DALMAC - Part 2

Day 3

Day 3 our trip was from Lake City to Boyne City and it was 92 miles. Day 3 was the day we began to hurt. This was certainly the most challenging day we faced. My knee began to hurt, Samone hurt all over and Mike's toosh was starting to get sore as well. The ride was very rewarding though, for all of the hurting it did. We had lots of big uphills and just as many big downhills. On two occasions we went through huge long chutes that were exhilarating and beautiful. The scenery was great all day. We passed several lakes and traversed lots of wooded backroads. Samone was very ill feeling in the morning and I was worried that our SAG may have to come pick her up. I'm very proud to say that she toughed through it and was feeling considerably better by the time we took our lunch break. I'm pretty sure her illness was due to dehydration from the day before. I began pushing liquids on her like a crazy person when she began feeling ill and it helped tremendously. This day also included the dreaded "Wall". I read someplace that it is like a 24% grade. Let me illustrate... that means that over 1 mile the hill drops 1,267 ft. I also found this on a biking website and it seems to ring true:

What does this "grade" number mean?

• 0% grade is exactly flat (and a negative grade, less then zero, is downhill).

• 2% grade does not seem very steep, but it's enough to substantially reduce forward speed, and for most riders it will absorb more than half their power output.

• 6% grade is enough to cut speed to well under half, and absorb more than 80% of a rider's power output (leaving less than 20% to fight air resistance and rolling friction).

• 10% grade, and anyone who is not a fit and frequent rider is off their bike walking -- and anyone who is not a racer is reaching for all the extra power they've got.

Hmm... Seems pretty accurate to me! Samone and I made it about half way. I think we both could have went a bit farther but I had two problems. I was absolutely terrified of A. the hill (it freaked me out) and B. the fact that my feet were clipped to my pedals and there was the possibility that I would get going so slow that I wouldn't be able to get my feet out and I would fall flat on my face. So I slowed wayyyyy down because of the hill steepness and ended up quitting earlier than needed because I was scared of spiking my face on the pavement. Samone unfortunately was right behind me and had no choice to stop as well because I was blocking her. Mike on the other hand went all the way up and sat down the whole way (not to be macho, but because he geared down too far and couldn't stand up). It was hard to even walk up the hill after we got off our bikes! We were so releived to be done with the Wall that we underestimated the 10 miles we had left. It was a very hard day! We were so happy to get to the RV and the nicest high school we stayed at on the trip. That night we were all aching and sleepy. Mike and I ventured on foot into Boyne and found some ice cream/sorbet while the SAG crew and Samone went to Traverse for a visit with Mom, Dad and the Swansons.

Day 4

Day 4. Why do we look so excited in the picture? Because we made it to the final day! We were up and out about 7:15am and we were excited that it was only a 70-some mile day to Mackinaw. It was an awful wake-up climbing out of Boyne City. Big hills to get out of Boyne and I went from chilly to sweating in about 15 minutes. My knee was still bothering me to no end, but I was hoping that it would subside. The final day was a very pretty one. We rode along all kinds of lakes, including Lake Michigan. It was pretty. My knee unfortunately, someplace in the tunnel of trees, took a turn for the worse. I was trying very hard not to cry. It was extremely painful at every pedal. We stopped for a break and a kind fella taped me up to try to help. At our lunch break I took drugs and on we went. All of us were pretty uncomfortable in our seats. Our bumms had had enough! It certainly wasn't our best pace day. I was having a hard time keeping up. Again, someplace in Wilderness State Park I had to stop because of pain. Some lady (read angel) was breaking there as well and offered to rub my knee for me. I was crying by now because it hurt so bad, but the "angel's" knee rub helped. I was able to make it the rest of the way, plus one more stop and another knee rub by Mike. We were all so excited to ride into Mackinaw HS and we had quite the welcoming committee when we arrived. I can't even describe how great of a feeling it was to hear them hollering for us; Mom & Dad; Suzzy, Scott, Joey and Lisa; Scott's sister and brother-in-law and Stephen and Ashley; and Scott's mom & dad - 12 people!

WE DID IT! 323 miles in 4 days. What an adventure!

Riding into Mackinaw HS

DALMAC - Part 1

I said I would write it and I wasn't lying. Here is a narrative of our extremely challenging and rewarding bike tour from East Lansing to the Mackinaw Bridge.

The beginning is always a good place to start and so there we shall start. For anyone who doesn't know, I take my niece and nephews on a trip every year. We call them the Auntie-Niece and Auntie-Nephew trips. I let the kids pick where they want to go.One day last fall I got a phone call from Samone while I was at work.

She said, "Aunt Becki, I know what I want to do for my trip next year..."
I said, "OK, what do you want to do?"

She then informed me that she wanted to do the DALMAC. I'm pretty sure my response began with, "Do you know that it's like 400 miles on a bike?!" and it was followed shortly with, "Ummm, I guess I need to buy a bike..." So this is how it began.

Samone decided that Uncle Mike could join the Auntie-Niece trip as well and we all bought bikes. Shortly after beginning training, we all bought padded bike shorts. Very needed. We trained for about 2 months and we rode about 700 miles in our preparation. I began to feel pretty comfortable on a bike. This was pretty dramatic for me because when Samone suggested this trip I could barely ride by myself, let alone with people without fearing I/we were going to crash! Training went well and we bought all kinds of things to prepare for the ride. We had spare tires, tubes, electrolyte chews, a bike pump, etc. And then, whether we were ready or not... it was time to go.

We drove Charlie's truck into the MSU Pavilion early Thursday morning with all three of our bikes and plans to meet up with Suzzy and Lisa (German exchange student) for lunch at our house because the route went within 2 miles of our house. We got someone to take a picture of us all before we took off, but it wasn't a great picture as you can see.

Day 1

Day 1 was great. We took off about 8am. We were so excited to be on our way and the lunch stop at home with grilled pizzas was delicious. It was mostly flat from East Lansing to our first overnight stop in Vestaburg and a pretty easy 73 mile day. We were into Vestaburg by 2pm or so and Suzzy, Scott and Lisa (our awesome SAG support that were driving an RV for us to sleep in) weren't even there yet! We beat our support vehicle to the 1st stop! We had a nice relaxing evening getting settled into the RV together and making adjustments here and there after our first real day of riding. Mike, Scott and the girls went to the football game while Suzzy and I had dinner and relaxed in the RV.

Day 2

Day 2 started about 7:45am. We were trying to get on the road earlier, but suddenly it was 7:30 and we knew we needed to get going. This was going to be our first test day. We had 89 miles to go and we were a bit intimidated by it. We headed out of Vestaburg and then we had our first unplanned stop. Samone was riding along and a car that drove by startled her. She went off the road a bit and got a flat tire. We were headed downhill, so she had to shout ahead to me of her problem and I in turn had to shout ahead to get Mike to stop. Mike pulled out all of the supplies that we had spent hundreds of dollars on for this very instance and we discovered we had a problem. The spare tube that fit Samone's tires was not on any of our bikes. Whoops! So we called SAG support-Scott and he lept into action. He headed out of town towards us with the tube and we began pulling things apart to see what we could do in the mean time. We had some patches and by the time Scott arrived we already had it patched and Mike was putting the tire back together. We decided to ride the patch and see how far it got us (foreshadowing.. Man I'm quite the writer, lol.). Off we went patched and feeling good about surviving our first breakdown.

The day continued and was very challenging. The last 10 to 20 miles of all of the days seemed like they took hours and hours and hours to complete. It was of course in these last few miles, when we were all exhausted and excited to rest that we had our second unscheduled stop. Approximately 1 1/2 to 2 miles outside of Lake City, Samone's tire patches gave out. Sweaty, dirty and exhausted we stopped to fix the flat. My suggestion of trying to fill it with air and riding it soft into town was a no-go. It wouldn't even hold air for 20 feet, let alone 2 miles. This time we had the replacement tube that fit and Mike expertly changed it out. We rode into Lake City to finish our day. We were relieved to be off our bikes, looking forward to Suzzy's cooking and a shower, after completing our longest ride yet.

To Be Continued...