What It’s Like to Bike Around Lake Michigan with Out Our Front Door’s Volunteer Guides
As I write this, I am sad. I am grieving the end of a 20-day, 1,100-mile ride around our beloved Lake Michigan with 14 fellow Out Our Front Door (OOFD) volunteers. We rode to celebrate our 10-year anniversary as a bike-camping nonprofit.
We called it the MI Lag(r)o Ride, because “mi lago” means “my lake” in Spanish. And MI stands for Michigan. Throw in that (r) and you get “milagro,” Spanish for “miracle,” and Lake Michigan is our local miracle.
Like Adventure Cycling, OOFD exists to help cyclists find adventure right, well, out their front doors, no plane ticket or car required. All that’s needed is a free weekend, a functional bicycle, and some camping gear.
Many of our rides hug our lake, from our annual 80-plus-person overnighter to Illinois Beach State Park to our five-day, 25-person, 220-mile SWMI Ride (pronounced “swimmy”) in Southwest Michigan, where we camp along the shore and stop to hop into the lake every 15 to 20 miles. All told, we host around 550 adults and families of all ages and abilities on 25 rides each year, each led by a crew of volunteers who are the beating heart of OOFD.
It’s hard to put into words the simple magic of our guides; they inherently feel that more time outside, on bikes, in community with others is a good thing. They give countless hours planning and leading trips, guiding both experienced and brand-new bikepackers, cooking them meals, helping fix their flats, and encouraging them along the final miles into camp. They do this all with a welcoming spirit that transforms a group of strangers into a community after just a few days of riding together.
And while every ride is an adventure, these volunteers give their time to ride and re-ride many of the same routes to the same campgrounds year after year. They do this because they love these routes and they relish the relationships they build with certain trails and campgrounds by returning each year to the same place.
At the same time, the unknown, the new, the novel are key to an adventure. So, as we were considering how to celebrate our organization’s 10th anniversary, we wanted to give our volunteers a grand adventure into the unknown, a ride that most Chicago cyclists dream of — the Lake Michigan Circle Tour.
Also, this year, we rolled out a new organization-wide plan focused on reciprocity, mainly inspired by the writings of Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book
Our first day would see us reach Indiana Dunes National Park, a route that many of us had ridden a dozen times, most of us knowing each turn by heart along the 60-mile route. Rolling our bikes out our own front door and starting with a very familiar route was a special way to begin such an epic journey. Big rides often start in the unknown and end in the unknown. Ours, however, was starting and ending in the familiar and riding toward more and more unknown lands, but always with that close friend, Lake Michigan, on our left side.
The freedom of the road was profound, as it always is, but it felt even more liberating this time because we were all so used to guiding others. But here we were in the flow and doing our own thing as we pleased. We didn’t have to cook dinner for the group or make sure we were sweeping or leading. We were just riding bikes with a bunch of friends, looking out for each other while pedaling at our leisure.
We set the ride up so that we had time to chill, see the sights, dillydally, even. Most days were 60 to 70 miles. While that was still some serious mileage to cover, it wasn’t so far that we couldn’t stop for a swim or mill about sipping coffee at a cafe in the mornings. As we were planning, each of us signed up to “own” one or two days. That person was responsible for researching restaurants for lunch as well as cool bike shops, bookstores, museums, and other local delights. Each day, we would rise at our leisure, check the group chat for the day’s suggestions, and roll out in small groups or alone, some before sunrise, others after 8 AM. Then the day’s adventure would begin.
As we rode, the earlier risers would hit up our group chat with scouting reports from the front, good places to swim, issues with the route, etc. Or just share silly pictures. Oftentimes, while at a rest stop out in the middle-of-nowhere Michigan, we would look up from our ice cream cones to watch a crew of friends roll in. There are few more delightful things than to be resting in an unknown place during a long day of riding, and then seeing a bunch of familiar, radical bike friends pedal up with big smiles and greetings, encouraging you to stay a little longer for a bit more food or another beverage.
Up the east side of the lake, many of our bathroom breaks were at small county parks. We’d use the facilities and fill water and then meander out along the usual small path heading west into the park and emerge onto a stunning, white-sand beach without another person around. And we’d strip down to our undies or switch into bathing suits and run out into the water to freshen up for the next leg of the ride.
We took a rest day every seventh day, one at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and one in Escanaba, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Some would chill out in town or around the campfire all day. Others would head to a cafe to journal or a sports bar to catch a football game. We had a smattering of friends and family join us on these rest days, bringing in the greatly appreciated piles of pizza and other goodies.
After the first week, the ride seemed to be working up to a crescendo, the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. We were positively smitten by this mitten. The trails, the small towns, and the lake. The beaches and campsites. We rolled up through Petoskey and were blown away by our lakeside campground and its sunset. We were in utter glee riding through the Tunnel of Trees to one of the best general stores in the state, then to an epic Polish restaurant, and finally into Wilderness State Park.
After that, we were off to bike utopia on Mackinac Island, with its carlessness and lovely eight-mile loop. Then we rode a handful of days along the Upper Peninsula’s Highway 2. Soon, we began to feel like our wheels were turning toward home and that this impossibly long bike ride might actually have an end in sight. As the ride steadily closed in on Chicago, we began really reflecting on the beauty of this ride and of the OOFD community as a whole.
And that’s why I was sad as I began writing this. Because the trip was over. Many of us had completed long trips, either solo or with a small group before, but never one this long. It’s never easy to finish a long adventure, but there usually is some relief in having the comforts of home imminent after accomplishing something epic.
But on this ride, we were a crew of 15, and you never really know what kind of interpersonal issues or drama or cliques might form in a group that large. That didn’t happen at all. It really was a collection of cyclists, some who were longtime friends, others who had just met, caring for and looking out for each other. Whether it was driving a fellow rider to the hospital for an emergency tooth extraction or brand-new friends getting matching tattoos on the last day of the tour, it was a deeply felt microcosm of the community that we are always aiming to build on OOFD rides as guides.
On the last night of the ride, we welcomed friends, family, and other OOFD volunteers up for a party at Illinois Beach State Park. That night, around the fire, we shared things that we were grateful for. Our fellow riders, our OOFD community, and our beloved lake were the resounding recipients of that gratitude. We did it. We celebrated our 10th year as an organization in a way deeply connected to our mission and in reciprocity with our volunteers, giving them the opportunity to have a grand, life-altering bike adventure in community with their fellow guides.
