Bike Northwoods Tour 2009

For the last week, I've been pedaling my Terry touring bike in the northwestern corner of Wisconsin. It was a circle tour that started in Cable > Mellen > Washburn > Port Wing > Superior > Solon Springs and back to Cable. We pedaled through a good portion of the Chequamagon-Nicolet National Forest and near Lake Superior and I enjoyed the beautiful scenery and wide open spaces of northern Wisconsin!

This tour made the history books! It was cooler and windy. The morning we awoke in Mellen it was 38 degrees. The day we rode into Superior we had 25-30 mph head winds and rolling hills. They said it was the equivalent of riding 100 miles. I bonked heading into the lunch stop but felt invigorated after having lunch and a rest. Our last day it was 52 degrees with scattered rain showers. I know, you're all thinking I'm crazy for doing this but did I tell you about the 81 year old woman that rode about 15 miles each day?

The highlight of the tour came on the last night - The Talent Show. The night before a staff person announce that he had a banjo and the one-needed string to make it whole. He said that if someone could string it and tune it, they could use it in the show. How could a beginning banjo player turn down the offer?

So it was that I had my banjo debut in the BEAUTIFUL, native tamarack bandshell know as Lucius Woods, in Solon Springs. Musicians come from all over the US and Canada to play in a summer series. Had I know that this was the venue for the Talent Show, I may have passed, but there I was with an open backed Deering banjo on my lap, playing the 2 songs/licks I held in my memory to 400+ cyclists and townspeople!

When I ran my fingers over the strings to get ready to play, there was a roar and everyone clapped and cheered! I felt like a rock star and I hadn't even started to play. So it was Cumberland Gap and a favorite lick or two from Foggy Mt. Breakdown and I wowed them. Come back next year folks, I'll be even better!

Galaxy Flyer

The bikes have hit the road and today's thermometer is going to read close to 80 in Milwaukee. Can you say "Bike Ride!" Whether you own a Harley or a rusty old Galaxy Flyer, today is the day to get out and explore that "galaxy" we've not seen since October - green grass and blue skies.

If you're like me, you might fondly recall the first freedom from your parents when you could ride off on your bicycle. There were boundaries I had to stay within, of course, but in my small town in upstate New York, that meant I had about 2-3 miles in any direction. Village boundaries were the limit and the expanse in between was my 'hood.'

After it had rained, we'd ride through mud puddles, as fast as we could, while holding up our legs so we wouldn't get wet. We'd ride with baseball gloves threaded over the handle bars and give each other rides on a long banana seats and handlebars. Once dad showed us how to pump up the tires and change a flat, we were off for what seemed like hours. I'm sure Mom loved it!

There was a gaggle of kids in my neighborhood that would ride 3 miles, one way, to the Park program held during the summer. We owned the roads in town and it felt like our own personal parade as we all road abreast, taking up the entire width of the road. We built bumps to fly over, stood up on the seats and handle bars while riding and even turned our bodies around, while sitting backwards on the handlebars, and peddled. No one ever got hurt beyond a little road rash, and if you haven't experience road rash, you haven't really rode a bike! It was the way we learned to be athletic, coordinated and in touch with our kinesthetic abilities of balance and shifting body positions. I was blessed to grow up at the time I did. One bike, so much freedom!

Go explore your "galaxy" today!