Farwell to Frankenmuth Aug 02, 2022

Farwell to Frankenmuth

Aug 02, 2022

Last night we heard sad news, Brian, one of the riders crashed on one of the bridges on the trail and fractured his hip. He was in the hospital and undergoing treatment.  This is only about the fifth crash of the tour and the first requiring hospitalization.  The rain had made the wooden decking of the rails to trail bridges extremely slippery. The bridge had a steel plate between the decking and the pathway asphalt which was uneven.  This caused quite bump and when Brian looked down the bike skidded out from under him.   

This morning after breakfast Ken and I rolled out and on to the Pere Marquette trail.  We had another 35 miles of the trail to cover.  It was so pleasant rolling along under the tree canopy with the morning sun peeking through.  As the trail was quite wide and with no one coming Ken and I rolled along solving the world’s problems.  Before we knew it we were at the red bridge which was the turn off the trail and back on to the highway which would take us through Midland and Bay City. 

The highway was terrible.  In fact to call it a highway is a gross injustice. There was little to no shoulder and what there was, was covered in gravel and garbage. The pavement was so broken that it was more like a bunch of cobbles. There was a huge set of cracks which paralleled the rut in the road where the car wheels travelled.  Along the cracks huge chunks of asphalt were missing.  There were a thousand cars and delivery vans all trying to get passed you but as the lanes were quite narrow and there was a lot of oncoming traffic they would try and squeeze past you.  These terrible road conditions lasted all the way from mile 35 where we got off the trail until around mile 60.  On top of this there was a good strong wind out of the north which was a total side wind and I kept say when we turn south at mile 60 it will be a tail wind.

We turned south at mile 60 onto an even more secondary road where the road conditions were much better.  On this road there were pieces of asphalt which were at least 5-10 feet square, which was a big improvement from the 5 inches across. There was a lot less traffic which also helped. We had no sooner turned south and the tail wind I had been dreaming about immediately died.   By the time we got to around mile 70 I said to Ken, “ I would love to get a coke.”  Unfortunately there was nothing but corn and soy bean fields as far as you could see.

By the time we got into Frankenmuth my arms and shoulders were aching from gripping the handle bars and keeping the bike straight.  When we saw a Mobil gas station we pulled in and I got a half gallon of chocolate milk.  By the time Ken had drank his pop I had downed the whole half gallon of milk.

Today’s ride was 81.6 miles with only 360 feet of climb.

Tonight is one of the tour highlights. It is the Frankenmuth plated chicken dinner.  It is in a fancy dining hall with table cloths, real plates and real metal cutlery.  It is a really a lot of fun. 

Terry