Shakedown

Friday, June 3, 2016 to Saturday, June 4, 2016

Lupton to Comins, MI

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I made peace with the wind years ago, but this was ridiculous. I headed dead west into a headwind that seemed determined to make day one of an over-nighter shakedown ride a hardy test. Oh, this twenty-two mile leg? A bloody warm-up for the seventy miles planned for my first day.

Darn my late start. After breakfast, Andy and I cut wood for our usual hour and then it was fuss, fuss, fuss over my Tour Easy recumbent and gear. At the last minute, I swapped rear racks with my beater bike. Loading new Ortlieb waterproof panniers and securing tarp, ten, sleeping bag, pad, and camera bag took extra time. It was almost noon before I headed out.

This less-than-direct route to Comins reminded me of the time Andy and I bicycled to Green Bay, Wisconsin to surprise his two young grandsons. It was Andy's first (and last) tour and he left everything up to me. Our, no, my plan, was to cycle across the state to Ludington, take the Badger Ferry across Lake Michigan, ride to Green Bay, and return through the Upper Peninsula.

"Wait a minute," Andy said as I turned us to our first overnight in Mio. "Ludington is west. Why are we heading north?"

I'm sure the steep hill on Curtis Road near the Alcona Park loomed in his mind. In my mind, the route was perfect. "This way we avoid riding through Houghton Lake." Heavy traffic in the vacation hot-spot was not cycle friendly. "Trust me," I said.

If Andy were with me this time, I might have paid attention to him. A direct (albeit busier) route to Comins was only thirty-seven miles, mostly due north.

Ah, well. The long slug eased when I turned north onto County Road F=97. Like pulling away from a head-banging teenage driver with a sub-woofer, the maddening wind noise faded. Thick forests held a side wind at bay. I heard my tires sing on the pavement even over my huffing and puffing up a never-ending string of hills. A later turn east delivered a tailwind. I sighed and shrugged a recovery pace instead of the magnificent pedal it might have been.

At the Fairview Market, a few miles south of my destination, I leaned my load near the door and entered, wiping salt from my eyes. Shuffling down aisle after aisle of too many choices made me lightheaded. It was a challenge to think.

What do I need? I carried ingredients for pizza dough, but needed sauce, cheese, a tomato, something to drink, and maybe a snack. Shit. I didn’t bring oil. My $13 dinner purchase was overstated by $7 worth of oil.

The young man running the checkout asked, “I saw your bike out there. Where are you riding?”

“I’m doing an overnight shakedown from Lupton to Comins,” I said. “Next week I head to Missoula, MT.”

He wasn’t the first to respond with amazement. I hardly believed it myself.

I rolled up to Tim and Susan’s barn-converted-into-a-house about 7:00 p.m. The two, and their old dog on a leash, greeted me outside. My mind foggy and my body spent, I struggled to maintain a coherent conversation. I suspect they knew I needed time to chill. After a quick tour of where I could enter the house to use the bathroom, Tim said, “We have ten acres. Set up wherever you like. Have your privacy, we’ll leave you be. Or come in and visit if you’d like.”

At a level spot close to the house, a low wooden bench with a two-foot diameter slice of log as a table made a comfortable kitchen for baking pizza. I fired up the stove, mixed the dough, and left it to rise. Plenty of time to set up my home for the night.

Cooking pizza was not the quickest refuel. Long after the dough should have risen, I realized I forgot to add the yeast. “I hope it doesn’t take me all summer to get the hang of cooking on this again,” I groused to myself, and ate what I could of the black-bottomed brick oozing with melted cheese and sliced tomatoes.

Debacle set aside, I ventured a visit with Tim and Susan. Our rambling conversation held me long after dark. Before heading to bed, Tim presented me with three journals. “I’d like you to take one of these, so you can write about your journey.” In gratitude, I selected the one easiest to slide into my panniers.

As daylight teased, I snuggled a bit deeper into my forty-one-year-old, midnight blue, rip-stop nylon, down North Face sleeping bag. Overhead, condensation dotted the sky-blue fly above the screen roof of my tent. They looked like stars. I chuckled at myself, like we used to chuckle at older riders who hesitated to buy new shoes from our store because their twenty-year-old cycling shoes were still just fine.

The tent I guided Andy to buy for our Appalachian hike in 1994 was seldom-used afterwards, but the bag kept me comfortable during that hike, long years after a two-week tour with my younger brother Jim in 1975, an eighty-four-day cross-country ride in 1976, and more than a few long weekend and week-long tours since. Andy’s youngest daughter even used the bag for a backpacking trip along the south shore of Lake Superior a couple of summers ago.

So, there I was, one of those old fogeys not wanting to spend hard earned cash on new stuff when my old stuff was still good. Four years ago, I was forced to buy new cycling shoes to ride three days home from my parents’ downstate condo. If I hadn’t left my old shoes in Andy’s van when he dropped me off, I’d be wearing those almost twenty-year-old Sidis today. (Twenty years sounds less long ago than it used to.)

Mourning doves tried to lull me back to sleep, but their mournful coos couldn’t drown out the traffic noise on M-33, less than a tenth of a mile east. Comins was so small the speed limit stayed fifty-five miles per hour through town.

Susan had tea and coffee ready when I dragged myself out of my tent. Standing at their stove, Tim gestured toward a griddle with a spatula. “Plenty of pancakes if you care to join us."

“I planned on cooking pancakes myself,” I said, “but I won’t turn down a free meal.”

I lingered, letting my worn body dawdle in conversation over a mountain of blueberry cakes smothered in local maple syrup. But I wasn’t up to a late start again today. I was glad my return route through South Branch was twenty-miles shorter than yesterday. My legs were logs during the return, a ride fraught with hills and more headwinds.

Can I ride 65 miles a day for up to three months?

Andy welcomed me home in the driveway. “I think I need to get rid of some gear,” I said, slumping into his arms.

Two days later, I stripped all the gear off my bike for an easy twenty-one-mile recovery ride. That shakedown shook my confidence. A surprise email from my mom strengthened my resolve. “I still think you’re crazy,” she wrote, “especially for going alone. But it’s your decision and I’ll love you either way.”