Biking with Bill

SINGING IN THE RAIN

(NOTE; See Day 36 also posted today)

About 3 miles outside of Ludington this morning we stopped to put on our rain gear. It was a high mileage day (115 miles) to Mr Pleasant, MI and the forecast called for thunderstorms during the morning hours. What it didn’t say was ALL MORNING. It was 75 miles and 5 hours later that I took off the rain jacket. Incidently, my rubberized rain jacket is the same type of cover that wrestlers wear when trying to lose weight before the weigh- in for a match. Guaranteed to drop pounds through “sweat equity”. I was as wet on the inside as on the outside. Nevertheless, I could not get certain “rain”songs out of my head, so I rode for miles singing to myself.

Today’s ride was our last “century” ride of the trip. We only have 12 cycling days left–none over 90 miles. But we certainly have some great cycling ahead of us. Michigan, despite the weather, has been beautiful. We all look forward to our time in Canada, and then NY State–and family visits–, followed be the Green Mountains of Vermont, and then New Hampshire and the beach. These are exciting days! The large cycling group has really come together well. We have all developed new friendships and riding partners.

I had dinner and a couple of drafts with Eberhard and Anja this evening. They own a bicycle touring company that offers cycling tours of Germany and Majorca. I’ve been thinking.....next summer maybe Munich to Hamburg or possibly the Belgian border to the Polish border; Germany South to North or West to East. I’d love to do either one!

The rain today may have slowed us down a bit, but we made very good time over the 115 mile course (avg 15.8 mph). The final 25 miles was again with “gusto”. We hammered home. I rode with Dan, Kent and Ilkka.

Dan’s quote today, as we headed into Mt Pleasant was: “I never like to see the word “Mount” in our destination city. Inevitably, it involves a climb”.

When riding with Kent, a recently retired pilot for American Airlines, I am reminded of his quote on opening day when asked WHY he was making the cross country trek, He said, “For 30 years I have seen the world go by at 500 mph. Now, I want to see America at 15 mph” Well said.


Bill