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EAT DRINK PEDAL SMILE: DALMAC 2002
Bikes today
Mackinaw City seems so far away
but I'm with friends here so I'll be okay
oh I believe in bikes today
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"You're nuts."
That was the local kid's candid conclusion after hearing my answers to the barrage of questions — "Where ya goin'? Where'd ya start? What's a Dell Mack?" — he'd hit me with when I pedaled up to the 7-Eleven in Alma on the first day of the 32nd annual DALMAC Bicycle Tour, August 28.
As I gulped down a quart of Gatorade in the brilliant afternoon sunshine, I explained to my inquisitive friend, a short, scrawny boy of 9 or 10, that DALMAC stands for "Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinaw" and takes its riders from the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing to Mackinaw City and across the Mackinac Bridge to St. Ignace.
"You're really gonna ride that thing all the way to the bridge?" he asked, nodding his John Deere baseball cap in the direction of my road-scarred Schwinn Mesa parked by the store, its orange safety flag flapping in the breeze.
"Uh huh," I replied, perhaps a bit too smugly.
"You're NUTS!" the kid repeated, more emphatically this time.
Then I showed him my helmet, atop which I had strapped a "Barbie Potter" doll: a Malibu Barbie in a hot pink bikini with Harry Potter's head and clunky black shoes no self-respecting glamour icon would be caught dead in.
The kid scrunched up his nose as if he smelled his mom cooking liver and onions for dinner, turned his cap backwards and climbed back onto his silver and black BMX.
"YOU'RE REALLY NUTS!" he called out to me as he rode away.
The budding little psychiatrist probably didn't know Dick Allen from Dick Tracy, but his parents likely voted for him more than once. Allen, a former state representative from Ithaca, Michigan (about seven miles southeast of Alma), started DALMAC in 1971 with 11 "relatives, friends and a couple strangers" as part of a political effort to publicize bicyclists' rights, demonstrate that cyclists could ride safely all the way from the State Capitol to the Straits of Mackinac and to promote cycling as a healthy means of transportation and recreation.
The tour has grown from that first group of a dozen riders to 1679 cyclists and volunteer support staffers from across the United States and Canada, on one 5-day route and three separate 4-day routes that cover distances ranging from 280 to 407 miles. All of the routes follow paved, less-traveled back roads.
I submitted my application for the 5-day "Traditional DALMAC" just in time to make the final cut of 450 riders in late March, and when spring finally sprang I began racking up some serious miles around my Berkley neighborhood and on numerous training and social rides led by the South Oakland County-based Wolverine Sports Club.
I also participated in several organized tours sponsored by various cycling organizations throughout the Lower Peninsula, including the 7-day, 331-mile Michigander rail-trail ride and the League of Michigan Bicyclists' Shoreline West Tour, another 7-day trek, which travels 388 miles along the spectacular Lake Michigan coast from Grand Haven to Mackinaw City.
By the time DALMAC rolled around, I'd put over 2000 miles on "My Wreck of a Red Bike Named Harold" (sorry, Mr. Lightfoot) since April. I felt ready, and reasonably sane, despite my goofy headgear and the snickers of family and friends who thought, just as the kid in Alma did, that anyone who chose to spend four or five days of vacation camping on school lawns, eating mass-produced food with strangers in cafeterias and riding a bicycle 52 to 108 miles a day in the late summer heat clearly had to be off their rocker.
David Webb, 44, a burly, balding claims adjuster from Royal Oak who walked around camp wearing a big smile and a T-shirt that posed an interesting rhetorical question — "With a body this good, who needs hair?" — was one DALMAC rider who looked like he was clearly ON his rocker, or more precisely, his La-Z-Boy.
Suddenly
my butt is welded to my Avocet
and I've not even seen Dick Allen yet
still I believe in bikes today
Webb rode an R40 Vision recumbent, an increasingly popular type of bicycle on which riders sit in a reclining position about two feet off the ground in a seat with a backrest that is much wider and softer than a conventional bike seat. Recumbent riders pedal with their legs straight out in front of their upper body rather than below it. Webb noted that he has doubled his annual cycling mileage, from 2000 to 4000, since he retired his old Schwinn Passage road bike and purchased his "La-Z-Boy on Wheels" from Prestige Cycles in Clinton Township.
"Nothing hurts, not even my butt," he said, citing a particular sore spot for long-distance riders. "I'm much more comfortable now." Webb tells people who ask him "How do you do that?" and wonder how they can ever ride as far as he does: "Start by riding around the block."
"Sit-Down Dave," as he is known by his cycling buddies with less posterior-friendly, less luxuriously-appointed wheels, said that he enjoyed this year's DALMAC, his sixth, for the same reasons he enjoyed the other five. "It's a great deal: five days of good food, beautiful scenery, outdoor recreation and old and new friends, all for a few dollars."
The jovial Webb, who leads a spirited Wednesday night Wolverine ride that starts by the Royal Oak Public Library and travels 25 miles through Royal Oak, Berkley, Southfield, Beverly Hills, Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, added with a laugh that there is another important facet of DALMAC he is especially fond of: "There's an ice cream stand in every town."
I pedaled along with my friends on the 5-day route — there really are no "strangers" on DALMAC — an average of 66 miles per day and showered and camped overnight on the Central Michigan University campus in Mt. Pleasant and at schools in McBain, Elk Rapids and Petoskey. Trucks hauled our gear from site to site and support vehicles and a bicycle mechanic followed us. We ate filling and surprisingly tasty breakfasts and dinners together in the school cafeterias and gathered for lunch at a variety of eateries in quaint towns along the way. The $165 tab for the 5-day option covered all of these services except lunch.
Why I did not train I don't know
I cannot say
I did something wrong
now I long
for an off-day
One of the things that make DALMAC so special is that folks on the tour can, and do, talk to anyone about anything, anywhere and any time. Stimulating conversations often arise between people who were completely unaware of each other's existence before the ride and would probably not have met if they hadn't ventured out on DALMAC.
While I was taking a break in Bellaire on the fourth day of the tour, Mark Thompson, a 42-year-old Lansing resident I'd met on last year's ride, commented on my Woodward Dream Cruise tank top. "I live three blocks off of Woodward; the Cruise was awesome!" I bragged, and — momentarily forgetting Thompson's line of work — asked if he'd ever been to the nostalgic classic car extravaganza that has become the biggest party in Southeast Michigan.
"Yeah, I was there on my motorcycle for the first two," Thompson replied — with admirable aplomb, I realize now in hindsight. Thompson is the vice president of the Michigan State Police Troopers Association. He was formerly stationed at the Oak Park Post and was on crowd control duty at the WDC in '95 and '96.
State Trooper 1, Berkley Resident 0. I didn't really have a comeback for that. Not all of these happenstance encounters produce exceptionally stimulating conversations.
"As state troopers, we're held to a higher standard of behavior than the average citizen," Thompson said. "We are happy to associate with the kind of people who ride DALMAC. We can be ourselves and have fun."
Thompson added that the unique camaraderie between DALMAC participants was especially evident during the grueling climb up "The Wall," a steep hill outside East Jordan that tour veterans like to tell horror stories about. "With everyone cheering you on, it shows the bond of DALMAC riders — the old 'I can do it, YOU can do it, WE can all do it together' camaraderie," he said.
Tony Benaglio, a lieutenant at the Negaunee Post, was one of the 11 other Michigan State Policemen who accompanied Thompson on DALMAC this year. Benaglio brought along his wife, Cynthia, a teacher at Ishpeming High School, and 12-year-old son Nick. He said the tour was "good family fun."
During my first DALMAC last year, Benaglio advised me to get rid of all my spare change before attempting to ascend The Wall, to reduce my load as much as possible. He'd heard me boasting about conquering the lofty heights through the Sleeping Bear Dunes on the Shoreline West ride earlier that summer and, although I knew he was joking about dumping my dimes and quarters, had me worried that The Wall was so formidable, it would force me to break my bike tour vow to never walk my wheels up a hill, no matter how steep the grade. Benaglio probably had a good laugh with his buddies about psyching the brash rookie out.
So when I scaled The Wall without even realizing I'd made it to the top ("That's IT?"), I felt I'd been had. It was a challenge, and I gritted my teeth and cursed the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet I'd ravaged just before the quarter-mile long climb, but it wasn't quite as brutal as I'd been led to believe it would be. And I told everyone, with a rather self-satisfied air, that The Wall should be renamed The Brick; it wasn't high enough to be a complete "Wall." Then I had a good laugh with my buddies about calling the grizzled veteran's bluff.
Benaglio was not particularly amused. He'd had a much tougher time fighting The Wall on his road bike than I'd had on my lower-geared mountain bike. State Troopers 1, Berkley Resident 1. We've got a tie game, folks.
Bikes today
last night a snorer wouldn't let me snooze
so I put thumbtacks in his cycling shoes
oh I believe in bikes today
Some aspects of the DALMAC experience — moments of joyous
laughter and triumphant tears shared among people from seemingly
every different vocation, socioeconomic status, age group, ethnic
background and level of physical fitness under the tour's gloriously
persistent 5-day sun — were purely, utterly priceless.
One such moment occurred when Bruce Mitchell, a math education professor at MSU with a "Team Skunk" helmet, an elaborate portable stereo system attached to his bike rack and an "If it's too loud, you're too old" attitude (at the age of 65, no less), pulled up to Caroline's Deli in Fife Lake with The Chieftains blaring from his loudspeakers. "Uncle Miltie" Gruhn, an irrepressible 72-year-old retired foreman from Lansing who has ridden or served as a volunteer on every DALMAC since 1973 and reminisces about "the old days" with anyone who will listen — "Back in '76, we had a collision between a biker and a horse; the horse got the worst of it " — spontaneously broke into a rousing Irish jig, to the complete delight of the riders assembled at picnic tables for lunch. Priceless.
Another notable scene came near the end of the day our route took us by a life-sized cardboard poster of a buff, shirtless, leering Fabio propped up against a roadside mailbox. This also happened to be the day I piled what must have looked like $50 worth of roast beef and smoked turkey onto a $5 self-serve, flat-rate sub for lunch and, after inhaling my construction project, went shirtless myself for several miles while riding in the 85-degree heat.
My two carpool mates, Kristen Kramer, 35, an accountant from Clinton Township who was better known on the ride by her bike tour alias, "Biker Chick," and Ron Mosher, a 67-year-old retired real estate broker from Irons, Michigan, greeted me at dinner that evening, in perfect unison, with a singsongy "HOW'S IT GOING, FLABBY-O?" I had a sneaking suspicion they'd rehearsed this tawdry spectacle in advance. Priceless?
Suddenly
I've got two quarts of Gatorade to pass
no toilets anywhere; I'll use the grass
my "needs" today came suddenly
Amidst all the silliness and laughter were moments of overpowering poignancy.
Craig and Sigrid Hampton met on DALMAC three years ago. He was impressed with the way she attacked the hills. She enjoyed riding and hanging around with him. And last April, Craig, 49, married 48-year-old Sigrid — a woman he happened to meet only because he was "crazy" enough to ride his bicycle from Lansing to Mackinaw City.
The Lansing couple celebrated their second honeymoon on DALMAC 2002. The thrilling, climactic ride across "Mighty Mac" stirred up "a lot of wonderful memories," Sigrid Hampton said. "I cried all the way across the Mackinac Bridge."
And then there is the saga of John Lawton, an accounting assistant for the Family Independence Agency in Lansing. Lawton, 49, fought through countless aches and pains to complete a 329-mile marathon bicycle trek most people would never dream of attempting.
John Lawton is the very embodiment of the DALMAC spirit of self-motivation, courage and a life-affirming determination to take on difficult challenges. John Lawton, despite his troubles, did not even consider giving up. John Lawton completed his seventh DALMAC on September 1.
John Lawton has cerebral palsy.
When I asked Lawton how he felt in St. Ignace after he traversed the Straits of Mackinac on two wheels and the infinite, loving support of his admirers, he said with an exhausted smile, "Dead tired. But happy."
Priceless, indeed.
Dwayne Scheidler, DALMAC's Events Director and a board member of Lansing's Tri-County Bicycle Association, which sponsors the ride, said people who think a long bicycle tour like DALMAC is too demanding and worry that they won't be able to complete it or enjoy it are missing out on a unique adventure that can truly enrich their lives.
"Get on your bike and try it for awhile. You just might be surprised," Scheidler said.
Why I ate so much I don't know
but it was free
I feel something wrong
now I long
for Imodium A-D
DALMAC is undeniably a feast for the senses. When I think back on this year's tour, I see the colors that represent the old land-grant school where our journey began, which turned out to be, fittingly, the most prominent colors we rode past on our first day: the luxuriant green of soybean and corn fields and the sparkling white of tranquil farmhouses. I see farmers waving at us from their tractors and the lustrous deep blue of sun-kissed Grand Traverse Bay, Torch Lake and Lake Charlevoix.
I see Uncle Miltie's mischievous, ever-present grin and the welcome sight of those yellow Ryder trucks and a brand-new multicolored tent city after a hard day's ride. I see a 5-year-old, 40-inch-tall dynamo from Carson City, Michigan named Keifer McCrackin, pedaling resolutely away on his tiny Diamondback a few yards ahead of his dad, Tom, with his blond locks peeking out from his blue and gold helmet. And the bittersweet sight of the Mackinac Bridge in my rear view mirror.
I hear Renan Fontus, a Haitian-born mechanical engineer at Michigan State's Cyclotron Laboratory, saying "You feel like you can do anything after you've done this" in his melodious Caribbean accent. I hear the peals of laughter when Lansing's Pete Zipple mistook Barbie Potter for Janet Reno ? "after a VERY productive weekend at the spa" ? and when I came up with a nickname for MSU physicist Jon Bonofiglio. After he told me "I was ready to scream like a schoolgirl" during a close encounter he and his 9-year-old daughter, Chelsea-Ann, had with a black bear near Petoskey, I started calling him "Danielle Boone."
I hear the calls of encouragement from Uncle Miltie's granddaughter, Rachel Deveau, as she and her mother, Cheryl, made sweeps of the route in their van to see if anyone needed assistance or water, and the playful trash talk of Zech Jackson, an eighth-grader at Holt Jr. High, as we jockeyed for position on the road. I hear the "DALMAC Alarm Clock" — the sound of tent doors unzipping open to the cool, fresh dew of dawn, and the cheerful "Good morning" and "Did you have a good ride today?" I got from just about everyone I ran into.
I taste the sloppy joes at the Perrinton VFW and smell the Icy Hot on sore muscles. But most of all, I feel the goose bumps on my skin, brought on by the rush of emotion that comes with sharing such an exceptional experience with such exceptional people.
In the Petoskey Middle School cafeteria on the last night of the ride, Cheryl Deveau and 21-timer Rebecca Baughan accompanied me in singing "Bikes Today," a bike tour song I wrote a couple years ago to the tune of "Yesterday," for our DALMAC friends after dinner. We urged everyone to sing along, for their own good.
I'd like to say that our little choir exuded Hemingwayesque grace under pressure in the shadow of Papa's beloved old Northern Michigan woods and sang like angels. But we probably sounded more like devils with strep throat. And the funny thing is, it didn't even matter, because we really were among friends, and they really did sing along, enthusiastically. Quintessential DALMAC.
Allen, who now runs Bon Accord Farm Bed and Breakfast in Ithaca with his wife, JoAnn, said that the tremendous growth and success of DALMAC makes him feel "like a proud father" and stressed that the ride still serves its original purpose:"To make it clear that bicyclists have a right to the road and that bicycles belong on the road."
DALMAC is one of the oldest and largest bicycle tours in the United States, and its proceeds support the DALMAC Fund, which promotes safe bicycling in Michigan. The Fund is administered by the TCBA, whose 2000-plus members make it the Great Lake State's biggest cycling club.
Ferndale resident Tina Coughley, 47, who rode the "Quad Century" route — 407 miles in four days — on a tandem with her friend and Wolverine Sports Club teammate, Duane Menter, 45, of Pontiac, had a short and sweet explanation for DALMAC's continuing popularity.
"It's all about fun," said Coughley, an assistant in the Southfield Police Department. "And we sure have a lot of it."
So to all those people who are afraid to give DALMAC a try and will never know what an invigorating, exhilarating, even life-transforming experience it can be, the DALMAC family and I have two simple words for you.
You're nuts.
Bikes today
DALMAC Bike Tour camaraderie
nothing like it till next year we'll see
oh we believe in bikes today
The 33rd annual DALMAC will run from August 27 to August 31, 2003. Applications will be available in mid-February. For more information about DALMAC, the DALMAC Fund and the Tri-County Bicycle Association, visit the TCBA website at: www.biketcba.org. For information about the League of Michigan Bicyclists, other bicycle tours in Michigan and links to the websites of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Wolverine Sports Club and other cycling-related organizations, visit the LMB website at: www.LMB.org.
Ron Campbell
Berkley, Michigan
Freelance Writer
natesurelover@webtv.net
September 6, 2002