91: it's both, the puddler, unicyler, 710 savant, bigfoot research team, you just gotta keep moving forward, cross section, 75 miles to 30 mile, smoke has, dig it!, pushing too hard, I'll have a coney and some dignity, and a milkshake, the gawker - My Midlife Crisis - CycleBlaze
91: it's both, the puddler, unicyler, 710 savant, bigfoot research team, you just gotta keep moving forward, cross section, 75 miles to 30 mile, smoke has, dig it!, pushing too hard, I'll have a coney and some dignity, and a milkshake, the gawker
Shelby Township to Kimball
Mostly trail today, which makes for boring pictures but good riding.
Have you ever seen a water hose with a tiny hole in it, resulting in a jet of water spraying about five feet? That was my entire body today, the sweat glands spraying in every direction. At one point, I stopped at a red light and a guy in the car next to me had to turn on his windshield wipers. I was sweating that much.
Looking behind me, you can see the puddles of sweat I deposited as I passed.
I really know nothing at all about cannabis. Those are, I assume, different brands... like if I wanted to buy a shoe I could get Onitsuka Tigers or Hush Puppies.
Jim, on his eBike, rides the same distance every day. He's 68, and has friends his age who don't even get out of their chair anymore, so his mantra is, "I don't care about speed, you just gotta keep moving forward."
I finally figured it out. "30 Mile Road" is thirty miles north of downtown Detroit. The numbering system starts at Michigan Avenue (U.S. Route 12) and Woodward Avenue (M‑1). This sign means that, after pedaling 75 miles yesterday and today, I'm only thirty miles north of downtown.
I pushed myself really hard today, trying to finish before the heat became so fierce that I had to stop riding. Unfortunately, I almost had to stop riding because I pushed myself so hard. I just don't tolerate anything above 83F or 84F these days, and it was that hot by the time I finished. As a result of the effort, I rode about 42 miles with only a two brief five-minute breaks, and ate only a granola bar. And I still didn't finish before it got too toaster-like. Even though I had a tailwind and lost elevation, it was stupid, and by the time I finished at 11:30 I was really wiped out.
Before checking in I stopped at Jillian's to eat something. Carl had told me that I need to order a coney dog when I'm in Michigan:
"They’ll ask about onions (raw) and mustard (yellow). I’d say to get them both. No ketchup allowed, at least not if you want to maintain any sense of dignity."
Dignity? I think that fell off the back of my bike sometime during the first week of the trip, bouncing a couple of times and eventually ending on the side of the road.
On the way out I met Joe and Melinda, a very friendly couple in the area who ride bikes. Their names are easy enough to remember because we're friends with a couple by the same name in Iowa City.
Because I had to leave so early to avoid the heat that I wasn't able to avoid, my camping gear was wet when I packed it up this morning. (Buddy Hall suggested leaving even earlier, at 3:30, but that sounds like a lose-lose situation: waking up early sucks and the heat sucks. I just need to determine which one sucks more) I spread out the tent, the footprint, and the rainfly on the ground, and by the time I put down the third item, the first one was already dry.
At dinnertime I went back to the same restaurant, the only one in the area, and this kid kept staring at me during the entire meal. It wasn't a surreptitious glance over in my direction to see the weird-looking guy wearing black diapers who left a trail of puddled sweat when he walked in (I had showered and changed into street clothes by then), it was full-on and unabashed gawking. I checked my hair, my teeth, my nose.... even my fly, but couldn't figure out why.
As I was leaving I realized he wasn't actually looking at me, he was looking at the muted television directly above my head. He's of the age when a person can't be away from a screen or monitor for more than twelve seconds, and there was evidently something very captivating playing.... "Children With Hives Go to England," or "How to Make a Lightning Rod and Become a Superhero With the Next Lightning Strike," or perhaps "The Story of Billy: The 8-year-old who was Successfully Able to Sue his Parents for More Ice Cream."
