Day 6

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Harbor Springs-Traverse City
80 Miles

Ride Data

After 530 miles I was well over half way and still feeling good but ready for a rest day.  My rest would be a short 80 miles from Harbor Springs to Traverse City where I was staying with my Aunt Aurea that night.  She had also arranged for her friend, who was a massage therapist, to give me a massage when I got into town.  So to say I was excited to get to Traverse City would be an understatement.  And since I was averaging around 19 mph, the day should have been just over four hours.  Unfortunately, a short easy day was not in the cards.

View of Little Traverse Bay leaving Harbor Springs

The trail running from Harbor Springs to Charlevoix

The morning started well enough and after saying my goodbyes to Vickie and Dave I was off heading south around the bay toward Charlevoix.  There was a beautiful trail that ran all the way, which had wooden bridges almost like causeways over parts of the more swampy areas.  The wind was coming straight at me and it was a tiring morning.  The sunrise reflecting on the bay was absolutely gorgeous and it being a Wednesday morning there was very little traffic too.  A few parts of the morning’s route ran along busy highways and I was anxious to detour onto some back roads where I had the roads more to myself and there was more of a shoulder…. This would prove to be my downfall and a changing point on the trip.

Section of wooden trail

Charlevoix

Charlevoix

Stopping for a snack

Well over half way, at around 50 miles, I detoured off the highway and rode along the county roads that go back into the hills surrounding Traverse City.  It was gorgeous riding but some of these roads ran right along the lake and were gravel.  I tried to avoid these as much as possible but without any experience I just had to keep going on whatever roads were in front of me.  If I turned around every time the road got bad I would be turning around every 5 minutes.  After the messes I’d had before with dead ends I didn’t want to modify my route any more than I had too.

This is the gravel road where I flatted

As I cruised along a particularly rocky section of the gravel road I heard a huge pop and felt the entire rear end of the bike settle to the ground.  I had completely blown my rear tire.  I stopped took all my equipment off and replaced the tube in only about 10 minutes.  I got everything repacked away again and set off again but only rolled about 10’ before I heard another pop.  I had just blown my spare tube!  Frustrated I made a crucial mistake and decided to ride on the flat tire up the hill to a nearby road where there was some shade and the terrain was flatter which was more suited for doing maintenance on the bike.  I rode about 100’ down the gravel road to the main highway and took everything out of my pack again to replace the tube.  I replaced the tube and was about to set off again when I noticed a bulge on the back tire.  I looked closely and saw that the tire itself had a cut in the sidewall which, when the tube was fully inflated poked through the tire wall.  This was what had been causing the flats.  Ok, no problem, I took everything apart AGAIN and repaired the tire with a little duct tape lining inside the tire to keep the tube from poking out.  Thankfully I had taken another page out of my dad’s Appalachian Trail playbook and wrapped a good amount of duct tape around my rack for just this sort of emergency.  After pumping up the tire again I set off.

Tube poking through the sidewall of the tire

Flat and shady ground patching tubes

 Within two minutes the tire was flat again.  So for the third time I took everything off the bike, took apart the wheel, and tried to patch the tube.  After putting everything back on, again, I rode for a few minutes and the tire was flat again.  For the next hour I struggled to patch and pump up my tire using the tube patching kit I had brought.  I used two patches on one tube and then realized that after riding on the gravel road it I had a million holes in it and it was not patchable.  So then I tried getting the other tube patched but it had more than just one hole and I was quickly going through my patches.  Bike tubes can get small pinholes that are impossible to see until the tire is fully pumped up so it can be very difficult to find exactly where the leak (or leaks) are coming from.

Broken valve stem was the end.  note the duct tape patch on
the tube just to the left of the valve stem

I used patch after patch until finally I only had one left.  I said a prayer, and after using it on the last tube I pumped it up and set off.  I only made it about a mile before the tire was flat again and I was completely screwed.  I stopped by the side of the road in front of an old house with the garage open.  I desperately tried asking the home owner if they had any tires or tubes…. The lady looked like she had probably invented the bicycle and was confused by my questions of tubes and patches.  She went and got her husband who was equally older than time and even more confused about my problem.  I struggled in front of their home for another hour trying again and again to find a way to patch the tube.  The lady was nice enough to bring out a patch for her swimming pool thinking it might help me.  Graciously I took it, but it was no use.  With no more patches left I was completely sunk.

Defeated, I chose to exercise my last option of throwing my arms in the air and cursing at the sky.  After a few minutes I felt better, but realized that my tire was still flat.  Finally, I calmed down and realized that I had to do SOMETHING… I put my engineering skills to use and folded the tire over itself a few times and used more duct tape to wrap around the whole area.  This was enough that the tire would hold air for a more than one minute.  It was actually more like 5 minutes.  For the next hour I pedaled for about 5 or 10 minutes then stopped and pumped up the tire with my little hand pump.  It was painstakingly slow and frustrating.  Finally, when I was only about 20 miles outside of Traverse the valve stem completely broke off in my hand as I was pumping up the tire.  That was it… it was all over.

I called my Aunt (which I should have done hours before) and asked her to bring me a tube and tire and meet me on the highway.  Thank goodness she was free to help me out otherwise I would have been hitch hiking.  If this had happened a day or two earlier there would have been no safety net at all… Thankfully, this wasn’t the case and after 20 minutes my lovely Aunt Aurea arrived with tubes and tires.  Seeing her car pull off the side of the road to help me was the greatest thing ever.  I quickly made the repairs for one last time and was ready to head out again.  She asked to give me a ride into town but I felt that would be cheating and wanted to complete the day on my own.  I easily made the last 20 miles in about an hour and finally arrived at her house in Traverse City.

After immediately taking my shoes off my Aunt and her neighbor came out to greet me and welcome me.  It was great and I felt like a total celebrity.  We went inside and Aurea offered me cheese and crackers for a snack.  We laughed because she realized that after riding 600 miles I might need something a little more substantial than finger foods, but we were laughing like crazy and it was really funny.  It was so great to see her.  But we didn’t hang out long because I had just enough time to run to the bike shop  (called Brick Wheels) and buy another tire and some more tubes before going to the massage.  There was no way I was ever going to be short of tubes or patch kits ever again!  Ironically a good friend of mine suggested before the trip that I bring three tubes instead of two but I didn’t listen.  I guess this story serves as official acknowledgement that Weston was right. 

Coming into Traverse City after a LONG day

Me and Aunt Aurea the next day at the start of Day 7

Unpacking my pre-mailed package of nutrition

The massage was like being transported to heaven for 90 minutes.  Her friend did an amazing job and after I was done I felt loose and relaxed and HUNGRY.  We went back home where my cousin Lane and her husband Levi were waiting to relax and eat dinner and talk.  Levi helped me replace my other tire which was way over its lifespan, and I certainly didn’t want to duplicate the days experience again in the future.  They also gave me better directions for getting to Ludington the next day.  I was fearful that my route would take me over more gravel roads and with a high potential for dead ends.  I was very glad to get a new route and have a nice clean shower.  I collapsed into bed early that night.

What was supposed to be an easy relaxing day was anything but…. But to see my Aunt and Cousins made up for everything and at the end of the day it was one of the best days of the trip.