minutes, I heard a buzzing and realized I had company. A cloud of about 2-dozen, dime-sized deer flies, were drafting me. Apparently they can fly at a sustained 15 mph, since they could not get close enough to light, and by varying my pace a bit, the would gradually come a little closer, or gradually just fall back. So for the next hour and half I had another reason not to stop.

I rolled on, first hitting 5 miles. During my first few years of riding, 5 miles was distance from home to town, and it became one of my first benchmarks of independence. Then I had 10 miles, based on the mile markers. I held a steady 90 RPM, turning my 47 by 15 or 17 gear. I came up on halfway, and then 15 miles, and then 1 hour down. My camera came out for a couple of rolling pictures, but there was no reason to stop, and my deer fly escort was still flying in formation with me.

As the miles rolled by, it almost felt like I was motionless on my bike, on a giant painted roller of road and sky, rolling toward me from oncoming horizon, only to drop endlessly behind me. Even the few oncoming and overtaking cars, in the minutes long progression, contributed to the illusion.

Finally after an hour and a half, the horizon started to change. After 25 miles I came up on the first building and an intersection Shingleton, a little 4 corner town. It was a little after 6 PM, and I had almost 120 miles for the day. I found a grocery shop, had coke, and ate a sub for dinner. Then I rode on the another 10 miles to a park near Munising. On the way into campground, I actually met another rider, from, New York I think, heading east on a coast-to-coast ride. He was ending his day and we were able split the campground fee. I setup my tent and settled in for a good nights sleep. That 128 mile day is still my longest day of riding on a loaded touring bike.

1979: Touring in the UP, Part 2

Leaving St. Ignace, 1979

My riding plan for the week was simple, 4 days out, and 3 days back, riding the UP shoreline when I could, counter-clockwise. My first day would be 60 miles of biking east to Detour Village, there to catch a ferry to Drummond Island, and another 8 miles to the only campground on the island. At that time, Drummond Island was a sleepy collection of cabins and campgrounds and a massive limestone mine, feeding the steel mills along the the Great Lakes, and little else. Thankfully I had picked up dinner and breakfast before leaving DeTour Village, since nothing was open on the island, and even the campground was on the honor system. I wouldn’t see or speak to anyone until the ferry crossing the next morning.

Drummond Island Ferry, 1977

My next days riding was to Sault Ste. Marie. After my early morning ferry trip back to DeTour Village, I headed north and west along the UP back roads, through a mix forest and farm land. As I rode, an occasional B-52 jet would fill the sky overhead from a nearby US Air Force base. Cars were infrequent, and I only passed trough a few small town, “grazing” for food at grocery stores along the way, picking up sandwiches, fruit and snacks.

I arrived early and found a campground right on the river front, just down river from the locks. I then spent the afternoon on a tour boat going through the locks, before settling down for the night in tent. The campground was unique in that across the river was Canada, and 700-foot long ships would pass by during the night, just a few hundred yards from the door of my tent.

After breaking camp the the next morning, I crossed into Canada for a few hours of riding before heading back across into the US. The crossing was quite easy, just a drivers license and a couple questions crossing each way. It was also an exciting ride on the International Bridge, which was high enough over the locks and St Mar’s river to clear all shipping traffic, with the international border in the middle of the bridge, over 125 feet in the air.

North Bound, International Bridge `79

Leaving downtown Sault Ste. Marie after lunch, a half dozen kids on 20” bikes began following me, riding on the sidewalks along the main street leading up from the river, a long gradual climb. I think they thought the guy on the loaded bike was a challenge to race, as the first pulled ahead of me the sidewalk. I maintained a steady pace, and they continued to follow me for a couple of miles, though I had the edge in endurance. It was fun sport. I then began riding south inland, finally before heading west for a night at Brimely State Park, to watch an hours long sunset over Lake Superior and Whitefish Bay finish at after 11 PM.
(I have included pictures from a 3-day trip from 1977, since I have not completed scanning the `79 slides.)

1979: Touring in the UP

(This is the start of 3 or 4 posts to tell the story.)
It was August of 1979, the summer I met Linda. After a 6 week externship at MSU, she had left Lansing to return to her parent’s and college in Missouri, and I had a week of vacation. So I packed my bike in my pickup, and drove 5 hours north to St. Ignace, Michigan, arriving at Noon. I parked my truck and paid for a weeks parking in one of the Mackinaw Island overnight lots. Then I pulled my bike out and loaded my gear for a week of solo touring in the UP. On the way out of town and across the Highway from Castle Rock, there is road sign with miles and distances for the eastern UP. I stopped and out came my camera and tripod, and I took a self portrait under the sign. I now have pictures at that road sign from over a half dozen trips, spanning four decades.

My first UP road sign picture, 1977

By 1979, Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, the UP (pronounce both letters), had become my favorite bicycling destination. While growing up in southern Michigan, our family had seldom traveled farther north than Lansing or Grand Rapids. We lived on a tourist lake, helping my grandmother run a tourist lake resort, so why go to a lake for vacation? Then my first bike tour, on the Labor Day weekend before my senior year in high school, took me to Mackinaw City and across the Mackinac Bridge. That was my first DALMAC (of four, so far) and on that 4-day, 350 mile trip I experienced all the wonders of northern Michigan; the endless forests, the inland dunes and hills, and the shores of Lake Michigan, all by bike at 14 mph. But St. Ignace was as far as I got that trip, and a repeat of that first trip the following year. Over the next 4 years, I made two weekend trip from St. Ignace to the Sault Ste. Marie and back, once solo, and once with a brother and a friend. But the `79 trip would be my first long touring ride solo.

There was a level of isolation and independence in that trip might be hard to contemplate in the digital today. As I rolled east out of St. Ignace along the north shore of Lake Huron toward Detour Village, calling home was by pay phone. The only mail took stamps, and any pictures I took would (or maybe not,) be locked in the camera and on film until the Kodak mailer returned the slides a couple weeks in the future. Trip research was finding county map books and atlases, or waiting weeks for response’s by mail from local riders, but usually you navigated with a state highway map with notes in the margin.

My gear was pretty simple, a pair of panniers on the rear rack, and stuff sacks rigged as panniers for my tent and sleeping bag on the front rack. I had never liked the way a stacked load on a rear rack had made the bike handle, and I was already experimenting and with front loads a few years before “low-rider” front racks were common. My first Eclipse brand handlebar bag held a 35mm camera and a spare lens, along with maps, film,  and my wallet.

My clothing was a mix of cotton wool and gear, with a couple pairs of wool cycling shorts, a light wool sweater, and wool arm warmers and leg warmers. I was riding in t-shirts mostly, with a nylon wind breaker and a bicyclists rain cape. I had a a pair of lightweight cargo pants for the campground (no jeans, they were too heavy), and for shoes I had a pair Beta Bikers, a very popular cotton cycling shoe that weren’t much more than low-cotton running flats with an extra thick sole. For sleeping, I had a very small 2-man a-frame tent, and a very-light first generation synthetic sleeping bag, with a 3/4 length foam pad. I was packed pretty light, and had done it all on a pretty reasonable budget. My gear list has changed only in fabrics over the years since.

For hot meals in camp, I had a SVEA 123 backpacking stove that burned white gas, and required a meticulous lighting ritual that involved an exciting, three foot tall open flame. Once the brass fuel tank warmed up and self-pressurized, it cooked with a blow torch roar that sounded like small jet plane taking off. I boiled noodles and soups and the occasional freeze dried meal with a two nested aluminum pans, with a base and windscreen that held the entire package. Breakfast was usually cold bagels and spreads, and lunch was found along the way. Bicycle touring was once described by a friend as “Five meals a day, plus snacks”, and it really was a constant grazing through cookies, donuts, muffins, fruit and staples picked up in stores, and eaten as the miles rolled by.

(End of Part 1)

Season 41

It was the fall of 1973, and I was a sophmore in high school. The prior summer was my first taste of teen-age freedom on a German-made, 3-speed bicycle from Sears. I had ridden the 5 miles into town to do my paper route, ridden around town with friends, and even carried a gym bag of clothes for an overnight. This wasn’t yet commuting, touring, training or saving the planet. Intervals, cadence, gear inches, derailleur, hydration, pace line and the rest of the lexicon of cycling were not yet part of my vocabulary.

Ready to ride, early 1972.

Bicycles were supposed to be the gateway drug to cars, pickups and motorcycles, just a phase for a couple of summers until the calendar said you could drive legally. My friends and younger brothers all made that transition. I never did. That fall was spent trying to figure out how to get a better bike, something that would be easier to ride farther and faster.

With Christmas and birthday money, the 3-speed was replaced in January of 1973 with an off-brand 15-speed bicycle, $115 of steel frame, cottered cranks, steel derailleurs, steel rims and gum-wall tires. It was called a Parliament, and it was a Taiwan-made bike imported for shops (like Ann Arbor Cycles) that could not find enough bikes from anywhere to satisfy America’s sudden love affair of with “racing” bikes from Europe.

Whenever the weather allowed that winter, after school and on weekends I was on the bike, not just riding somewhere, but just to ride. Starting with a restaurant place mat with a map of most of the nearby county roads, I used a colored pencil to fill in the roads I had ridden. That map became an ever expanding web through the small towns and the dozens of lakes around our home. Rides of 15, 20, and 30 miles, 2 and 3 hours long, to Brooklyn, Norvell, Cement City, Manchester, Vandercook Lake, Clark Lake and beyond. I was riding places we seldom drove, exploring on paved and gravel back roads.

At first I was just riding in jeans and t-shirts and jackets, and then switched to riding in jean cut-offs. It would be another year before i would try bike clothing. I remember the afternoon that first summer when 2-3 riders passed through Brooklyn in the same clothing the racers in the magazines wore, in articles that talked about something called chamois. At the time, most bikes shops around us were still Schwinn shops and hardware stores, and they didn’t sell clothing.  Only a few small bike shops were available in the nearby towns of Adrian and Jackson, either an infrequent trip.

I did start adding gear - a seat bag, water bottle and cage, and a tire pump and tire levers. Then a handlebar bag for my Kodak Instamatic. A cyclometer was added, and now the click of each wheel revolution slowly turned over the mile counter, a tenth mile at a time. Dead reckoning distance and questions to Dad (my “How far is it from home to where Austin Road and Fay Lake Road cross?”, followed with a “You were where?” response) were replaced with my first “log” entries on notebook paper in a 3 ring binder.

That was the summer the foundation was laid for the road to here and now. It was not just the bike, or the gear. It was not just the miles, or how fast I rode. It was more than the freedom, or the appreciation of a 10-mile view from the top of the hills on Horning Road. It was the totality of all those things, as they became a place were I fit in and belonged, even when it was just me on a new road 20 miles from home. I have never lost the wonder of that first summer and season of riding, and I am still that 14 year-old at heart, finishing one ride and already thinking about the next.