Leg #1

I made it out to Lansing, no problems or issues.
I'm sore and tired but otherwise ok.
I rode 68.1 miles in 4.5 hours, 45 min total stopped time
avg speed was 14.6 mph, with a max of 29.6
For those of you familiar with the roads, I took white lake rd to clyde rd. Then argentine to m59, out to grand river. grand river to 52 just past webberville, then holt rd all the way over.

I'm staying with friends tonight, looking forward to resting. Tomorrow will be a very long ride (see route posting).
I have a picture to upload from when I started, but its not working right now.

Thank you everyone that is supporting!

Updates!

There are a few updates, as you might have noticed.

- You can now track me. This will not be live, but whenever I turn my phone back on, it should update to the site (map). This was a last minute update, we'll see how it works. If it works well, it should be very cool.

- You can now donate right on the site, with the "DONATE" button on the right side. This will take you to PayPal, where it will be easy to use a card. Unfortunately, the ACS currently doesn't have a way to link directly to their site. So, I am using my PayPal account as a workaround. I can assure everyone that this will be a safe and secure way to donate, and all the money in the account will be transferred to the ACS at the end of the trip.(any questions about this, please email me)
Again, 100% of money donated goes directly to the American Cancer Society.

The Why

As some of you may know, and others are just finding out, I am going for a bike ride soon. I will depart the evening of 8-31 and return the evening of 9-5, for a total of 5 full days on the road. As you can tell, this will be a bit longer than my usual bike trip. I plan to ride approx. 875 miles, covering a large portion of the perimeter of Michigan's lower peninsula.
I will depart from downtown Clarkston, right in front of The Union. You can see a rough draft of my route in the other post. This should give everyone a vague idea of what I'm doing and how far I'm really going. I'll be hugging the coast as much as possible, along my route.
This is not "just for the hell of it". It's something I have wanted to do for some time now, and is on my long list of things to accomplish. I have tried to turn this ride into something greater than myself, by bringing the American Cancer Society on board. I am going to do this trip no matter what, so I don't need any funds to do it. With that said, I am taking any and all donations to the ACS on behalf of me doing this ride. 100% of your donations will go directly to them and anything over $25 is tax deductible. It's a great cause but I don't expect everyone who reads this to donate, and that's perfectly fine. I brought them (ACS)on board because I lost my good friend and Grandmother (Grace Spence) to cancer a few years ago, and if I can help prevent someone else from going through the pain that she went through and that I had the unfortunate ability to witness, then I would like to have a small part in that.
On a slightly more selfish note, I have wanted to do this ride for a few years now. I will be up front with everyone, and tell you that I have not trained for this. I didn't ride 100 miles a day, or even 75 or 50. I have done, and completed many triathlons and at least one marathon without any training. I got respectable placings in the Tri's and got 2nd place in the Marathon, and that was in 17 degrees out on the sea ice!
I like the fact that at any given moment I can get up and go do something like this. Am I in shape? Nope, not even close. Does that mean I need a lot of willpower, determination and endurance of pain? YES. I think that most people are capable of so much more than they realize, if they trully apply themselves and REALLY want something. I really want this. Should I have trained for a few years to do this ride? Probably. Do people call me crazy at every turn? Of course they do... (but this is nothing new)
I'm not asking you or anyone else to do this trip with me, I'm only asking that you support me. By support I mean by whatever means you might have. If you have nothing to donate, or already donate to another cause, then support me by reading my blog, and telling others about it. If you can do more than that, even better. I'll be trying to get a few larger companies to sign onto my trip in the next few days, and if they do, I'll put their logo on my shirt for everyone to see as I ride. I'll also make sure to thank them at the end of each day in my post as I update everyone with where I am and how I got there.

That's all for now,

- Bret

Questions

There have been some questions that keep coming up, so I thought I would address some of those before I hit the road.

- Who are you going with?
No one, I'm going solo. No chase car, no other riders. The way I like it...

- What route is this / Is this a race or sanctioned route?
Nope, it's just something I came up with. I wanted to do a perimeter ride for awhile now, and this seemed like a doable route to make that happen.

- Do you have a backup plan?
This gets asked a lot. The bike is very simple, most anything that is broken, I can fix. Common things are flat tires, snapped chain, shifter adjustment, etc. Anything more serious than that would require outside force, such as a car or other large moving object. I don't plan to get hit by a car, and there's not much planning I can do for anything like that. If I get stranded or injured for any reason, I can always rent a car and drive.
Weather is something else I can't control. But right now it looks fine, and if it gets ugly, I'll stop. If it's just rain, then I'll probably keep going. If I have to stop for a half day, I can make it up by doing a few hours at night.

- Are you Crazy?
No, I'm not. Just about everyone says this when they first hear about the ride. It's ok to think it's crazy to do something like this, it's not for everyone. Most people wish me good luck after they call me crazy, so that's not so bad.

- What kind of bike are you taking?
I have a road racing bike, that I typically used for triathlons, when I did them(2+ yrs ago). However the tires are VERY skinny and meant for dry pavement only. It's a very fast bike, but if I have to go off to a sandy shoulder in a hurry, more times than not I'll be crashing. With that said, I'm taking my Mtn bike, modified slightly for this type of trip. It's got cyclocross tires on it, a rear rack for gear, a trip computer and a headlight.
I'll post pictures of it before I depart.

- Do you have any other trips planned?
Yes, but I need to get through this one first. Not all are on a bike and some are crazier than others.
Anyone that knows me or speaks with me regularly knows most of the stuff I want to accomplish in the near future. If you want to know more, get to know me! I'll write back to almost anyone, or better yet call me or go for a ride with me!
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If anyone has any other comments or questions, feel free to contact me.
TheBret@gmail.com

Rough Draft of My Route

Here is a rough draft of the route:
(now with pictures!)

Clarkston to Lansing, Wednesday Night(8-31): Mostly M59 to Grand River, end up in Holt, MI
Stay the night with friends

Lansing to Ludington, all day Thursday(9-1): This will be one of the longest legs of the trip, better to get it over with early. It should be Lansing to GR to Grand Haven to Muskegon to Ludington. Outta Grand Haven it'll be US31 North

Ludington to Charlevoix, all day Friday(9-2): Should be straight up US 31, to Traverse, then onto Charlevoix

Charlevoix to Rogers City, via Mackinaw Island, All day Saturday(9-3): US31 out of Charlevoix up to Mackinaw, out and around the island (ferry ride out and back) then down US23 to Rogers City

Rogers City to Pinconning, all day Sunday(9-4): the east coast of MI via US 23

Pinconning to Clarkston, via Bay City, most of the day Monday(9-5): US 23 to Bay City, then M 15 from start to finish, ideally finish before the start time on 8-31, to make it round trip in under 5 full days.