Reports from Jamie's latest tour

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day 62

go wide or go home!

Actual Date: 2007-07-05
Uploaded: thu, 5 jul 2007 18:13:10 -0700
Distance: 0.00 km

Yesterday I neglected to mention that St. Ignace was my stopping point for the day. I didn't realize that I was being Google Mapped (by at least six of you based on emails - grin).

Here's my best answer so far to my guestbook poets.

(snip)

It's becoming quite a quest
To circle the great lakes north to south and east to west
Hills, heat, traffic, people and equipment make for drama
Peaceful country on a wonderful bike creates little trauma
An epic adventure of the very best!

(end snip)

My rough touring outline grants me a rest day after every 720 km. My total distance for the last six days was 737 km so today I took the day off.

St. Ignace is the only link between my three western lake tours. I always end up staying at the same campsite in the same campground each time even through I never book it in advance.

My first time here I spent a day touring Mackinaw Island. It was a good time but when I transited across the strait via the island yesterday I found it too touristy. Locals have mentioned that tourism is really down in this area right now due to southern Michigan automotive plant closings and the higher price of gas.

The fireworks last night were incredible! At one point there were five separate 30+ minute displays going on around me. It was a really cool spectacle to watch!

This tour has really underlined the "Go wide or go home" side of touring.

During my earliest tours I must have been using fashion-sense rather then butt-sense because those early wedgie seats looked pretty but they hurt. I graduated to a wider B17 leather saddle which helped a lot but it still wasn't perfect. This tour I am using a 25% wider B67 saddle and so far the Bag Balm has remained packed away where it belongs. Perhaps my saddle makes less fashion sense but where it counts it's the right one for me!

Tires are similar. I used 700C x 32 and then 700c x 35 before graduating to the 26 x 2.00 tires that I am using today. Advantages of the wider tires include less transferrance of road vibration, less danger of a tire catching in a pavement crack and much better handling off pavement.

So when you tour you might consider going wide so that there is much less likelihood that you will have to go home before you are ready to.

Tomorrow I continue north-west towards the shoreline of Lake Superior. This is probably the right time to remind you that I use payphones to send in updates. These will likely become even more scarce as I go around the less populated parts of Lake Superior. So there should be no cause for worry if up to four days elapses without an update. Keep checking in because eventually they will arrive.

In the extremely unlikely situation that something happens to me I am wearing a dog tag with my name and emergency contacts including my doctor thanks to www.roadid.com so I will be identified and the appropriate people notified.

It's always a good technique to ask locals where they prefer to eat. Today I ate a Whitefish dinner while conversing with two retirees. The husband used to work on the state ferries before the bridge was built. He later worked for the state building highways as well. Between him and his wife we had a very interesting conversation about the ferries, building highways and St. Ignace before the increase in tourism due to the bridge.

Today has been a restless day for me. I did some chores like bike maintenance and laundry as well as continuing to wolf down food. I finally realized that my problem is that I haven't seen Lake Superior yet despite being out here for a week. Other tours with stops in St. Ignace occured with the majority of the lake already behind me. The lake will be here soon enough.

I am spagetti charged and ready to hit the road tomorrow.

~Jamie N

Interested in bicycle touring? www.bicycletouring101.com

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Tour Statistics

(Based on riding days only)

Number of Riding Days: 34
Overall total so far: 3840.10 km
Daily Average: 112.94 km
Shortest: 53.00 km
Longest: 163.00 km

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