She reports she never felt unsafe or worried about others. She called a friend each night, who had a list of Ruth’s motel destinations, to report her progress and her whereabouts.

She wore a reflective vest to be as visible as possible.

Inspired by an article in Adventure Cycling magazine about a woman doing a similar trip, she decided to attempt the same. She planned her route each day, as she traveled, using maps of trails and bikeways for the most part. At times she rode on highways with clean wide shoulders and on back roads as well from Colorado, through Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan and into Indiana.

When she got to Wisconsin she followed bike paths to Lake Michigan. She rode the 40 miles of “Military Ridge” trail to Madison and followed several more paths, the “Glacial Drumlin,” the “New Berlin” trail and on to Milwaukee. There she rode the ferry across Lake Michigan to Muskegon, and continued on along Michigan’s Lake Shore into Indiana. Much of the Lake Shore was familiar from days spent at Lake Michigan as a child.

Ruth was welcomed with admiration and awe at her High School reunion and fielded many questions about her adventure. Of course, she was awarded the longest distance anyone rode on a bike to the event. She was without competition.

This probably will not be her last adventure.

Ruth’s thoughts of wisdom are not to look at the whole of such an overwhelming event but to tackle it in parts. “We reach our goals in little bits.”

If 45 mi. isn’t enough try locating some little known St. Joseph County Parks properties, like Chamberlin Lake & Place Trail, If you make it to Place Trail, you will be near Potato Creek State Park. They charge a $2- fee for bikes entering the park. You will find a 3.3 mi. bike path & a 6.6 mi. mountain bike trail, within this park. Now we are talk’in 70 to 80 mi. of riding.

For that century rider add Ferrettie/Baugo Creek County Park on the eatern edge of St. Joseph Co. I’ve done this a couple times, using different routes, but what routes would you use?

Mike McFarland

So what does this have to do with biking . . .

This afternoon, I biked up to Buchanan, MI, from South Bend. A pretty traditional route out of the River Park/Sunnymede neighborhood: Wayne to St. Louis to Madison to Niles to Northshore to the new River Trail. Then on up Riverside Dr. to Darden to Lilac (in Michigan, Lilac turns into Copp) to Bertrand Road. West on Bertrand to Mayflower, north on Mayflower to Chamberlain, west to Rynearson, and north on Rynearson into downtown Buchanan.

I want to write about Chamberlain . . . Buchanan’s “back door” for bicyclists entering from the south. Chamberlain has to be the worst stretch of road I’ve ridden in some time. And that’s the problem. See, we bicyclists don’t enter towns via the pristine automobile routes. We enjoy (OK, we are forced by our desire for safety) the backways and byways of Indiana and Michigan’s county roads and enjoy finding a quieter route from place to place. But often, these back door entries are not in the best shape.

Buchanan, MI, just happened to be the town I visited today. But I’m sure many of you could point to county road entry points into many small towns surrounding the South Bend metropolitan area and could provide details of how those roads surely need some attention.

So how about it small towns? If back door friends really are the best, how about you do a bit of sprucing up of those roads we back door friends travel to visit you? I know I’d appreciate it.

On May 20^th, 2009 Goshen, Indiana, hosted its first Ride of Silence on a beautiful sunny evening.

The Ride of Silence, www.rideofsilence.org, is a worldwide event to remember those cyclists who have been killed by motorists. The ride takes place every year on the third Wednesday in May at 7:00 local time. This year there were over 300 rides in nearly every state in the US and in 16 other countries around the world!

The idea for the ride came to light after a Dallas, Texas, rider Chris Phalen wanted to do something to remember a friend who lost his life in 2003 at the hands of a bus driver. After a few emails, nearly 1000 riders showed up.

Recently, as many of you are aware, there have been many cyclists killed in this area; I felt it was time to draw the same kind of attention to those who have lost their life doing what we enjoy. I contacted Mark Hager, who oversees the Michigan rides, and asked what we could do here in Indiana.

The date was set, now we needed to get the city officials involved. This was much more involved that I thought it would be but not insurmountable. After calls to the Mayor of Goshen, the Parks department, the police department, and the board of works, we were set. The flyers were printed, the press was notified, and we were off.

Not knowing what to expect I arrived at Lincoln Avenue Cycle early to set up and wait. First rider showed up at 5:30, then a few more, by 6:20 I felt like we would have enough to have a good ride. As I talked to the participants, I learned of the people they knew or knew about that had been killed and why they were riding.

I talked to one family, Kevin and Lisa Miller, who had recently lost a family member in Colorado but joined our ride to help share his story and to help keep his memory alive. Others added to the list of 13 riders I had listed of those in this area who had lost their lives. By the end of the night, 15 names were on the list. WSBT-22 showed up and did a nice story about the ride and the stories behind the ride. After a short prayer we were off. The riders came from as far away as Warsaw and South Bend and even included a rider from Notre Dame’s cycling team. 32 riders in all pedaled off on a 12-mile loop around Goshen.

It was a good ride but strange in that most group rides have some level of conversational chatter that adds to the atmosphere, whereas this was to be a silent ride out of respect and memory for those lost. Different riders commented on the fact that at some point it hit them that over the last 3 years, a group numbering half of ours has been lost to motorists.

We finished in just over an hour shook hands and agreed that this was a worthwhile ride that we will do again.

God willing we will all be able to.

Don Poole

The next ride will be on Thursday April 30th at 6 p.m. and will continue on every other Thursday through October. Scott and Hannah Kelsey and Laura Hieronymus started the ride as a way to highlight South Bends bike paths and to promote cycling to family, kids and other who don’t fit into the traditional fast paced cycling crowd. We are also try to promote cycling as fun and grow our next generation of cyclists.

So if you want to get out of your spandex and mentor new cyclists come out and enjoy a different approach to cycling! Questions? Call 855-2453 Avenue Bicycle Station or 440-371-9556 (Laura).

So, why was I not prepared, yet again? First of all, I try to pack as light as possible for these trips. A pump and patch kit certainly aren’t much, but my Dahon Boardwalk S1 not only has bolt-on wheels, but the rear wheel has a coaster brake. Accordingly, to remove the wheel I also need a crescent wrench and screw driver. And, it is a major pain.

I realize that a tube can be patched without removing the wheel, and after getting more practice once home, it really isn’t too bad. But it still takes quite a while, and it can be very challenging to find small holes and very easy to miss multiple holes. Further, most of my rides on it are only 2-10 miles in a stretch; I suppose I’ve been playing (and loosing) the odds to some extent as well.

Anyway, I’ve now had three flats on my folder, yet my total mileage isn’t much over 250 miles (as a side note, this has saved >2000 driving miles!). Clearly I need to be better prepared, but I now view flats as a major obstacle to dependable multi-modal car-free travel.

My Boardwalk came with low-end components, and I’m now wondering if some new tires would be a good investment. The stock tires are Kenda Kwests, but I’ve heard great things about Schwalbe Marathon Plus. They’re heavy and expensive (>$40 each, even for the 20-inchers I’d need), but I’ve read many testimonials claiming thousands of flat-free riding miles.

Anyone have any experience with these, or have recommendations for “flat-proof” tires available in 20-inch sizes? Any other ideas to reduce flats?

As I prepared to turn from Hickory onto Catalpa, a woman sped past me and cut my turn off. I grabbed my brakes to come to an emergency stop. I was able to catch her at Grape and Catalpa. I rolled up and politely said, “excuse me, you almost hit me back that at the corner.” She responded “well I didn’t hit you, be glad and just keep riding.” As I looked at her license plate, she said “go ahead and get my license plate, no one will do anything to me!”

I called the police and a Mishawaka officer was was there within about 15 minutes. He was very polite and assured me that they would use her plate number to track her down and “have a talk with her.” I truly appreciate their quick response and hope they do indeed “have a talk with her.”

This just serves as another reminder that many drivers couldn’t care less about cyclists, and until there are some consequences for endangering cyclists, they will keep driving like they have been. I’d encourage all of you to put the non-emergency numbers of local law enforcement in your cell phones. Carry your cell phone on every ride and use it if a driver does something that puts you at risk.

Here are the local non-emergency numbers:

• Mishawaka Police: (574) 258-1683 
• South Bend Police: (574) 235-9201
• St Joe Sheriff: (574) 235-9611

Matt Mooney and Bruce Spitzer, not deterred, still biking!

Then we had some days near the end of December that gave me pause. It warmed up just enough to produce some slushy ruts in the road — right before temperatures plummeted and froze them in place. Most winters have a few days for which the snow approximates cookie dough consistency, and I simply can’t make my bike go, but there have been very few days that I was afraid to ride. Those icy ruts crossed the line for me. I traveled on foot.

Today looks like riding will be challenging, at least within my neighborhood due to the depth of snow on the streets. It may be another day of walking, rather than riding, but to be honest, I don’t mind. I’ve enjoyed walking more this winter, but then again, I really don’t need to go very far: downtown (home of the wonderful Chicory Cafe and my gym) is only about two miles and my employer is just under one mile from my house.

However, I’ve been wondering how the rest of you, with longer commutes, have been doing this winter. Any stories?

I needed to be on the NIU campus by 12:30 p.m. the Friday before last for a master’s thesis defense. Rather than drive, I decided to try expanding the range of my folder coupled with the South Shore and Metra trains. This is similar to what I did several weeks ago to get to Argonne National Lab, but the final gap is a bit longer– the closest Metra gets to DeKalb is Elburn, IL, which is about 20 miles away.

Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a long, but enjoyable, trip: I left my house at 5:40 a.m., biked to the airport, and caught the 6:30 South Shore train to Chicago. I again had no trouble bringing the folded bike onto the train and read and slept along the way to Chicago. I biked the 1.3 miles from the Millenium station to the Ogilvie station and caught the Elburn-bound Metra (this was during peak hours so I had to fold it up again).

Once in Elburn I started pedaling to DeKalb. The route I chose turned out to be excellent (see map below, if interested); it wasn’t direct, but it was low-traffic and quite pretty. I arrived at NIU just after noon central time, which gave me time to clean up and change before the defense. Notably, I didn’t have any mechanical problems like I did during my trip to North East, PA using Amtrak (just for the record: I was prepared this time!).

The entire trip, from door to door, took just over seven hours. For comparison, the drive takes just under three. However, most of the time was “productive” — reading and sleeping — plus, I got a couple hours of cycling time on a day that would normally be sedentary… yet with big meals.

The coolest part of this experience turned out to be the return trip. I had some great tailwinds for the eastbound rides on Saturday; I usually just creep along on my single-speed folder, but I practically sailed back with the wind. I don’t have a speedometer on the folder, nor did I keep close track of time riding, but I think my average speed was close to 20 mph! Perhaps you’d have to see why my wife calls this my monkey bike to be impressed

I barely missed the 2 p.m. eastbound South Shore train — I could literally see it rolling away from the platform. Although I was initially crushed, this became the trip’s highlight. Despite living in this area for several years now, I had never biked along Chicago’s lakefront. So, for the next two hours, I cruised along the bike path going by the Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, Field Museum and made my way to Navy Pier for the first time. It was a cold and windy day, but I was well prepared for the weather and quite comfortable.

There were deeply textured dark gray clouds which provided a gorgeous backdrop for the city’s skyline. The water was rough and would occasionally rock up and over the seawall. Missing my own camera, I stopped and talked to a very well-equipped amateur (perhaps professional?) photographer positioned right where I wanted to be shooting — I’m sure he got some amazing images.

I caught the 4 p.m. South Shore back to South Bend. This final train ride seemed to take no time at all… probably because I was wiped out and slept most of the way!

Here’s the route I took from Elburn to DeKalb (bus service is available, but it is severely limited and doesn’t even go every day):

Michiana had its first “Courteous Mass” last night (9/26), and it was a lot of fun! The turnout was perfect for a trial run: not so many that it was unmanageable, but enough that it had a good group feel. All told we had nine riders, several of whom I had not previously met. Definitely a great group of folks!

We started and ended at Leeper Park and rode just shy of four miles through downtown streets; the furthest we made it from Leeper Park was the Coveleski Stadium. I’m pleased to say that we did not have any adversarial encounters with motorists (as intended for courteous mass!).

With the days getting shorter I’m not sure if we’ll be able to do this again next month, but I definitely look forward to the next installment. Stay tuned!

The inaugural group (minus yours truly) just before the ride