So why go on an extended bike trip? Here are some possible motivations:
- Athletic competition, as in the Tour de France, which consists of 21 day-long stages over the course of 23 days.
- Fun, as in the Tour de Donut, which is similar to the Tour de France except that an
ability to eat donuts is just as important as an ability to ride a bicycle fast. - Personal health, as an outdoor activity that is part of a health-conscious lifestyle.
For me, an extended bike trip is the best way to see and touch America. It’s faster (and easier) than walking, but still provides easy contact with people. I don’t understand myself to be a cyclist, I see myself to be a tourist on a bicycle; the journey is more important than the destination.
My experience is that there are some basic requirements for touring on a bicycle:
- A good bicycle and support equipment
- An ability to perform simple bicycle repairs, such as changing an inner tube
- An enjoyment of actually riding a bicycle for 6 or more hours a day
- A plan for where you are going, and where you will stay at night
- A taste for meeting new people and exploring places where you’ve never been before
- Adaptability, an openness to surprise, a sense of awe, and a sense of humor
- Enough money to pay for it all
Riding a bike is an outdoor activity, which means you are subject to the weather and the road conditions along the way. I’ve found that almost all of the time this is enormously satisfying. However, on some days, such as when it is raining hard and a dirt path has become a mud bath, or when it is a humid, 90+ degree day and there is yet another hill to climb, you just have to put your head down and push ahead.
I’m not one of those rugged individuals who carries a tent and sleeps on the ground whether the sleeping bag is too hot, too cold, or soaking wet. I stay in motels, which always include a shower, a dry bed in an air-conditioned room, WiFi, and a TV with more channels than I care to preview. Because of this, no matter what difficulty I’m it, I’m confident that the day will end well.
I ride alone, partly because the only one I’ve ever ridden with is no longer able to ride, and partly because I am a tourist and, unlike a cyclist, I will stop for anything that looks interesting. No serious cyclist would would put up with this.
The Plan
I’ve heard good reports about Michigan, especially about the western shore area along Lake Michigan. However, it is 250 miles from Cleveland to New Buffalo (one of the southern-most Michigan cites on the Lake Michigan shore). Rather than bike 250 miles just to get to the Lake Michigan shore, I decided to take my bike with me on Amtrak and travel from Cleveland to South Bend, Indiana, and then head north from there on my bike.
(I used this bike-on-Amtrak plan to get back to Cleveland following an earlier bike trip to Washington, DC. Adding a bike to the train fare is only $20, which is less than 10% of the cost of having the bike disassembled, packed, and shipped to the destination. And, when you get to the destination, you don’t have to re-assemble the bike.)
Here is the trip map, starting with South Bend, Indiana, heading west to New Buffalo, Michigan (the southern-most star on the map), then north to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and then east to Traverse City. Stars mark locations where I stayed each night.
The route from New Buffalo to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is part of US Bike Route 35 (USBR 35) which runs from southern Indiana to Sault Ste Marie in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
USBR 35 itself is part of The U.S. Bicycle Route System (USBRS), “a developing national network of bicycle routes connecting urban and rural communities via signed roads and trails.“
https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/us-bicycle-route-system/
Also note that the 321 miles shown on the map does not include side trips and unexpected detours. My bike’s odometer showed that I actually covered 372 miles.
Each post in this sequence is a day in the trip, and starts with a heading showing the destination for that day, followed by the miles travelled, and then my account of what happened that day.
Two things to keep in mind before you begin reading these posts:
- I photographed and wrote about things that interested me
- You aren’t me
I expect that no one will be interested in everything I’ve written. When you find yourself asking “why did he write about this?” just skip ahead to the next topic, or the next post. Or, you may find that just looking at the pictures is more interesting than reading the surrounding text.
In any case, I hope you find something interesting in what follows.
(To continue to the next post, click on the “Next article” below on the right side.)