We made it!! (Kinda)

Boy, I really learned how hard it is to keep up a daily blog! Much has happened since I last blogged!

I left off when we were heading to McBain. The best highlight from that day is the "Back Alley Bar" in McBain. McBain is a tiny town, there is a party store and a not much more. There are some DALMACers who like to head the party store, grab the drink of their choice and head to the alley to discuss the days ride and plan strategies for the next days ride (yeah right!) . It's all fun and we got to know our riding brothers and sisters a little better.

What a roller coaster day we had on Friday. This is the day we go from McBain to Elk Rapids. It's a favorite day, because it's relatively short - 60 miles or so, and we get to go on Williamsburg road, which is very rolloer coaster like and fun to do on our tandem. We had a riot biking! With the short ride we got to Elk Rapids pretty early, enough time to hit the watering hole - to make sure we are not at the camp too early - when the luggage truck needs to be unloaded...

After relaxing a bit we went to the alternate Elk Rapids showers - Elk Lake! Beautiful swimming there! After a swim we went to a favorite restaurant of ours - "Pearls" we had a nice meal there and headed outside when the trip took a nasty turn....

While we were in the restaurant our tire blew! The tube had a huge hole in it and (the worst part) our rim was bent! Impossible to mount a tire on it. We still don't know what happened the only possibility we can think of, started last Saturday in the rain...When it was rainy, we had lots of road sand and junk on out brakes - I used them one time to stop and they ground like crazy, and continued to grind a tiny bit as we rode. We think that maybe that rubbing weakened the rim enough to cause it to bend over.

Any who (someone on the ride said only Grand Rapids people say that- ha!), We were done riding on our tandem- A new rim for our wheel is a special order and there were no extra tandem wheels to be found in Traverse City. Obviously we were very disappointed. We fretted all night about how we could get to our car in Mackinaw City, How we were going to get bikes to continue our ride, and ... and... and....

We woke up the next morning to some very good news! A group of riders had a problem: The person they were going to meet in Elk Rapids to drive their car up to Petoskey (our next stop) had to cancel. They needed their car moved and they were so happy to have it moved that she said to use the car as much as we like! What a blessing! We would be able to check if there happened to be any wheels in Traverse City and if nothing else, we would be able to get to Mackinaw City to get our car! ( A few riders on DALMAC bring their car with them and keep moving it up as they ride with friends or riders who drive ahead and ride the route (or some of it) backward.)

OK - long story short...No wheels in TC...I drove our Tandem to GR and picked up our single bikes...back to Petoskey where Shawn had our camp set up...we drove to Mackinaw City on Sunday so we could ride across the bridge...we did not break our streak - every time we have ridden Dalmac, we have crossed the bridge! Of course it was awesome - it never gets old to us!

Ferry to Macinac Island, dealt with the crowds there, ferry to Mack City and then home. What a trip! We are already excited about next year. We've got to get those last 70 miles in to complete the round trip!!!


AND - Because you asked - Here's my Rathlips (they weren't too bad at this point)