For over a year I’ve been looking forward to taking the next three weeks that my daughter is away at camp and touring Michigan solo on my bicycle. So wouldn’t you know an old back injury flared up two weeks ago? This week has been all about rest, ice packs, Physical Therapy, and Chiropractic care. Thank goodness for these skillful caregivers! I’m now back in riding shape and hustling to make a week’s worth of preparation in two days.

Tomorrow I’ll post photos of my gear and bike set-up. The photo above is from my annual Spring tour in the U.P.

Saturday, after attending a Yoga workshop at Yoga Center for Healthy Living in Brighton, I will ride to Detroit and spend the night at the Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple. Sunday morning I will ride to the Detroit River and turn left. Over the next 20 days I’ll ride around the coast of the Lower Peninsula and if time allows ride around the eastern tip of the U.P.

Ride ON! Jim

It’s been a two day frenzy getting my gear together since I was laid up much of last week with a sore back. I still found time to participate in Flying Partner Yoga last night with my awesome AcroYoga partner, Sherryl. The event was hosted by Yoga Center for Healthy Living in Brighton and was led by returning guest teachers Moses and Zeina.

So here’s my rig, my magic carpet for the next three weeks:
Nobilette Mountain Bike, built in Ann Arbor in the early 90s.
Smooth rolling Kenda Kwest tires (More about these later.)
Tubus racks front and rear.
Ortlieb Classic Roll-Top panniers.
Clipped on top of the front right pannier is a Solio Rocsta solar charger to keep my phone online.
Clipped on top of the right rear pannier is my Big Sky French press travel mug!

Still need to work out map case placement. That will come naturally once I start rolling in a few minutes.

Unlike most of my tours, I’ll be traveling mostly paved roads and have plenty of access to food along the way. It would be easy to pack light and just pick up food along the way. But I thrive on high quality, nutrient dense foods not found at the corner 7-11.

So I’ve packed:
8 lbs. grass fed beef jerky I salted and dried at home.
3 lbs. organic walnuts
5 lbs. organic Delget dates
2 lbs. Raw Milk cheese
1 jar organic peanut butter

Although weighty, it’s nice to have these staples at hand, especially since I weighed in at a very low 152 lbs. this morning. Need to keep the calorie intake up!

Ride ON!

Awake at 3:30 and up at 5:00. Not quite the solid night’s sleep I had hoped for. Slow and steady progress was made printing last minute maps, massacring a Michigan map book, divvying up gear and balancing panniers.

I was happy too see dear friend Jacque when she stopped by to bid me farewell. And she gave me her Angel coin for good luck and safe travels!

I rolled out of my driveway at 10:35 and got to the Yoga Center just as the 11:00 Kundalini workshop was starting. Again this was led by guest teachers Moses and Zeina and it was wonderful. Gonna get me a big ol’ gong some day soon!

As I exchanged fond farewells with my fellow Yoginis, I noticed I failed to install the proper adapter on my solar charger. So I rode the five miles back to the house. And while I was there, made use of the Wi-Fi to upload an earlier post.

Soon I was on Grand River Ave. heading east out of Brighton. After a quick stop at the best shop on the planet, Hometown Bicycles, I would ride Grand River all the way to within 6 blocks of my destination on Trumbull St. in downtown Detroit. Not my typical touring terrain!