We awoke to our alarms at 6 a.m., having had a much better night's sleep than the previous (there were no Sunday night parties at the arena). Cindy and I did our best to pack up as much as we could within the tent before waking the kids. Once we did, we got them dressed in their cycling gear and packed up the rest of the sleeping bags, pads, and clothes. The tent was a scrambled mess of clean and dirty clothes, pillows, bags, wet towels and swimsuits, and miscellaneous gear by the time morning arrived. What a mess!
Breakfast was served in the arena, and was similar to the day before, but started an hour earlier, at 7 a.m. The general plan for the MUP was to have breakfast at 7 a.m. so that most bicyclists could have their camping gear on the truck and pedal away by 9 a.m. Most riders made it out much sooner than that. Since it had rained during the night, the tent flies were quite soggy, and we left the tents up while we ate breakfast.
After breakfast (we were the last to eat) we organized our gear, packed our tents, and set up the bikes. This morning was particularly slow because we still had access to our van, and some of the stuff in the tent needed to be left in the van but we had to figure out exactly which stuff that was. There seemed to be quite a lot of last minute organizing to do, so were were almost, but not quite, the last riders to leave the arena. We took a little more with us on the bicycles than most riders, probably in part because we were new to this supported tour thing, but also because we had gear for a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old. They require a bit more stuff, including an assortment of extra clothes and three Web-Kinz each. We also took swimming suits and waters shoes because we hoped to do some swimming along the way. Each tandem had a handlebar bag for the captain, a handlebar bag for the stoker (for the kids these usually contain stuffed animals), and rack-top bag on the rear. Quinn and I also carried a set of waterproof panniers with swimming suits, towels, water shoes, and some extra warm clothes. Later in the trip, when swimming seemed less likely, the panniers rode on the truck. The added wind resistance of panniers is noticable when riding into a head wind.
We headed north out of St. Ignace, six Roarks on three Burleys, with some cyclists in front of us and a few behind. The terrain was gently rolling, following the shore of Lake Huron. Traffic was light and the road had a moderate width, smooth shoulder. The temperature was cool. Some of us wore light jackets. Abbey wore tights, a long-sleeve top, and a short-sleeve bicycling jersey under her rain jacket. Quinn was dressed similarly to Abbey but with his wind pants instead of tights. The kids are always cool when the bikes are moving, so they require extra layers.
We'd only been riding for 5 miles when we had our first (and only) incident of the trip. Quinn and I were leading on a gentle downhill when we hear a the sudden scraping sound of metal on metal, accompanied by a mix of sounds of commotion. My first thought was that Cindy's fender had come off her bike and fallen against the tire (a fear of mine, given the recent fender installation), but I was glad to learn that I was wrong. We all came to a quick stop on the side of the road. Cindy's front tire was completely flat because she had run over a bolt - a nice shiny metric hex-head bolt that probably fell of one of the many bicycles on the road ahead of us. It had a big curved washer sort of thing on it that probably allowed it to stick upward from the road and puncture the tire. The bolt had punched a perfect circle out of the center of her tire. Working quickly in the midst of rather aggressive swarm of mosquitos, we pulled the bikes off the road, repaired the tube with a self-adhesive patch, and carefully examined the tire. We wondered what the chances were that the tire would hold, given the 5 mm diameter hole through the tread and casing. I had considered bringing a folding spare for her bike, but hadn't gotten around to ordering one. The little blue Burley uses narrow 26 x 1.25" tires that are a little harder to find than standard road bike or mountain bike tires. I should have at least brought some tire repair boots for this sort of thing. I've heard that a dollar bill makes a good boot, as does a Power Bar wrapper. Instead, I used a strip of heavy duty electrical tape, and we were soon back on the road, but we were now brining up the rear of the tour. That tire held for the rest of the tour, despite the little fuzzy pieces of cord sticking up from the hole.
After that, the ride was less eventful. We headed north for about 15 miles on a lonely road with now traffic at all, and then turned to the east on M-134, the road we would follow the rest of the way to DeTour. There was some traffic on the road, but in most places the shoulder was pretty good, and the riding was pleasant. The terrain was gently rolling, with nice views of the water in many of the valleys. The sky stayed gray and we road into a moderate headwind most of the day, which probably slowed our progress by two or three miles per hour.
The lunch stop that day was in Cedarville, at about 32 miles into the ride. We paid $8 each to have sandwiches at the Cedarville Community Center, with proceeds of the lunch being used toward development of a local rail trail that would follow our route from St. Ignace to DeTour. We don't usually (never, actually) eat sliced roast beef on white bread, but I think it's reasonable that we are somewhat flexible in our diet under these circumstances. The best thing about the lunch was sitting at folding chairs and tables in a large room - it was very relaxing. The lemonade - or was it Gatorade? - was excellent, too.
After lunch, and after Grandma and Grandpa walked over to the hardware store to pick up a rubber mallet to tap tent stakes into hard ground, we quickly got back on the road. Even though the air was chilly, we started looking for a spot to swim. We missed the swimming beach marked on the map, but later stopped at a roadside park with running water and flushable toilets that had a nice sandy beach reaching out into the Lake. There were several other cyclists stopped with us, also enjoying the sand and the water.
We must have spent an hour playing in the water before cleaning up and getting back in the saddle, but as soon as we did, the rain began to fall. It didn't rain very hard for very long, but it gave us a good chance to test our new stainless steel Gilles Berthoud fenders and our rain jackets. Both sets of items work spectacularly. Not a drop of water touched a one of us!
We arrived in DeTour Village sometime in the late afternoon. Our bags were sitting out in the rain beside truck, just as expected. The first riders to arrive at the camp (it was never us) get to help unload all the camping gear from the truck. The gear is unloaded (in a gentle airline baggage handler style?) onto the ground where it waits patiently for it's owner to arrive. It would be nice if there was a way that the bags wouldn't end up sitting outside in the rain, but doing it this way keeps things simple. It's important to keep this in mind, however, when packing for a trip like this. Also, the lighter your bag, the less likely that it will suffer damage from being roughly dragged across the pavement. Our big duffel (a high-quality bag from Gregory) had a large hole ground into it by the time the tour was over. Ouch.
We set up our tents in the grass near the school playground. There was a covered structure nearby that had some picnic tables and a stage (it's not shown in the picture below). We made use of it as a drying rack for some gear, and a place to park the tandems out of the rain. The kids loved camping at the schools because there was always a playground.
We had just enough time to take showers in the school locker room before dinner, which was served at 6 p.m. We were, once again, just about the last ones in line. We could choose fried bird parts (which looked quite tasty) or cold pasta salad. There were also green beans, a good green salad, and some fruit. It wasn't the best meal of the trip, but it wasn't bad, and it certainly provided the necessary calories. There were some tasty deserts, too.
When dinner was finished, I ran out to meet the bicycle maintenance crew, Dave, from Pro Sports in Sault Ste. Marie, to see if he'd have time to take a look at the cranks on the little blue Burley. The front cranks seemed a little loose, and I thought probably needed some attention. Dave was able to tighten the bottom bracket, which I had probably inadvertently loosened a couple of weeks previous when I had snugged up the timing chain. That fixed the looseness in the cranks quite nicely. Unfortunately, Dave did not have a suitable replacement tire or a tire boot. We'd just have to hope for the best.
After that, it was off to organize gear, brush a bunch of teeth, and get some sleep! It had been a good first day.
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