BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

i <3 tofino... did you go to cathedral grove?

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/308478

I did something kind of embarrassing on a vacation that I got back from last week. I put my bike into a car (UGH!)and went a few places.

I went to Madison, Wisconsin, which has nice bike lanes.

I went to my old hometown in upper Michigan and swam across a lake from Negaunee, MI to Ishpeming, MI (Swim for Diabetes). I serenaded the safety kayakers with "Row, Row, Row your Boat" and "Roll me over in the Clover" while doing backstroke.

Google satellite shows the lake covered in ice, but I'm really not THAT tough

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Goggle fails to provide directions for swimming mode. Yet.

Plenty of biking opportunities around Ishpeming.

Then I went to Beaver Island, a former Mormon religious kindom in the middle of Lake Michigan, accessibly by ferry (a three-hour cruise!).

Beaver Island has mainly dirt roads, the polite drivers all drive slowly, and the scale of distances is good for biking. My friend whose family lives there wanted to drive places, but I refused.

I'll go back there. Where else could I cruise down the King's Highway on a bike?

I have close personal relationships with a number of lakes.

My BOB trailer isn't as creative as I. It vacationsed on the C&O/GAP courtesy of Ieverhart.

the last time i went on a tropical vacation i went to vieques, puerto rico. The island is only 4 miles long so we rented bikes for the entire week there. It ruled. I highly reccommend going and I highly reccomend staying in an apartment on the south end of the island, and renting bikes instead of cars.

plus you wont be smashing all the hermit crabs that way (note bike in background)

my uncle owns half of that island!

Mick, it sounds like you used the car for good and not for evil, so I think you're o.k. That sounds like a great trip.

I love PR, but I was in more populated areas that were soooo bike unfriendly.

And hush up about Tofino, I haven't had a chance to go there and I don't want everyone else to find out.

Nothing fancy or exotic, but lately I've been making a yearly pilgrimage to False Cape State Park, a barrier island on the VA/NC border-

http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/fal.shtml

You can't drive there (thanks to a wildlife refuge that surrounds it on VA side and a fence on the NC line), so you have to walk or ride a bicycle to the park. The result is that you have almost 20 miles of unspoiled Atlantic beach in front of you and a pristine estuary/wildlife refuge behind you. And because people are too lazy to pedal or walk the 8-10 flat miles from a parking lot in the nearby town of Sandbridge through the refuge to get there, you have the place virtually to yourself. One of the least visited parks in the East. Even in the summer. Just bring a tent and fat tires.

There are a lot of tire tracks on that beach. Looks like some people didn't walk.

wow, that looks awesome!!!

"There are a lot of tire tracks on that beach. Looks like some people didn't walk."

Well, it's the South. There's always a few, right? There's a goofy, big-tired, mini-bus thing that takes the old folks into the park for daytrips on the weekends. I usually only see the ranger driving up and down the beach every three hours or so, but he stops patrolling at midnight.... so no worries about a bit of skinny dipping in the moonlight. What else do ya want for $12 a night?

Mark - we thought we went to Cathedral Grove, but turns out we just stopped at the first pullout after the last sign for Cathedral Grove - a Random Local Fishing Hole. I know because I cleaned up about 10 miles of tangled line (and proportionate amounts of beer cans and butts) from the bushes and lake/rivershore there. We thought it was odd, being the only ones there. Then we drove about 75 feet down the road around a bend and encountered the Millions of BC Weekend Tourists Who All Went To Cathedral Grove At The Same Time. We had just seen big enough trees without the crowd, so we inched past in the traffic.

edmonds - don't worry. The online places all book up a year in advance (we were lucky to get convenient cancellations and didn't know it), and the local places don't have websites, and are thus undiscoverable Our last night there I remembered "Grab a phone book from the hotel and take it home! Don't forget! Don't forg...zzz..." I forgot. So we may not be so lucky if we try for a next time. It's surrounded by Provencial Park and Crown Land, so it won't turn in to Atlantic City.

Dooftram - thank you for the tip, that park is now on my Go There list

Caitlin - I didn't realize PR had any neighboring islands! I spent a week in Ponce, and I agree with edmonds, no biking on that main island (I wouldn't drive or walk, either, roads are scary there). I like the local habit of driving in caravans that keep together via unified use of left or right turnsignals or 4ways. Funny to see 10 cars drive past all blinking left but going in any old direction, all together. It works until you run into a different caravan that chose the same signal and is going a different place.

mark is your uncle the federal government? i think they own half

vieques is great. its getting way more popular though, and W just opened a huge fancy hotel up on the north side. stay south, right on the beach. we also went in august when there weren't as many people.

dooftram i am totally saving that in my 'places to go soon' file

oh there are 2 neighboring islands... i forget the other one, starts with a C, apparently you can hire like a jitney boat to take you to other carribean locations from them! i didnt try though.

@ Edmunds Mick, it sounds like you used the car for good and not for evil

It still used gas. Non-renewable resource for which people are being killed. Polluted the air, let loose greenhouse gases.

Starting a car is evil, even though it is the cultural norm. Sometimes, starting a car might be the lesser of evils. Still evil.

No sense in kidding ourselves about that.

Lyle - my Dad was born in Kingston ON, I'll have to tell him about that, he'd be tickled. Looks like a fantastic ride!

no the government leases part of it from my uncle because it has the only runway that can land huge bombers in the surrounding area.. .he's actually my dads moms sisters husband... but we always called him uncle chuck.

The other island is Culebra.

When Jeff (?) Miller, from Adventure Bike was in Pittsburgh a few years ago he told me of his experience circumnavigating PR by bike. Not for the faint of heart.

As a frequent visitor to the island, I have yet to ride on road in PR, and have only ridden off road in a few select locations.