Round Lake Michigan - Day Four

Holland, Michigan to Stanwood, Michigan

The original online journal entry:

Actual Date: 2005-07-14
Uploaded: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:35:11 -040
Distance: 119.98 km

Today I invested a couple of hours in extra sleep and modifying my handlebar height.

Although this resulted in a lower daily distance it also appears to have corrected the butt pain problem. It's amazing what lowering the handlebars by about an inch can do!

I decided to head inland. This decision takes me through much hillier terrain but hopefully cuts some distance as well.

Grand Rapids is a city that features lots of closed roads and rolling hills. Due to my late start I hit the city during the hottest part of the day. This part of the day was fueled by some Goober sandwiches.

Later on two very nice ladies saw me parked by the side of the road under a shady tree and offered me a water bag refill of water and ice along with a large glass of water and a yogurt. Thank-you ladies for giving me one of the highlights of my day!

Gradually the heat dropped and as it went down to 30 degrees my speed came back up too!

By the time the day ended I had climbed 979m(around 3,000 feet) of hills. I understand that as I continue North the hills will only get bigger!

Today was a GREAT touring day despite my seemingly low distance. Tomorrow I intend to get up at 04:30 and hit the road while the temperatures are still low. Apparently the heat wave in this area is expected to stay until next Monday.

I am now 40 km under my distance goal for this date. As long as I keep an eye on this and gradually reel in the distance then this is unlikely to be a problem.

Soon it will be time for my first rest day.

BTW: A big thank-you to all those who sent me email yesterday!

~Jamie N

Post tour comments about this day:

This is the day when I woke up at 04:30, looked at the pocketmail alarm and decided to sleep in a bit longer. Eventually I rolled out of the hammock around 07:30, cooked some breakfast and adjusted my handlebar height in the hopes that it would resolve my butt problem.

My location in Holland is somewhat in from the coast so it was logical to me to begin to cut the corner at this point in the hope of saving some distance. My friends found this decision a bit controversial since I also knew that I was going to enter hilly terrain as a result. A few of them don't understand why I would leave relatively flat terrain to take on the hills especially if the distance savings could be as little as a hundred kilometres.

Up until now I've been hiding my extreme enjoyment of riding in hilly terrain. During the first few days of a tour I am ok using a flat area to warm up on but eventually I feel the need to find some hills to climb and play around in. This wasn't always the case and in fact I blame my offroad riding experience coupled with my Round Lake Huron tour for awakening this desire within me.

I think that it's not just the appeal of the hills to be honest. I also like to get off the well-traveled path and go places that most people haven't visited. During this day I would travel many backroads where based on people's expressions and questions fully loaded bicycle touring bikes are rarely seen.

I reached the hilly terrain of Grand Rapids during the hottest point of the day. Grand Rapids is an interesting city in that the hills have been retained rather then flattened. As such it was very common to climb a hill, descend it and reclimb it again. It was an incredibly hot day too!

Eventually I exited the city. This took a while because part of my navigation was making sure that I managed to find two different bridges to cross different rivers. This tends to lock you to particular routes that are often heavily trafficked. With it so hot I also took a few breaks to allow my body to cool down a bit. Once I reached the outskirts of town I headed North.

During my ride North I decided to take a cool down break underneath a shady tree on top of a hill (I rarely. if ever, stop at the bottom of a hill). It was during this rest period that two nice ladies treated me to lots of ice water and a container of yogurt. This was very nice of them and once again shows how nice people can be. Of course this happened while a fire truck was going by so they stopped to make sure I was suffering from heat stroke. After a short yap about the tour they continued merrily on their way.

(In retrospect looking back I may have looked a bit rough on this day since two separate people talked to me for a while and then in parting mentioned that they would pray for my safety in their prayers that night).

A couple of people have asked about Goober sandwiches. There is a product in the United States called Goober. I haven't seen it in Canada. Basically it is a jar containing a mix of peanut butter and jam. I haven't seen it since purchasing it on this day so I should have taken a picture to share. Obviously for a cyclist one jar is better then two and nothing on the package refers to the need for refrigeration. With a loaf of bread and a disposable knife, fork and spoon it was incredibly easy to make energy sandwiches without needing to go to a lot of trouble.

I used to ride a motorcycle and as part of riding a motorcycle you tend to salute other motorcycles as you pass them. During previous tours I would often do the same thing while riding my bike to see if they would respond. Many of the riders do. Towards the middle of the ride I began to hit some bigger hills and during this time I started noticing a very unusual occurance and one that was repeated numerous times on this day and the next one. As motorcycles approached they were saluting me first. This was completely unexpected but very cool to experience. I put it down to them thinking how crazy I must be to be riding my fully loaded bike up and down hills that made their engines work a bit. Very cool.

Eventually it was time to get some shut-eye so I began the search for a place to camp. Since there didn't appear to be any commercial or state park facilities nearby I stealth camped for the first time this tour. Setting camp went well although I was caught a bit off guard when the red fox came for a visit just as darkness was setting in. I also noticied how incredibly noisy the forest is right at sundown and for about an hour afterwards. Once the hour goes by then silence again reigns supreme.

While Stealth camping it struck me how stale state parks and commercial campgrounds are in comparison. In those places you will see chipmunks, squirrels, skunks and other assorted small creatures but rarely is it an incredibly noisy area with an overwhelming variety of sounds. On this night this forest was very much alive.

Once again I placed my Bear Keg 300 feet away from my camp and enjoyed a peaceful sleep while the animals sniffed around the container instead of visiting my camp.

One other item of interest is that I camped on the side of a hill. My camping spot would have been difficult for a tent camper to use due to the slope and the large number of fallen logs. With the hammock I just strung it up between trees, placed the camoflaged tarp over my bike and had a nice comfortable sleep. Camp setup was performed in a completely lights-out environment as is typical with stealth camping.

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