This weekend the official club bike ride took place on Sunday October 10, 2004.  Pete and I were the only ones to attend Sunday’s ride and we tried out a new destination and route, which turned out very good even though Pete had his moments wishing he never participated.  But, on Friday October 8, Bob and I did a long walk that technically shouldn’t be reported here, but since I get to decide the subject matter for this forum I have decided to spend a few minutes sharing some of our experiences from that walk. 

On Friday I took a vacation day because earlier in the week Bob and I had planned to go on a long walk.  The walk ended up being approximately 16 miles in total.  We started out early to make sure we got back in time for Bob to fulfill his middle school car pool requirement.  The weather was ideal for a walk or a ride for that matter.  We left around 7:45 am heading northwest out of our neighbor hood.  Our plan was to walk to Lake Orion and have an early lunch at the Poppy Seed deli in downtown Lake Orion.  We had eaten there once before and we certainly weren’t disappointed this time.  I highly recommend this place for their outstanding selection and quality, you really can’t beat it if you are looking for a quick sandwich.

We started out walking north on Adams to Silverbell where we headed east toward the trail.  Our intentions were to take the Paint Creek Trail (PCT) all the way to Lake Orion.  Once on the PCT we stayed all the way to the end.  The ironic thing about the trail today was we came across a lot of bicyclists and only a very few walkers and joggers.  Typically when we bike on the trail we seem to run across more walkers, maybe it is just our perspective based on what we are doing.  As I stated above we continued north until we got to the downtown area.  We checked out the former site of the Sage Brush Cantina to see if any progress was happening on their rebuild after the fire.  The site is still the same as it has been for months, no activity at all.  We did notice however that a sign in front of the old parking lot states that the Sage Brush will be reopening at their new location on Fenton Street in Lake Orion in the spring of 2005.  This is good news, we were beginning to think maybe they weren’t going to reopen.  After a fantastic lunch at the Poppy Seed we started walking again.  It is amazing how quickly time passed on the way there.  On the way home we decided to again take the trail, but instead of going all the way south to where we typically get off, Dutton Road, we would get off the trail and take Adams south where it crosses the trail.  This would save us a little time on the way home and ensure that Bob would get home in time to pick up the boys.  Walking the trail on the way home we came across a group from Michigan State doing a survey near the Clarkston Road crossing.  With as much time as we spend on the trail we obviously wanted to take the time and answer the survey, we appreciate anyone who is willing to make an effort toward the improvement of the PCT.  Bob took the survey and I just offered a few comments to a couple of the question.  Chrissy was the name of the girl who gave Bob the survey.  She seemed interested when we told her we were members of a bicycle club that typically rides the trail, I think she was just humoring us.  I took her picture with my camera phone and told her we would post it on our web site.  The walk along Adams wasn’t too bad, there was plenty of room on the shoulder to walk in the sections where there isn’t any bike paths.  The only other comment I want to make about this walk is that 16 miles is a long way to walk at one time.  I enjoyed the walk, but my muscles were sore for a couple days after and I did get a blister on the side of my heel of my right foot.  My only advice if you are considering a long walk is make sure you have good shoes.

OK, enough about the walk, now on to the bike ride this week.  Everyone else was too busy and it ended up being just Pete and me doing the ride.  Pete’s mother sent Pete a note about a train show at Canterbury Village that was taking place this weekend.  Since we had never ridden out to Canterbury Village and the train show sounded interesting, we had a destination with purpose.  I rode over to Pete’s house and we started out from there.  We doubled back toward my house and headed north on Brewster.  I said hello to Sally as we passed by while she was out walking her dog Sunny along the bike path.  We stayed on Brewster until Silverbell and took it west.  Since the land around this area is so naturally swampy the bike paths for quite a few stretches are actually long narrow wooden bridges.  When I ride on these bike path bridges my bike tires produce a clicky clack sound that reminds me of a train rumbling along a railroad track.  Kind of ironic that Pete and I were on our way to see a model train show.

We stayed on Silverbell all the way to Kern Road.  At Kern we went north for a short distance.  New paved bike paths now exist all along Silverbell to Kern and even north on Kern at least the short distance we traveled.  We headed west again once we came to Greenshield.  Greenshield is a dirt road and it goes right through the Bald Mountain area.  Once on Greenshield you feel like you are out in the country, farmland and vacant fields surround the occasional house.  We did have to cross Lapeer Road, but we continued on Greenshield all the way to Joslyn Road.  We knew Canterbury Village was located somewhere on Joslyn, but we didn’t know how close to Greenshield.  It turns out that Greenshield practically dumps you out right into Canterbury Village.  Pete brought his digital camera so we have a lot of nice pictures from this ride to share.  Even though it was a beautiful day, nice and sunny, it was a little on the cool side.  We both wore light jackets and gloves.  The leaves in the trees were in brilliant fall colors making the ride through the country enjoyable.  Pete took some nice pictures along the way.

As we pulled into the parking lot of Canterbury Village we found an actual bike rack.  We pulled in and I locked our bikes together to the bike rack.  Pete was being very careful with his new expensive digital camera until he forgot it was hanging from his wrist by its strap.  Pete had on these really thick gloves where the fingers fold back exposing his fingers.  When Pete took off his gloves he forgot all about the camera until it came crashing to the ground.  When he pulled off his one glove, the glove pulled the camera strap off his hand falling to the ground.  Unfortunately it landed on the hard parking lot surface.  Quickly Pete picked it up and noticed the LCD screen had a big crack rendering it non-functional.  Needless to say Pete was extremely upset.  I have to give Pete credit though, he didn’t dwell on the broken LCD screen too long and we still took pictures using the old traditional viewfinder.  The camera actually still took very nice pictures even after its pavement-bouncing episode.    

The train show was small, but it was still interesting.  All of these particular model trains ran on steam power.  Something you don’t see very often.  Pete was correct when he commented that this group of hobbyists use both old and new technology.  Steam power to run the engines and remote radio frequency controls to operate them from a distance.  Make sure you check out the pictures of the trains.

While at Canterbury Village we also walked around checking out the place since I don’t think I had ever been there before.  A new restaurant was opening up that weekend and I think it was owner who caught us checking out the menu and he opened the door and invited us in to check out his new place.  They did a nice job of preserving the architecture of the old building they had converted into a restaurant.  We told the owner we were in a bike club, and one look at Pete with his dew rag on the top of his head, he said Harleys.  Implying that we rode Harley Davidson motorcycles.  We told him we rode bicycles, real bicycles not motorcycles.  I gave him a bike club sticker, but he wasn’t impressed with the sticker or our club.  He was kind enough to pose for a picture when Pete told him we would give him free publicity on our website.

With no interest in going inside any of the stores it was time for us to leave.  As we approached the bike rack I said to Pete we should put a club sticker somewhere.  Immediately Pete said the bike rack, of course this made sense what better place for one of our stickers than the bike rack.  Pete quickly walked over to the bike rack and he leaded up against the top bar of the rack.  What he didn’t realize was this particular bike rack was poorly designed and it didn’t have any support in the direction Pete was leaning.  Yes, you guessed correctly, Pete and the entire bike rack with our bikes still attached fell over backwards.  Seeing Pete lying on the ground moaning about what a bad day he was having, I didn’t hesitate.  I walked over and grabbed Pete’s camera and took a couple pictures while he was still lying on the toppled rack.  Poor Pete, at least he was able to laugh at himself as he lay there on the ground.  Make sure you check out the pictures of Pete and the bike rack, these are sure to be classics. 

We took the same route in opposite direction home.  We did stop at the Wooden Eagle for lunch on the way home.  In the parking lot at he Wooden Eagle was an old 1980 Ford Pinto.  You see to many Ford pintos around anymore.  Pete took a few pictures of this somewhat unusual car.  After lunch we just had a nice uneventful ride home.  Here is the link to all of the pictures from this ride.

Good news on Pete’s camera.  The manufacture Hewlett Packard has agreed to exchange Pete’s broken camera with a new one for no charge, talk about lucky.  If anyone is considering buying a digital camera I would suggest you check out HP if this is any indication of their typical customer service. 

Jonathan and Mark’s soccer team had another game this weekend on Saturday, since the last update.  We played against another RYSL team at Borden Park.  It was a tough game for the boys but we won 4-1.  Again, I had them play the whole first half short one player.   Even though they had to work a little harder than normal they still won fairly easily and we are still undefeated. 

Following are the statistics from this ride.  18.96 total miles, 23.0 max speed, 10.0 mph average speed and total time moving on bikes of 1 hour and 47 minutes. 

Thanks for checking in.

David Lindquist