This blog report will be broken into 2 parts. Mine will be part 1, detailing Saturday's events. Steve's will be part 2, detailing the Ride Around Torch. I took pics Saturday, Steve took them Sunday cause it rained alot and I wasn't whipping out my cam.
The ride was Sunday, so we drove up Saturday morning and planned on taking an easy stroll around Traverse City. After a quick jaunt up I-75, we fueled our cycling engines with the finest spicy chicken sandwiches Wendy's was capable of offering. We decided on rolling the TART trail, from end to end. It was a gorgeous sunny day.
The East Bay in all her glory on a fine summer afternoon
We started out, and took it easy riding the TART trail as far east as the trail went, out to Williamsburg near 72 and almost to the casino. Things were going well. It was beautiful out, our road bikes were smooth, and our heart rates eventually recovered from the beating lunch at Wendy's gave our bodies. We even saw a family consisting of father, mother, and daughter not realize the trail splits… and decided to ride their bikes down a freaking live set of train tracks!
Coach heading back on the TART trail towards Acme
We headed back, in hopes of taking the TART as far west as we could, where pavement turns to gravel somewhere on the Leelanau Peninsula.
Little did I know the events that ensued next almost derailed the whole weekend. As we approached Acme on the TART trail, the trail crosses 5 Mile Road as well as some train tracks. I didn't think much of them. I was going to continue along the trail and ride it as the civil engineers who designed this had expected millions of cyclists to ride this section. As I approached the road crossing, a blur of blue and black shoots off to my right, accelerating and zipping across the trail, over the road, running parallel to the train tracks at an uncomfortable angle. I realized it was coach, and was thinking... "that little bastard" cause he was going to shoot out of this corner and up the road, forcing me to put in an effort in to catch him.
Then, I forgot I was riding for a second, and thought I was at home watching Joseba Belocki on Versus, circa 2003 at the Tour de France bouncing off the asphalt. Apparently Steve still thought he was riding fat tires. His skinny road bike tire got sucked right into the train tracks. Down he went in a glorious spill around 17 mph. I didn't see any sparks from his frame gliding across the road. Coach bounced right back up like no big deal. He decided to get off the road asap cause cars were coming.
Steve with a finger that rivals that of one ET
We took inventory on the side of the road... Steve had quite a bit of fresh hamburger on his side, a finger that looked like ET’s, and was staring down at some jacked up handlebars. The curse of the skulls struck again. It knows when you ride gay-erd.
Here's Coach clearing out the cobwebs post ashphalt bounce
We were able to ride back 4 or so miles to the car so we could invade Walgreen's for supplies and put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Steve's accident took a decent amount of clean up. From there, we loaded up the Escape and cruised down to McClain's for a little bike repair. Steve walked in the door of the shop with his bike, and as an employee approaches, he says, "Let me guess, train tracks?" Almost like he's seen this kind of thing before. We were in awe. Luckily, there wasn't much damage, and some realigning and tightening of things put his steed back on the road.
Humpty Dumpty clean up time
We then cranked out 30 more miles, heading up the Leelanau trail and back to the car for a ride of 38 miles. Steve's toughness allowed us to get in a decent ride in fear our 62 miler around Torch get rained out the next day.
Cruising the Leelanau Trail
Wheeeeeee!
From there, we had some real shitty steaks from Ruby Tuesdays. Their menu incorrectly advertised they had Fat Tire and Yuengling in stock, pissing us off even more. Nothing a little camp fire and some Sierra Nevada couldn't fix. Some tents on tents, and we’re ready for part 2, courtesy of Coach…
- John
Full finger gloves... Never leave home without them...
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