Lake Michigan Cycling Trip Day 3: Equality and Freedom

Today, I thought about the tension between equality and freedom. Even while I listened to a 2003 speech by Jerry Springer, when he was contemplating a run for Senate. Springer’s speech, while moving, revealed he perceives no such tension.

I got on the road by 9 this morning, after a mini muffin and foam-cup-coffee from the motel. I stopped to have a proper coffee and map out my route 15 miles up the road. Monsters of Folk served as my late morning soundtrack.

Maybe this was my critical error, thinking I could piecemeal my own route out of several cue sheets. Or maybe the error was in thinking I could competently read a cue sheet after all these years and miles. In any event, there was an error, because my road ran out around mile 25. I’m now sure that error was mine, although I blamed everyone including the Michigan Department of Transportation at the time.

Perhaps I should have turned back, but no. Instead, I soldiered on, through 5 miles of gravel and muck and the middle of nowhere, completely lost, and thrilled when I could ride at 8 mph. I eventually emerged from remote Michigan, and have never been so happy to see a heavily trafficked but paved road with no shoulder and monumental hills.

Those hills were much a theme for the day, and I managed to walk my bike up only two of them. This was an accomplishment for me; I huffed and puffed up a good few, many of which would have been avoided had I simply been more efficient and not missed turns.

By lunch, I had finished my plums from yesterday, was famished, and enjoyed pizza in Elk Rapids. Cute little town. The funny thing about these kinds of trips is that when you do finally eat, anything is delicious. The plums? Best I ever had; ate three in a row. The iceburg lettuce salad with a single cucumber slice? Amazing! Yesterday’s greasy Burger King onion rings? Those were actually still kinda gross. But otherwise the rule holds.

The afternoon went fine; I plugged along up and down hills, really enjoyed it alongside Torch Lake, and was glad it didn’t start raining until I was a few miles outside Charlevoix. Almost simultaneously, at mile 76.5, my feet stopped pedaling. There was something wrong with the chain.

Sigh. I have no explanation for how, but a bungee cord u-hook somehow bent straight, and the cord somehow went down(?!) and caught in the chain, wrapping around the rear derrailleur about a dozen times, underneath the chain. WTF, I know. So there I was, with my pocketknife, trying to extricate the bungee from the chain, on the side of a major road with a narrow shoulder, in the rain, and tired and hungry.

But I prevailed, and cycled the remaining few miles without shifting for fear my fix was temporary and fragile. When I got to a suitable motel (read: within walking distance of a pub), rather than honorably dismounting, I chose to simply fall the hell over. I have no explanation for that either. Maybe I was subconsciously attempting to engender the sympathy of the innkeeper. It didn’t work; he gave me a roadside room.

I walked through the quaint tourist town of Charlevoix to get dinner at the Villager Pub, and enjoyed some Great Lakes whitefish and a pint of Shorts Pandemonium pale, as it poured down rain outside.

The bartender didn’t know the forecast for the tomorrow. She also didn’t know from where the Rays hailed, although that was less important. And while she won’t be going on Jeopardy, she was spot on about the whitefish.

Tomorrow, I’m scheduled to get up to St. Ignace, which entails a shorter bike ride (60 miles) but two ferries, so I’ll try to get an early start. We’ll see. There’s only so much I can do to corral the impertinent mule that is my self.

Today’s mileage: 78.4
Avg speed: 11.8
Time cycling: 6:36

Gain: 1,207 feet

Expenditures:
$1.26 coffee
$4.49 2 slices pizza and diet coke
$18.55 beer with fish and chips
$85.32 hotel
TOTAL: $109.62