When a bad idea is really a great idea
I am not really sure how this whole thing started. My best
understanding, or at least the story I made up in my head is Sheldon and Brett
were having some sordid conversation in some sketchy location and Sheldon said
he wanted to do a double century, Brett’s response was “If I am going to do
that, I might as well ride the 240 miles from Lansing to the Mackinac Bridge”.
Sheldon, not to be out done then said “If I am going to ride to the bridge I am
going to start at the boarder”. In my mind I like to picture this as some
slightly illegal or rather questionable business deal going down in a dark alley; and the first
Bad Decision Ride was born.
From here things become a little more clear (and less made
up). Sheldon posted a map with a route covering about 330 miles and asked if
anyone was interested in making the trek. I immediately jump in even though the
suggested date was for some time in November. What surprised me was a total of
six people said they were interested in this really bad idea and what was even
better, three people volunteered to drive SAG (Support And Gear) for us and
meet us along the way (two were planning to ride parts of the route). Quite
possibly the best surprise came next when the Capital Area Cycling Club (http://www.tnrcycling.org/) volunteered
to rent a van for our SAG-mobile; this thing was starting to look all
professional and official. Then it got even better when Gary offered up the use
of his motorhome (a.k.a. the bus) a 34-foot behemoth with a shower; now we were
all in heaven; after the ride we could get clean instead of driving home in our
own filth.
The two pieces of this ride I can take credit for are
suggesting we do this a bit earlier since November in Michigan can bring
anything from 50’s and sun to snowstorms. So the date was moved to Saturday, October
13th. The second was suggesting we move the start of the route to
where Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio meet so we could hit three states, not just one.
I then set about designing a route. I will not drone on about the details but
just know I spent countless time staring at the satellite view in Google Maps
to be sure the route stayed on paved roads and fighting with RidewithGPS to
avoid a crushed limestone bike path near Cheboygan. (https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28690178)
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| Me and Sheldon ready to set off |
Let’s fast forward a bit; after the change of date two
riders were no longer able to make it because of pre-existing plans. One of
them said something about having to work, we told him to call in sick, he said
no (you know who you are). The week of the ride one more rider had to back out
and one of the SAG crew was no longer able to make it. We still had a crew of
three riders for the entire ride (Brett, Sheldon and myself), one full time SAG
driver and master chef (Gary), and one person who planned to ride a leg of the
route during the day and help out with SAG during the night (Robin).
We all met up the Friday evening before the ride to put our
extra gear on the bus so it would be ready for us during the day and to go over
a few final details (so many details). We talked about our SAG stops that were
roughly every 50-60 miles, fueling plans, and goals for pace. We were set and
nearly as giddy as schools kids before Christmas.
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| The Three - let the journey begin |
We met at Brett’s house at 5:00am Saturday morning for the
hour and a half drive to the start of our ride, loaded up our bikes and enough
fuel and gear to get us to the first SAG stop and were on our way. This was
really happening, 3 guys, 3 states, 333 miles. The weather forecast for the
start of the ride was 38 degrees and warming as the sun came up so we all
dressed for low 40s knowing we would be a little chilly for the first hour. We
were all willing to deal with being chilly so we did not sweat to death before
we really got in to it. Surprise, surprise, the weather was only a little bit
wrong and we saw temps as low as 28, instead of being a little bit chilly, my
hands were freezing. What made up for this was the beautiful sunrise as we rode
through some nice small rolling hills around fields, small lakes and ponds.
We had our only mechanical issue of the day around mile 44
when Brett’s front tire went soft. He took out the tube and was not able to
find anything that punctured the tire so he changed the tube and we were back
underway. In hindsight, the thought is his tire was a bit soft when we started
and it just slowly leaked to the point where he could feel it.
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| Brett fixing his Flat |
We met up with Gary and Robin in Springport at about mile
57. We took a few minutes to have some hot coffee and exchange our water
bottles. This was Robin’s starting point
for the day; he joined us for the next 80 miles. Not much exciting happened during
the next few hours except we did get to ride a few miles on a brand new road,
the super smooth surface was amazing. Then we hit the worst traffic I have ever
seen on M100 between Potterville and Grand Ledge. I have ridden this section of
road a few times in the past and never had an issue but this day there was a
steady stream of cars going both directions and everyone wanted to pass us
right now. Brett was riding in the back and started to take the lane whenever a
car was approaching from the other direction to keep cars from forcing us off
the road. This helped a lot, but we all wanted the traffic to end as quickly as
possible so we pushed a little faster pace and Sheldon put in a monster pull to
get us out of there. Almost the instant we crossed 96 traffic was back to nothing
and we were all much happier for it.
The second stop of the day was in Fowler at mile 103. Once
again we exchanged bottles and I changed my jersey since it was finally getting
a little bit warmer, it was now in the 40s. When we rolled in Brett was feeling
a bit rough. So he got some extra food in hopes that it would bring him back to
life, we did have another 230 miles to go after all. Fortunately, the food
really did help and he was back to his normal bearded self in just a few miles.
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| Robin, Brett and Sheldon as we leave Fowler |
We were now over 5.5 hours of riding into the day. I had
been noticing a ton of caterpillars on the road and for some unknown reason I
started to call out whenever I saw one. I never realized how many there could
be until I said something every time I saw one, but it was good entertainment
and everyone else eventually joined in on the game.
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| CATERPILLAR!!!! |
Our next stop was not on the original schedule but it put
Robin at the 80 miles he wanted for the day. In Alma we met up with Gary and
the bus and dropped of Robin so he could resume SAG duties. We were back to
just the three amigos, the three musketeers, the three…stooges.
We rolled in to our stop in Mt. Pleasant (147 miles) just
before the bus, since there was a playground at this stop so we decided it
would be fun to take a quick break from our bikes and swing; who does not love
a good swing.
We knew this would be our last stop before it got dark and colder
so we all put on some warmer clothes and our lights before heading back out. Again,
not much of note happened in this section of ride. We did stop to try and take
a picture of the sunset thought. When we were about 14 miles south of out next
stop we rode by a small gas station/convenience store and one member of our
small entourage announced he had to go to the bathroom right now and the side
of the road was not going to cut it for this one, or should I say two, so we
stopped.
I decided it would be a good idea to plug my Garmin in to an
external battery to keep the backlight on and see things like speed, time and
HR, but when I plugged the cord in the port something inside the Garmin somehow
bent. We went back in the store so I could try to fix it and ended up staying
inside, nice and warm, for an extra 10 minutes. I eventually gave up, but when
we started riding again it felt so much colder and we all started to shiver
violently, to the point where it hurt. For me this was probably the worst part
of the ride. I was just so cold and all I wanted was to be warm; but quitting is
not allowed.
Forty-five freezing minutes later we met up with the Gary, Robin
and the bus in Prudenville (205 miles) where we took our longest break of the
ride. We were all freezing, a bit hungry and possibly a little delirious. Being
that cold really took it out of us so we needed to warm back up. Enter Costco
chicken noodle soup and coffee. I could probably rant about how good the
noodles were for a few pages, but I won’t. Warm again and wearing pretty much
everything we could layer together and still move we set back out on our way to
cover the last 130 miles.
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| Hot Soup |
Side note: leading up to the ride our plan was to keep our
SAG stops as short as possible since it is so much harder to start back up once
you’ve stopped. But in order to make our bad idea a safe one, we stopped for
much longer periods of time than planned, at least at night. With much colder
than expected temperatures, we had to take some time to thoroughly warm up at
each stop since no one really wanted hypothermia.
Dark. Pitch Black. Absolute Nothing. This is all we could
see when we looked behind ourselves. It really was amazing how much nothing
there was. On the upside, the clear sky was absolutely amazing. So many brilliant
stars and no clouds to block the view. Then we hit the village of Fredrick and
the road surface turned into nothing short of a mine field. The six miles
between Fredrick and Waters were by far the worst we rode on all day. We tried to dodge potholes, only to slam into
a patch work that had been forced out of the roadway due to expansion. This section
hurt. Everything. We were no longer looking at the sky and no longer in awe of
the void behind us, we simply stared at the road surface. Luckily after our
stop in Waters (Mile 257) the road got much better and we could enjoy the ride
a bit more again.
At one point, and I am not exactly sure where since many of
the details are a bit blurry, we were flying down a hill at a little over 40
and at the bottom, just on the edge of the road, was a skunk. We nearly scared
the spray out of it, it jumped and ran and we all stayed smelling like we had
for the last uncountable number of hours. It did look like it wanted to spray
us and we joked about not being let back on the bus if we smelled of skunk. Somehow
this was funny to us at this point in the ride.
A few miles before the last stop of the day in Indian River
(mile 298) things stated to get a bit weird. Call it sleep deprivation or a
trick of the night, but whenever I was not the first person in line the shadows
from our lights would appear to move, then I would have trouble distinguishing between
the shadow and the person. Then it appeared there were three people coming out
of one and no shadows. It was not good and it really made riding my bike in a
straight line next to impossible. Even with this, we made it to the Indian
River safe and sound where we spent a few extra minutes in the bus letting our
eyes recover and our bodies warm. Being in normal light was so much easier on
the eyes and after this I could see straight again.
From here Sheldon told us it was all flat and easy going, he
lied. Okay, not really, but little grades felt much steeper than they really
were after 300 miles and nearly 17 hours of pedaling. We eventually made it to
M23, the last stretch from Cheboygan to Mackinaw City; 318 miles done, only 15
to go and I was feeling remarkably good. Sheldon and I both put in some pretty
good pulls, I think I even managed to hold a little over 20 mph for a while. Then
we all realized our bike handling had long gone out the window. We had a bit of
a cross-headwind but whenever we would try to get into a mini-echelon we
noticed none of us was riding in anything like a straight line. One second I
would be on the wheel in front of me, the next I was three feet to the left,
and it was happening to all of us. Sheldon and I talked about how neither of us
would dare drive a car at that moment and we were better off leaving a little
more space to keep from hitting each other; all while Brett silently suffered
behind us.
With about five miles to go it stated to sleet a little, and
all I could think was “great, 23 hours since we set off and we are going to get
soaked and hypothermic now”, but it stopped after just a few minutes.
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| A view of the Bridge |
THE BRIDGE, we kept getting glimpses of the Mackinac Bridge.
These quick sightings brought some more life back to my legs. We were so close
now, the realization that we were really going to do this was starting to set
in. Then Brett hit the wall, his legs were spent; but with only a few miles
left to go he kept them spinning, maybe not fast, but he kept moving as we
rolled though Mackinaw City to the very end of the ride.
Nearly 24 hours after setting off and almost 18 hours in
the saddle later we made to the Colonial Michilimacknac parking lot, we were at
the base of the Mackinac Bridge. We did it. We rode from the MI/IN/OH border to
the Mackinac Bridge in one go. What an experience.
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| Done, 333.3 miles later |
A few stats from the day:
333.3 miles
18:07:54 moving time
23:51:06 elapsed time
18.4 mpg average
11,071 calories burned
28.4 the low temperature of the day
38.4 the average temperature of the day
12(ish) servings of Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem
17 million caterpillars
3 skunks
7 dead cats (sorry cat lovers)
Some deer
More bad movie quotes than I care to think about
Twice as many tasteless jokes as necessary
3 ecstatic riders ready for another adventure
2 of the best support crew we could ask for
1 bad idea that may have been the best idea
We did learn a very important lesson; for our next bad
idea ride (yes there will be more) we will make sure it is a bit warmer. The
cold really wears on a body and made starting back up after every stop so much
harder than it needed to be.
We are already starting to plan our next bad idea, most likely for late spring so we don't freeze our parts off.
Fuel for the ride:
Pre Fueled with Hammer Fully Charge
During the ride: Perpetuem, Fizz, Anti-Fatigue Caps and BCAA+ Caps, Hammer Bars
Costco chicken noodle soup and sandwich wraps
Coffee, lots of Coffee
Post ride: Recoverite and the All You Can Eat Breakfast buffet at the Pancake Chef in Mackinaw City
Strava:
https://www.strava.com/activities/1905100986
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| Fueled by Hammer Nutrition |
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| Happy Hands Courtesy of RCT Wrap by ESI Grips |
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