It's been a long time coming... Last weekend was the culmination of 7 months of training. What would have been ODRAM (One Day Ride Across Michigan) turned into BAMM (Bike Across Mid Michigan) when ODRAM got canceled due to COVID-19 - as so many other events have been.
But let's rewind a bit. Back to March 2019 when I injured my ankle racing and training for Umstead 100 and VM150. I of course still ran (and finished) the Umstead 100. I DNF'd VM150 (again) on Memorial Day weekend, and didn't run after that. I went through months of physical therapy with little/no improvement. On top of that, I had a lot of work and personal stress in 2019. So, being unable to manage stress through long runs/skates, I turned to my less-healthy coping mechanism - alcohol and junk food.
It didn't take long for the pounds to add up. By December, I was at my highest weight ever. As luck would have it, though, I had picked up a used ElliptiGo long-stride bike in November. It needed some work, but by January, I had it all tuned up, and upgraded many of the parts on it.
I heard about ODRAM but wasn't sure I could be in shape in time to do it on the ElliptiGo. I put it on my "maybe" list. Keep in mind, this is before the shit hit the fan with the whole pandemic thing...
Well, something about the ElliptiGo just "clicked" for me, and I was ramping up my distance pretty quickly. By the end of January, I had signed up for ODRAM and had a rough training plan in mind. By April, I had ridden my first century on the ElliptiGo. Things were looking good.
Training in the NC heat proved challenging, but I persevered and (I think) acclimated to the heat pretty well. All along, the ODRAM organizer insisted the event would happen. I had my doubts - the pandemic was a total shit-show at this point - but it still kept me motivated to train "just in case".
About a month before the event, the inevitable happened - ODRAM is canceled. However, another ElliptiGo rider (Tom) and I decided to do our own thing. I had unfinished business on the VM150 course, so thought it would be a good idea to ride that on the ElliptiGo. After all, that would keep us off the busier roads. It would also have us on the full Pere Marquette Trail, which was definitely on my list to do. So I put together a route based mostly on VM150, and we planned to do that.
Three weeks before BAMM, I did my peak mileage weekend. 156 miles over two days. (90 + 66). It went well, and I felt that I was adequately prepared for the one-day 151-mile ride.
Fast-forward to the day of the ride... Tom and I met in Ludington a little after 7am, took some pictures, and started riding at 7:30. I had insisted this would give us plenty of time to finish before dark. (Sunset was around 8:50pm, which meant we would have light until a little after 9pm...)
The first section of our ride went from Ludington to Baldwin, and was entirely on-road. I knew there would be some dirt/gravel roads. But I also knew from running the course the previous year that the roads were rideable - or so I thought!!
Some sections of the gravel roads were very bumpy -- think "rumble strips on steroids". Tom was not happy about the road conditions. I didn't mind at this point, and just considered it part of the epic journey we were on. All that changed around 90 minutes in, when we hit a section of road that seemed to have had quite a lot of sand recently dumped on it. The sand was as thick as 1" in places, and our narrow tires just sank in. We had no choice but to walk our bikes. It was easily a mile - probably more. I had estimated 3 hours for us to get to our first aid station (at Baldwin). It took almost 4 hours (3:50). It would have taken even longer, but we eventually gave up on the dirt roads, took a detour, and rode US10 the remainder of the way to Baldwin.
That first stop (at around mile 40) was our longest - about 25 minutes. Tom's chain had come off on one of the bumpy sections. We got it back on, but I took some time to tighten it for him so it wouldn't come off again. (I thought I was carrying sufficient tools on the bike to do it, but was wrong...) We both had crews helping us. Tom had his fiance Tammie, and I had my mom (Jeri), sister (Jen), and niece (Makayla). The dirt had made quite a mess of the tracks on our bikes, so we spent a little time cleaning those, too.
Finally, we were cleaned, refueled, and ready to go. At this point, we got on the Pere Marquette Trail. I was glad to be off the road. The western-most section of the PMT is crushed limestone, so it's rideable but a little more work than pavement. It's also an almost continuous uphill for 16 miles. A gradual uphill, but uphill nonetheless. So, with the limestone surface, there's really no opportunity to rest the entire way - you just slow down too much if you stop pedaling.
After 1:20 or so (5:30 total time), we did take a brief rest. This was where we hit the high point of the trail (and for the entire course). We were about 56 miles in at this point, so had increased our overall average speed. But we still needed to keep moving to finish at a reasonable time. A couple minutes later, we continued on our way to Evart, which was our second aid station. It was also shortly after that where we hit Reed City - at which point the PMT changes to asphalt!
We made great time for the next hour and arrived in Evart a little over 7 hours into our ride. I had some pizza and beer waiting for beer. Tom scarfed down some PB&J. That ended up being a 20-minute stop. Not great, but not terrible. We definitely needed the calories at that point. We were 72ish miles in to the ride -- almost halfway. But time was not on our side. When we left, our elapsed time was 7.5 hours (~ 3pm), which meant we only had about 6 hours to complete 80 miles. It was doable, but we would need to be *very* efficient with our stops for the remainder of the day.
The next section took us from Evart to Coleman - about 36 miles. A light rain started as we left the aid station - not a big deal. We'd just need to be a little mindful when approaching intersections, etc, in case we need to stop suddenly. (We're still on the rail-trail at this point, too.) As we approached Clare, the PMT dumped us out onto the road for a few miles (it's not connected there yet). And, as luck would have it, that's when the skies opened up and we got caught in a monsoon. We had to stop at one point because my sunglasses fogged up and I could not see where we were going. We had planned to take a quick break at some point anyway - so we took it then. After a couple minutes, the rain subsided slightly, and we continued riding to our next aid station, arriving around 10:18 elapsed time.
This was a quick stop, though I did take a little time to change into dry shoes, socks, and a shirt. I inhaled another piece of pizza, and after about 9 minutes we were riding again. We were around 107 miles at this point.
The next section to Midland had 2 interesting bits. First, we had to traverse a damaged section of the trail. A couple months ago, a dam failed and flooded a huge section of Sanford. We had a detour mapped out, but had gotten some feedback that we could indeed stay on the trail. So, while it was a little slow going in a few places, it was still quicker than the detour which would have added over 2 miles to the route. We got to see some of the extensive flood damage that still remained after 2 months. I can only imagine how bad it was when it happened...
We also made a brief trip through Northwood University - Toms' alma mater, and briefly stopped to take a couple pictures. But we didn't linger too long, and made our way to our final aid station in Midland, near the "Tridge". That was about an 8-minute stop. As we left, it was about 7:45 and we had 20 miles to go. The math was not looking favorable to finish before dark. But we figured we would get as much riding in before dark as possible - and we both had headlights and taillights anyway.
This final section was on the road (the Pere Marquette Trail ends in Midland, where we had the aid station). I can't speak for Tom, but my legs were pretty damn tired by now. But, I guess, what do you expect after 130+ miles? The ride was fairly uneventful. Soon, sunset came and went. Twilight came and went. I'd say we only had to ride maybe 10-15 minutes in "the dark".
We were both watching carefully for the entrance to Bay City State Park, our designated finish line. Soon, we saw Tammie out there at the entrance, waving us in. A couple turns later, and we found ourselves trying to find a way down to the beach. We had dipped our wheels in Lake Michigan in Ludington -- the plan was to dip our wheels in Lake Huron at the finish. A patch took us to the beach, but we had to drag our bikes through the deep sand to get to the water.
Finally, just shy of 14 hours, we made it to the water and declared victory!!
A very kind person took a couple pictures of us, while the mosquitos feasted on everyone. We then made our way back to the parking lot, changed clothes, loaded up the bikes, and drove home.
All in all - a pretty good day!! We finished. Neither of us crashed. We had one minor mechanical issue that was easily resolved. So we're already talking about changes for next year... 😀 Change #1 will be no dirt roads... That should easily shave 90 minutes off our time. Beyond that, we may make some minor tweaks elsewhere.
HUGE thanks to our crews - my mom and sister, and Tammie. Also thanks to my dad, niece, and nephew for coming out to support us. And thanks to Theresa and Jerry (fellow ElliptiGo riders) for coming out to see us... The support everyone gave us along the way meant a lot, and we couldn't have finished without it.
