Babs Young sent me an email. Her friends Joanne Robben and Tom Sellmer spend every summer at their cottage on Torch Lake. This year they’re going green. They’ll make the trip up from Georgia on their bicycles. Meet Joanne and Tom.
This is the 1600-mile trip they’ve just begun. They expect to arrive at Torch Lake between June 5-10.
Here’s their first postcard, written by Joanne:
We leave tomorrow on our bicycle trip to Michigan!! I have planned this for so long, spent so many hours at the computer doing routes, and we have ridden so much to get ready. I just can’t believe the time has come. Tom has worked hard to have our equipment ready and he feels like we have the tools and spare parts we might need. I think he is as excited about this as I am. I think we are ready!
We weighed the bags once packed, and Tom has 40 pounds, while I have 27. We were very pleased, as those amounts were less than we expected. I still have food to add, so I expect to be at about 30 pounds, and I’m sure Tom will have something more. His bike, loaded, weighs 83 pounds, while mine weighs 58. He is carrying both sleeping bags, air mattresses, and the tent, and I feel like I need to take some of his load, but he’s being stubborn about that. We are planning to stay in motels most nights but will camp when necessary. Like next Tuesday night, between Montgomery and Selma, where there are no motels.
You will notice we are going significantly south, and then west, before heading north toward our eventual destination. Are we nuts? We just didn’t want to deal with the Smoky Mountains, or the foothills, so we made a decision months ago to do this instead. It will take us probably an extra week to do it this way, and we will still have lots of hills on our ride, but it seemed like a better choice to us. Looking at the map now, it seems just crazy, but it’s way too late to re-visit that decision.
We plan to average 50 miles a day, which is not an aggressive goal at all. We feel that is something we can maintain day after day, and of course we can always do more, as long as there is somewhere to stay at the end of “more” ! I pretty much have towns lined up at that distance, so it will be interesting to see how it changes.
I am very excited, and very nervous. Ready to pull out of the driveway tomorrow and get started. Looking forward to all the new things we will see, and the people we will meet. Looking forward to the feeling of contentment and well-being that I always have at the end of a day of cycling.
Tom says he feels prepared, that he has left all of his business interests in good hands, and he is ready to follow me (I have the maps, and I usually ride in front to pace us).
Well, cool, sez I. I’m looking forward to seeing what they get up to, and to whether any of the “tools and spare parts” come into play.
Torch Lake Views 
Fee
May 2, 2010
Now, that’s a cycling trip and a half. Good luck to them (and their backsides, which will surely suffer!).
Gerry
May 2, 2010
Maybe they have really cushy bicycle seats. My parents used to do a lot of cycling, and my mother found that she loved it once she bought a nice, pillowy seat.
Kathy
May 2, 2010
Very inspirational! Good luck, Tom and Joanne!
P.j. grath
May 2, 2010
Tom and Joanne are not nuts for taking Tennessee at its westernmost point. They have made the only reasonable decision, and I hope they don’t rethink it. We had two trips with cars that overheated in the Tennessee hills, and since then we take the western route even with gasoline engines. Please pass this note along to T&J. Looks like they’re avoiding Indianapolis, too–another good plan.
And wow, what a trip!
Gerry
May 2, 2010
I’ve only ever been through the westernmost bits of Tennessee–took the Natchez Trace Parkway from NW Alabama as far as Franklin. That was one of my most memorable road trips ever. I loved it. I will take your word for it that the hillier hills are to be avoided, but Indianapolis??? Really??? I kind of liked Indianapolis, but maybe that was just because it was fun to go there when a person lived in West Lafayette.
Cindy Lou
May 2, 2010
Wow! You go, guys! Looking forward to travel updates as they wend their way north!
Gerry
May 2, 2010
I will definitely be adding periodic posts about the Great Bike Trek of 2010.
uphilldowndale
May 2, 2010
Wow what an adventure, when I look at maps of your country, I get a bit overwhelmed by the distances. It would seem here in the UK everything is on our doorstep or our neighbours!
Gerry
May 2, 2010
It is big – and Canada’s even bigger, which explains why both countries have quite a lot of wilderness even now. One summer French exchange students stayed with us and with friends of ours. I took a couple of them across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario, Canada. We went to the Tourist Information Centre so that they could pick up some mementos of their visit, and one looked thoughtful. “I have an aunt who lives in Vancouver,” he said. “Could we go visit her?” I took him over to the vast wall map and showed him where we were, where Vancouver was, and where we had been on a previous outing that took us hours and hours without leaving Michigan. His eyes got wider and wider. He inspected the map’s scale legend. He did some rapid calculations in his head. “This is a very big country, isn’t it!” he said.
What’s really funny is that “Easterners” – especially those who live in New England, New York, and New Jersey – have no idea how big their own country is. They’re used to passing through a couple of states just to go on a Sunday drive. They cannot grasp how much bigger states get as you go west. When I was a student at Michigan State University, traveling through four states to get home to Washington, D.C., I had classmates from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who were as far away from home as I was.
Just goes to show you that size isn’t everything.
MzEllen
May 2, 2010
Last summer I followed a man who followed his family on his bike when they moved from Alaska to Colorado – what an exciting trip!
Are these folks writing a blog along the way?
Gerry
May 2, 2010
They aren’t writing a blog–yet!–but they are emailing photos and daily reports to friends and family. I’m going to post updates and photos of the trip here on Torch Lake Views, probably weekly.
katherine
May 2, 2010
Sold a car to some people from Eastern Europe that were here working. I asked what they were going to do and they said they wanted to go to California (and back) for for the weekend. They had no idea how long that was going to take so had to tell them they’d better plan on a longer trip!
Gerry
May 2, 2010
Oh my! Even Rob the Firefighter would probably allow 4 days to make the trip one way. And after 4 days of constant driving, you’d want to spend about a week recuperating . . .
Anonymous
May 2, 2010
Sounds like an exciting trip, can’t wait to hear more about their travels. My cousin is married to a man from Sweden and when he moved to Michigan he booked a flight to Columbus Ohio cause it was cheaper and he thought it would only take about an hour to drive to their home in Michigan. It took 6 hours one way, he didn’t think it looked that far away on the map to him. He learned what a big country we have and is now an over the road trucker in the USA.
La Mirada Bob
May 2, 2010
Thanks for a wonderful reminder of how your Mom and I had so much fun biking together. And you are correct: the choice of seat is important.
We put about 20,000 miles on our bikes in California, Hawaii and Great Britain before we got too creaky.
Gerry
May 2, 2010
I was pretty impressed at your cycling adventures. You were doing all that when I was the age Rob the Firefighter is now. I assure you that I am not up for cycling up a mountainside. I’m just glad I can still hike up one. With care. On a good day.
Beth Toner
May 3, 2010
They are amazing! The question is: How will they get home? 🙂
Gerry
May 3, 2010
Now see, that’s a good question, and one I didn’t think to ask. Let’s ask. Joanne! Tom! How are you getting back to Georgia?
While we wait for the answer–and it could take a long time, as I don’t think they are reading Torch Lake Views on their cellphones, I will tell you this much. Their son, Tyler, is an excellent driver and very handy at extricating people from difficult situations. (Remember Local Heroes?) In a pinch, they could undoubtedly catch a ride back with him.
Lindsey Sellmer
May 3, 2010
My brother (their son) is driving their van, 2 dogs, and cat up at the beginning of June. They will stay until Mid September and then drive back.
Carlton
May 3, 2010
Gerry,
As I understand it, Tyler has the family van and is already at their summer home. They plan to pack-up and ride home sometime in mid August, if they keep the same time frame as they always do year-after-year. They are our neighbors here in Peachtree City, GA. So our loss is your gain.. or at least, when they arrive..
Helmy
May 3, 2010
Good luck on your ride. In 1996, I drove to Alaska and ran across a biker who started from CT. I hope that this would be your next adventure. Good luck.
P.j. grath
May 3, 2010
Another peachy thought: Elberta!
Joanne and Tom
May 3, 2010
I’m overwhelmed at the interest and support our trip has generated.As to how we will get home,Tyler is indeed a key part of that. At the end of the rowing competitive season at Grand Valley State University a month from now, he will fly home and drive our van to Torch Lake with our two old dogs and grouchy cat. We couldn’t be doing this without the support and assistance of our kids and friends!
Gerry
May 3, 2010
That Tyler, pure gold.
Back in the day when I was commuting on weekends Miss Puss would travel along, but it was not a great success. She yowled steadily for the first twenty miles, then threw up, waited for me to clean her crate up, and went to sleep–every single trip.
Dogs are a different story. Ride in the car?!? Really?!?! Oh, this is so great. Can I ride in front, huh, huh?
Dennis (B-I-L to Gerry)
May 8, 2010
Best of cycling to your friends from Georgia. They’ve chosen a great way to get north. Have safe travels.
Gerry
May 8, 2010
Hey, Dennis! I’ve been thinking about your cross-country trek as I read the updates from Joanne and Tom. I can imagine walking across the country, perhaps dragging a little red wagon with provisions, but I cannot imagine cycling all those miles.