IF BIKE PORN IS WRONG, I DON’T WANNA BE RIGHT

July 2, 2015—Sleeping Bear Dunes To Strait State Park And Mackinac Island

I have been a fan of bicycling ever since I was about five years old.  My first bike was a Kent BMX bike (this is the 70’s so these were bike boom quality bikes-not wally world pieces of crap like today) which got stolen.  My second bike was a Raleigh MX—a very cool bike, heavy, but cool, used to race around alleyways in the neighborhood with about 25 other neighborhood kids. I remember my neighbor’s FRAME breaking one year as he jumped a hill while we were racing and landed belly first in the alley, picking pieces of stone and rock out for nearly a week afterward—road rash is intense and painful, even as a kid that heals quickly.  Anyway, my Raleigh MX got stolen too.  Finally I learned to lock up my bike.  My third bike was a beautiful USED Schwinn Scrambler, banana seat, beautiful brown with the logo in black and white—just a beautiful machine.  I rode and rode—everywhere in PA when I was a kid, until dark, or until dad whistled for us to come to dinner.  Beautiful weather, steep PA hills, friendly neighbors who let you ride through their yards (mostly).  Just a great time.

When I moved to FL, I was 13 years old. It was a great effort to attempt to make friends in a high school where you knew basically no one. As a freshman. Luckily I was able to be in the band, which helped things although I didn’t have a great Freshman year scholastically.  Needless to say, my concentration shifted from biking to driving (as most kids did in the day when gas was cheap—they more than likely still do) so eventually, riding dad’s Ross Racer 12 speed took a back seat. Especially when I loved riding dirt bikes too.  

For Christmas in 85, he gave me his old Hodaka 250 dirt bike.  I was floored. It was completely redone, repainted, piston fixed, etc.  It was a work of art.  The bicycle became a distant memory, as my want and need for pushing pedals became lost on easier forms of transport, like that beautiful beastly motorcycle-much too big for me at the time.  I think I rode it every day after school. “Sin City” behind our house was nothing but sand and hog trails and paths leading to no where until around the late 90’s so I was always riding and jumping. I’d hear the bellowing four stroke Bultaco from my yard and rush to watch this pro dude ride.  I think I remember seeing him jump ramps with a CAST on his leg! 

That run lasted all of about 4 months.  I managed to get in an accident with a truck that was going the wrong way down a dirt road, fishtailing, showing of, then turned to the right—I had nowhere to go, as I too, was showing off for my friends moving WAY too fast.  I slammed on the footbrake and pulled the handbrake and prayed it wouldn’t hurt too bad.  It didn’t.  When I awoke after a five second slumber I saw my buddies running toward me, noticed the gas spurting out of the tank and tried to get up to turn off the gas, thinking I didn’t want the bike to explode (movies, I swear).  Took the first step with my right leg, on the second step, I toppled over thinking I was hit really hard in the knee.  That’s when I noticed the blood—seeping, oozing out of my leg, and saw bone through ripped jeans.  That was February 28, 1986 at 4:15 PM. The day my motorcycle riding came to an end. Not that I didn’t have multiple other opportunities to kill myself—jumping with kids on the back, crashing with my brother on the back and having him have to lift the bike off me as I was pinned beneath the bars.  Don’t tell Dad, OK? Ha.

Enter 2004.  I’m a college graduate and as a present I’m going to buy a road bike for myself as I’ve recently taken back an interest in my biking days. I bought a beautiful 2003 Marin Portofino roadie and started riding it in June.  In September 2004, Hurricane Ivan hit.  I rode my Marin about 6 times before I hung it on the shelf for the next 5 years.  The hurricane created points of garbage on the road.  Every time I rode I flatted and wasn’t big into cycling long after.

Today, after riding again on a regular basis (about 7000 miles since 2009) I’ve become a bike geek.  I read an article in Bicycle Times about this beautiful, wonderful place called Mackinac Island where only bikes and pedestrians and people live. THERE ARE NO CARS.  Is this heaven?  Maybe.  Locals on Mackinac Island don’t like Bicycle Times or Good Morning America. 

We left Sleeping Bear dunes about 10AM and decided we were going to ride some of the beautiful Heritage trail toward the dunes, from the nearby city of Empire.  We rode six grueling miles of basically 7 to 12% grade hills. 

These are STEEP Hills and we were pretty exhausted from climbing the dune before, but we didn’t stop until GT and I rode DOWN the 12% grade hill first as Avery and Jen watched from above.  Now it was time to do some more climbing.  I love my Townie 3 speed.  It does it all, and today was a big test.  I’m not going to say it was effortless, but that gear 1 on that thing is a great climbing gear, especially being in an upright position.

It was a beautiful day, a gorgeous ride through the woods and we all came out of there refreshed after riding for about an hour or so—on to Straits State Park we went.  Straits S.P. is a great little park.  We stayed on a primitive campsite (I guess primitive means no power or water on site) but there are beautiful, meticulously maintained bathrooms with showers that will remove dirt from ones body simply by pressure alone.  These things make me happy.  After arriving via the huge Mackinac Bridge and noticing the ferry schedule, Jen and I made the decision to go to the island today instead of tomorrow.  We were on the Shepler’s ferry by 4:30 and caught the last ferry leaving the island at 9PM.

Amazing place.  One thing Michigan does right is the bike trails. They are everywhere, including the Michigan bike route, paved bike routes for bikes only, not shared with cars. As we sat in traffic trying to get to the State Park in Cheverloix (or however you spell it)  I yearned to just ride there—traffic sucks. 

Bike traffic does not suck, however. 

There are rules to be learned though and I had to get on to both kids for drifting into the oncoming bike traffic lanes.  Eventually it came to a head when we decided to climb the stairs to Arch Rock.  After climbing 207 stairs, coupled with yesterdays climbs, we were all a little bit angry. Me at the kids for riding the wrong way when I know they know how to ride, and Jen toward me for bitching at the kids. The kids were constantly complaining at each other anyway so that pretty much made things oh so fun.  I guess the climb to the top of the steps helped everyone to ease their tension though.  We walked back down, and starting around the island on an 8 mile ride. 

I really have no words to describe this place other than a fairy tale land?  Fudge shops galore---yes it is very good!  Bike trails, bike traffic, bike police stations and court houses, a Mackinac Island public school. All I could think of was how did they build here, and, while riding to remote not so touristy areas around the island in the state park area there were these houses in the middle of nowhere—all I could think was wow!  What do you have to do to live here? I’ll take my chances on the lottery, I guess.  

Avery is already thinking of a way to work a summer job at the grand hotel as a porter or something just so she can stay.  She’s really fallen in love with Michigan and I have come to love it as well.  We probably could have stayed longer to visit Fort Mackinac, but we got the ride in and shopping done, so 5 hours on the island worked out well for us. Everyone was happy when we made it back to Straits State Park.  Even got to see a red moon rising with the Mackinac Bridge lit up all different colors.  A beautiful sight to behold.  Now it’s time to hit the U.P. for a little bit then off to Canada for a visit to Chutes State Park.  As badly as I wanted to see the sunken ships graveyard museum in Whitefish, we’ll have to add it to the list for ‘next time’, as there will surely be a next time.