Riding the Charx

Rode the Charx this weekend. That is, the ride around Lake Charlevoix, which is on the northwest side of Michigan's lower peninsula. The Charx Ride is a yearly club ride - this was our first year, but it was nice, so we may do it again next year.

I'm finding it hard to keep up with this blogging. It's fun and it seems like a great way to share our adventures, but perhaps I'm too verbose. It takes effort to sit down and write. I've missed a couple of interesting adventures - a trip to Chicago in mid-July, and before that another club ride - the Covered Bridge Tour - near Grand Rapids. Maybe some time I'll come back to those.

Back to the Charx. We made reservations at the campground at Whiting County Park on Lake Charlevoix. We left Friday morning with the bikes on the rack and our camping gear in the car. We were determined to do this trip on a tight budget, so we'd planned meals and packed food in the cooler for the whole weekend. Before we left, Cindy made granola, salsa (with tomatoes and peppers from our neighbor's garden), and some really wonderful zucchini bread (zucchini from the same garden).

The campground wasn't the nicest we've seen, but the location was good, and we had, we thought, one of the better sites. The campground was right on the lake, and there was a shallow, sandy shelf that extended off shore for quite a distance. Perfect for swimming. No boats were allowed inside the buoys.




We didn't take our camera to the swimming beach, so we didn't get great pictures of the kids swimming, but we spent many hours playing in and around the water. We were careful to use sunscreen, so the only sunburns occurred in those little spots we missed with the lotion - right above Quinn's shorts on his back, and in a few spots on Abbey's back where her straps were, but didn't stay. And on Cindy's butt cheeks.



Because lunch was served after the ride, but lasted only from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., we figured we needed to start as early as possible to be sure we finished in time for lunch. As with most club rides, there were several routes: a 20, 43, 62, and 105 miles. The 62 has been called the hilliest metric century (100 kilometers) in Michigan. Those riders doing the 105 got to do the 62 and then the 43, with lunch in between. We chose the 43, which did have some hills. We awoke at 5:30 a.m., to a very quiet campground, chomped down some yogurt and granola, and left the campground by 6:45. We'd left the bikes on the car overnight, and drove the 5 miles or so to the starting point. We started the ride by 7:30.

The ride started in Boyne city, at the southeast end of Lake Charlevoix. Our route took us around the lake in a counterclockwise direction. The morning air was cold. The forecast had been for a low in the upper 50s F, and I'm sure it was at least that cold. The picture below was taken just a few miles into the ride, when Quinn had started crying because his hands were cold. He was wearing sweat pants, a light jacket, with his hood under his helmet. He had light gloves, but we hadn't thought to bring his mittens. I gave him my fingerless gloves, but it didn't help much. Abbey was chilly, but didn't really complain.



Somewhere around mile 15 we reached the shore of Lake Michigan, where we followed a paved bike path west to the town of Charlevoix. Charlevoix is very nice little town on the small strip of land, split by a narrow channel of water, that separates Lake Charlevoix from Lake Michigan. I wish we'd take photos as we went through Charlevoix. It was nice, and there were lots of big yachts and nice houses. But there was a bit of traffic to deal with and we sort of rode through quickly without stopping for photos. Here's Lake Michigan:



Quinn took some pictures of the first rest stop, which was on the shore Lake Michigan. I think he took the one below. There 43- and 62-mile routes came together for the stretch along the big lake, so there were lots of riders stopped here. We saw several other tandem teams, including a family of four with a two bikes set up similarly to ours. There was also a family of three with a girl about Abbey's age on a really nice-looking, crimson Santana triple. At this stop we also ran into Abbey's gym teacher from Cornell Elementary - we knew she was an avid cyclist - probably doing the 105 twice that day.



I didn't get many riding pictures - still need a handlebar bag or some other place to put the camera for easy access. Here's a shot of Cindy and Abbey coming down a hill on one of the inland sections of the ride.



Coming into the tiny town of Ironton, we climbed a couple of pretty significant hills. On both of them, we had to gear down to our lowest available gear, and even then we were really pushing it to get to the crest. We saw a couple of riders, who appeared to be reasonably strong, dismount and walk up the hill. For riders on bicycles without a triple, or a small chainring up front, some of these hills would have been really tough.

Ironton is a tiny little town where the south arm of Lake Charlevoix meets the main body of the lake.



We took the ferry across - it was really fun. The ferry has diesel motor, but runs on cables back and forth across the lake. It carries 4 cars and whole bunch of bicycles.



We finished the ride at just about noon, easily in time for lunch. We covered just under 42 miles - we don't know what happened that other mile (even the cue sheet indicated the ride finished at 42). It went very well, aside from a cold start, I think we all had a good time.

The lunch was pretty good, with beans and salads, some barbecued stuff, including veggie burgers, and strawberry shortcake. Even with a chilly morning, by lunchtime we were so hot that frozen strawberries on short cake was a real treat!



After the ride, we went back to the campground to swim, ate some ice cream, then swam some more before we made burritos for dinner at the campground. For some reason, the kids ran around with bandannas on their heads that afternoon.



Quinn took a picture of the rest of us. And, no, the trailer in the background isn't ours. It belonged to a little girl named Kora, who had a real interest in the contents of our cooler.