THE NEXT ADVENTURE

My next adventure is a four-week trip through the Michigan upper peninsula (UP) and around Lake Erie. I have been wanting to do a tour for a little while now and the stars have aligned for me this summer. The bonus is that I will get to spend some time on my bike with my sister and brother-in-law, Rhonda and Jon. Rhonda and I had a great tour of the Pacific Coast back in 2009 with a friend from Houston and it will be fun to tour with her again.

Rhonda and Jon are going cross-country this summer on the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route. They are headed west to east and left Anacortes, WA on June 13th. The plan is to meet them in eastern Wisconsin and ride with them as far as Buffalo, NY. After about 1,200 miles and 4 weeks on the road, I will have to head home to return to "normal" life.

See Rhonda and Jon's blog at RonJon's Adventures.

Joining me for the road trip up to Wisconsin and the first week of riding to Mackinac Island will be my wonderful husband, Dave, and a long-time cycling friend, Elie. Dave and Elie will be shuttling a van while we ride since Dave doesn't have a touring bike yet and this is Elie's first tour. 

Below is our planned route. If Canada is still closed, we will drop down and ride along the southern shore of Lake Erie. We are hoping Canada will be open by early August!

I am riding a Moots MooTour titanium bike. It serves double duty as my main road bike for regular rides and transforms into a fabulous touring bike with a change of wheels and the addition of racks and panniers. After 11 years and tens of thousands of miles, it is still my favorite bike to ride.

We are in the final weeks of preparation prior to departure for Wisconsin. There are still a few items on my packing list to purchase and more miles to get in on what small "hills" we have here at sea level. I'll update this blog as we hit the road for the adventure.

HOW DID THIS GET STARTED?

I have been cycling for almost 35 years. It started innocently enough with a basic road bike for weekend rides. I was stationed in Savannah, GA with the Army at the time, when a flyer in the local bike shop caught my eye for the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia (BRAG). There was a group of people that were going to ride across Georgia over 6 days in June. The thought boggled my mind at first, but I took a flyer anyway because I was also sort of intrigued by the idea.

The ride was about two months away and I decided I wanted to do it. Being young and in the military, I was in decent shape and wasn't too worried about being able to handle the ride. I had basic camping gear and everything else I would need so I signed up. It was a supported tour so I had someone to transport my gear from town to town each day. I didn't know anyone doing the ride but that didn't faze me at all.

It was a fabulous ride and I met so many fun people throughout the week. I was bitten by the touring bug. I returned the next year to do the ride again, and then did a week-long supported tour in Florida that fall. I also had my first introduction to BikeCentennial (now Adventure Cycling) during this time. I started reading stories in their magazine (no internet back then) and started dreaming of what it would be like to load up your bike and go wherever you wanted without having to be on someone else's route or schedule.

As happens to many of us, marriage, children and life interfered with the realization of my dream for 20 years. I continued to ride with local bicycle clubs and do other cycling trips, but none was quite the same as I imagined an unsupported tour would be. I finally had the opportunity to do a cross-country unsupported tour the summer of 2007. I rode a slightly modified version of the Adventure Cycling TransAm route from east to west. It was everything I thought it would be, and more! I did a few smaller "shake down" tours prior to the cross-country ride, and have done several shorter tours since. 

My exploits are captured in journals at the below link:
Big Red's Touring Journals

As the result of some injuries and several surgeries, it has been a long time since I did a tour. I needed the time to heal and get back into proper "touring shape", as well as get to a point again where I could take a chunk of time off work. That time has now arrived and I am currently planning my next tour. Follow along for my adventure...