2021 mileage: 4199.1
My good friend Doug Franklin has season tickets to Michigan football along with his wife Carole, and she couldn't use hers this week, so he kindly offered it to me.
His schedule prevented him from giving me a ride, so I figured I could walk to the game (about 3 miles, as I have done in the past). However, as I age, my walking has gotten less steady, and I have fallen more than once, cutting up my face. Michelle discouraged my walking there, joking that, "I don't want you to arrive at the game looking like Jesus Christ!"
In light of this concern, I left home at 8:30 this morning and rode most of my Platt/Packard Square route, except that near the end, I crossed Ann Arbor-Saline Rd., and turned right heading north on the trail to go up to Pioneer High School, where I could lock my trike and leave it during the game, as shown below. This morning ride featured partly cloudy skies, and pleasantly cool (but not cold) weather—65° when I began, and 69° when I arrived at Pioneer and locked up my trike. I covered a ride of 13.5 miles, in 1:55. And the typically heavy game-day congestion in Ann Arbor didn't really affect me until the last half mile or so, when I had to slow to walking speed behind a large group of fans walking up the trail toward the stadium.
My younger brother John (JB) is Senior Editor of The Wolverine, a publication covering University of Michigan sports, and I knew he would be in the press box, so I texted him once I was in my seat, saying where I was, and he replied that he'd try to spot me. Shortly thereafter, he said, "Found you! Santa hits the Big House." This confused me mildly at first, since I was wearing blue, not red ... but then I remembered my white beard. 😆
The game was most enjoyable—Michigan handled their opponent, Northern Illinois University, rather easily, winning 63-10. Doug took this selfie of us just a short way into the game.
It was such a lovely early fall afternoon, too (though I suppose that technically it is still late summer). I got this picture showing the typically full attendance (over 100,000 fans) at the Big House (a nickname given Michigan Stadium decades ago by legendary sports broadcaster Keith Jackson).
However, this means that people are really packed in; I was able to communicate with Doug by typing notes on my phone. I told him midway through the second quarter that I appreciated the ticket more than I could say ... but I realized that I had forgotten how enduring the close seating in the Big House is a young man's game, and since that description clearly no longer applied to me, I was going to slip out soon (I ended up waiting until after another Michigan touchdown, which didn't take long) and begin making my way home. This gave me another 3.9 miles in 31 minutes, for a riding day without incident. I also realized that my riding in the last three days has given me a new annual mileage record, as my best previously was 2019, when I did 4165.5 miles.
