With the memory of last night’s dark and unsettling ride from the restaurant to the motel fresh in our minds (we jokingly exhorted each other to pass on our love to our respective wives should disaster befall us along the way), we awoke with an eye to reconsidering our planned ride to what we would later learn is the chart leader on the FBI’s shit parade of America’s most dangerous cities – Flint, Michigan!
Laura, Roger’s wife, had expressed some concern about us going there, and Roger had learned via TripAdvisor that our motel, which had plenty of rooms available, was in a bad neighborhood. Last night’s short ride was a salutary reminder of the limitations involved in getting around cities at night especially when all you have is a cheap lightweight cable lock that a bic lighter could burn through. So I started typing an internet inquiry “Is Flint…” and very helpfully, google provided the next word “dangerous” – which is how we got on to the FBI rankings.
So we thought about it as both of us wanted to see how Flint was faring and we already had a motel reservation there. But in a rare triumph, prudence won out over curiosity, and we rerouted to Lapeer, which would entail a detour by me to Davison so I could get a new bike tire.
Bowing to the unforgiving demands of blogging, Roger opted for a later start, and I set off on my quest. Naturally, I elected to turn this into a speed game and ended up covering the 56 miles to Davison in a little over 3 1/2 hours at an average speed of 15.9 miles per hour (and that’s for a fully laden African swallow…).
Along the way, I did take some pictures. I didn’t stop for the church sign that read “That part about ‘love thy neighbor’ – I meant that – God” which I thought was weird, pretending to quote God and all, but it was a sentiment I could get behind in a non religious way, but I was zooming along and didn’t feel like turning around.
But when I came to the next “God quote,” I did stop for a picture because it was just creepy. Could be just me though:
And then because road surfaces were uppermost in my mind and the road I was on had a shoulder that was pretty much the gold standard, I took some pictures that I present, for your possible edification, as a triptych.
The Good:
Wide, smooth shoulder separated from the road by a rumble strip. This is what I had most of the way down route 15 from outside Bay City toward Davison.
The Bad:
The “Balance Beam of Fear.” Narrow shoulder with high-speed traffic to your left and a gravel pit of woe to your right. Lots of mental focus here and a white-knuckle ride as somebody blows past you on a blind curve, oncoming traffic shows up and gravel encroaches on the shoulder. Good times; got honked at a few times. Thankfully, this was a short 10-mile ride from Davison to Lapeer, and for a bit of that the road was not so bad.
The Ugly:
Again, I know nothing about road construction and repair but what is this shit? It’s like somebody took Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic as a template (Ding Ding Ding – we have a winner for most contrived and obscure simile; thank you for playing).
The shoulder has good width, but riding on that crap sucks so it’s a cat and mouse game where you duck out onto the road for as long as you can until you see a car in the distance – and you quickly learn to get over pretty much as soon as you see one because they are on you in a flash. I encountered stretches of these conditions as I came into the final stretch toward Davison.
I got to Big Al’s Quick Release bike shop in Davison where Dakota took good care of me.
He scoured the shop looking for a 32-mm tire and pondered the pros and cons of going with a 35 or a 28, which is all they had. In the end, the 186 miles of crushed gravel that awaits me (and Rachael) at the end of the trip inclined us toward the 35, and Dakota had to grind down the head of one of the fender screws to get enough clearance.
That sentence underscores how long I’ve been out here and how my frame of reference has shifted. To me, now, it seems highly pertinent and interesting – it’s the kind of fix on the fly that one really appreciates. But I fear you, dear reader, can’t bring yourself to care and would rather see a picture of something.
So here are some Pygmy ponies we saw in Wisconsin:
Tomorrow we are off to Port Huron, famed among lefties for the eponymous SDS statement written mostly by Tom Hayden.
Born in Baltimore and raised in Cincinnati, I have lived on both coasts and driven back and forth across the country a number of times. I now have the "midlife opportunity" to do so on two wheels.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/65.247
fascinating. seriously. and i await the update on the PHS!
Alas, we rerouted on the fly to St. Clair and did not go to Port Huron. It turned out ok but was not the right call.
Comment
damn. premature comment syndrome.
back to this post: not sure which/who is cuter Dakota or the ponies.
this is funny stuff, bob.
may the rest of the ride have as much of the Good as possible.
And remember: God loves you.
And so does Jesus, apparently.
Not sure about the 3rd part of any of above tryptichs.
Safe travels.
Thanks Kath! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Jesus loves you too; not sure about Steve…
Bob, your writing is hilarious. The ‘old’ Dennis Miller — on wheels. Thanks for the good stuff.
Hey – good to hear from you. Thanks for the compliment!
Good Morning from Montana. I bet you guys dont miss much from this place. Enjoy your journey, may the wind always find your back.
Thanks Earl; nice to hear from you. Hope you and the girlfriend have been doing well. I liked Montana a lot, but we were really at the ass end of it by the time we ran into you all. Those several days getting out of the state all sort of run together, but as I get ever closer to home part of me really wants to be out west again.
Bob, I hope your mod job works. I discovered one nail head in the driver’s side rear tire late afternoon yesterday. The artisan at the local tire store discover two more nails. I thought they could be plugged – nope, and $125.67 later, new tire. I suppose that is a better call than riding to Cincinnati with 3 nails in the tire. So, this is one reader that finds interest in the silly millimeters longer posting.
Three nails?!? Where you been drivin’ son? See you in a few weeks!
I’ll bring the Pernod