June 22, 2008: 324 miles, from South Lyon, Michigan, USA to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, USA
Mike rode up last night, Saturday June 21st, to join Jaryd and myself for our departure tomorrow morning.
Of course, I was not yet finished with preparing the one KLR650, and had a few hours of re-assembly work on the bike to do, before even starting to pack the bikes! This is pretty much par for the course, for me. I’m known for last-minute rebuilds, but somehow, I always seem to make the departure date!
Anyway, so Mike arrived around 10:30PM, having ridden through a bad storm and getting stuck in some Interstate traffic jam, and promptly got stuck into helping Jaryd and I put the finishing touches on the bikes, before heading upstairs to grab some much needed shut-eye for the long trip ahead.
I finished the bike at around midnight, and then got stuck into packing everything for a 10:00AM start the next day.
Finally, at around 3:30AM, having got everything together and started to actually load the bikes, I decided to call it quits for the night and head to bed……to finish packing the bikes early the next day.
So, having woken up around 8:00AM this morning, I struggled out of bed and after a quick shower, continued the packing of the bikes, which entailed finding place for the following on EACH bike:
- Large waterproof 10′ x 10′ tarpaulin
- 3-man dome tent
- Queen-sized air mattress (my old bones don’t appreciate sleeping on frigid, hard polar tundra!)
- Electric mattress pump
- Air pillow
- 20 degree sleeping bag
- fold-up lightweight camp chair
- Dual-fuel camp mini-stove (uses gasoline from the bike for fuel)
- Coffee, powdered milk, Splenda, fire-lighter, 2-quart water canteen, 2 gallon gas container for spare gas
- Tire irons, tire bead breaker, tube patch kits, spare front and rear tire tubes, electric tire pump
- Two off-road tires (for the 900-1000 miles of dirt above the Arctic circle)
- 5 x T-shirts, underwear, socks, 2 pairs jeans, sandals(for relief from the stinky hot boots in camp)
- Bath towel, toiletries (including unscented soap and toothpaste and anti-perspirant)
- Maps, flashlight, large can of bear specific pepper-spray
- Cell-phone, wallet, notepad, digital camera, pen, 2-way radio, GPS
- KLR650 shop repair manual
- Full set of wrenches, sockets, pliers, solder iron, solder, multi-meter, electrical wire
- Multi-tool, small towel (helmet visor cleaning)
- Spare parts – clutch cable, throttle cable, brake pads, chain links, steel wire, nuts and bolts, headlamp bulb, spark plugs, fuses
- Riding gear (that I carry on the bike for particular conditions) – winter gloves, inner pants thermal liner, jacket thermal liner, full length balaclava, fleece jacket, in addition to the normal full riding suit, helmet, kidney belt, waterproof boots, sunglasses, etc.
Our plan was to head out to the local Leo’s Coney Island for one of their really nice breakfast specials on Sunday mornings, together with my wife Karen, and daughter Lauren, before the three of us started our trip north through Michigan to the border town with Canada, Sault Ste Marie.
All three of us wolfed down a couple of eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast with coffee or juice despite our excitement of the trip ahead, before we filled up with gas, and said our goodbyes to Karen and Lauren with promises to call regularly ( if we were in cell signal.)
Outside Leo’s Coney Island…
We finally headed out at around noon, for the short trip to Sault Ste Marie, where we planned to take stock of the bikes and pack, and check all was good before heading across the border the next day, for our trip around Lake Superior.
My first shock was finding that my bike, laden with all this gear, and traveling at around 75 MPH (120 km/h), was getting only 38 MPG (6 litres/100km) instead of the usual 50 MPG (4.7 litres / 100 km). WOW! This was going to be a lot more expensive than I’d estimated, unless the gas mileage improved, especially as we’d decided to cross the continent in Canada with its much more expensive gas, than in the USA!
So, as leader of the group of three (with Jaryd tucked in behind me and Mike looking after the rear, to help keep traffic away from Jaryd, who is less experienced than Mike and I), I decided to keep our speeds down to a much more economical 65 MPH (105 km/h) on the GPS. This allowed me to get about 42-45 MPG, which was a little better. Jaryd’s bike, being about 150 lbs lighter than mine with him so much lighter than me, and without the heavy aluminum panniers and extra tools I was carrying, was getting about 45-48 MPG while Mike’s bike, similarly light like Jaryd’s, was getting a very nice 50+ MPG!
Anyway, we crossed the famous Mackinac Bridge between the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan and lower Michigan
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A nice pic of a bridge in the area…
My GPS led us to the Soo Locks Campground in Sault Ste Marie, where we paid for a shared tent spot for the three small tents.
We pitched camp, after Jaryd and I pretended not to have to read the tent instructions on our new tents!
and then decided we were quite hungry, and so after the lady in the office recommended a roadhouse grill place down the road, along the river, we hopped on our bikes and found a rather tatty looking place which was seemingly very popular with the locals.
After a LONG wait, we swallowed a huge 1lb burger and fries and Coke and then, satiated with our cholesterol-topping, but quite tasty meal, headed back to the campground, where we met up with a very friendly old guy who was RV’ing with his wife a few spots away from us in the campground. After chatting with him, he headed off while we brewed some coffee on my mini-stove, and then he promptly re-appeared with small bag of cookies from his wife!
This was the first of so MANY friendly gestures and encounters with fellow travelers, that it soon dawned on us novice long-distance bikers that this was part of the REAL fun of this type of travel.
We enjoyed the cookie with our hot camp coffee, but then as we were getting ready to hit the sack, both Jaryd and I felt the start of a rather unhappy turmoil brewing within our stomachs. Those large burgers were starting to hit back with vengeance! (I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that this was not a pleasant episode).
After me warning Mike in the tent next door about needing to wear his ear plugs because of my infamous and thunderous snoring ability, I promptly fell into a deep sleep, with a smile on my face. I was FINALLY on the long distance biking adventure of a lifetime, with my son and a riding buddy. What more could one ask for?