Travel Michigan: I want to ride my tricycle
Bullet bikes provide the zip to Michigan summer vacation
FRANKFORT, Mich. -- Tricycles are for little kids, right? Those tiny three-wheeled bikes with the Happy Birthday paint jobs and the handlebar streamers? Strictly tot stuff.
Or they're for unbalanced old people, who tool around Leisure World on oversized contraptions, their big wire baskets filled with, I dunno, bags of prunes, PoliGrip and BenGay?
Mitchell Herrmann/For the Sun-Times
Mitchell Herrmann/For the Sun-Times
I'm too old for the first version. And though I'm about six months shy of 50 (and have the gray hair to prove it), I am not ancient enough for the latter.
I'm not! Not! Not!
I discovered, however, in a trip to the west Michigan shoreline, that there's something in between in three-wheel transport-- and with a name even such age-sensitive sorts like me can appreciate:
Bullet bikes.
Fire away!
While there are motorcycles by the same name, the tri-wheeled machines offered for rent by Peddle Perfection here are strictly self-propelled -- but quite a blast.
Low-slung bullet bikes put the rider just inches from the road. The driver sits in a reclined position, legs stretched horizontally. You steer with long, sissy-bar-style handlebars that are similar to the prongs of chopper-type motorcycles.
For Richard Lutz, owner of Peddle Perfection, "they're a nice little niche" between the regular bicycles and the multipassenger peddle surreys he rents.
As he tightened the bolts on one recently, Lutz -- a retired high school industrial arts teacher who "traded a hammer for a wrench'' -- says kids love 'em.
Adults, too. At least this one.
Frankfort is one of the quaint summer towns that dot the Lake Michigan shoreline in this area -- the "upper/ lower" part of Michigan anchored by Sleeping Bear National Dunes. The 70,000-acre federally owned oasis of beaches, forests, inland lakes and crystal clear rivers west of Traverse City seems to be a favorite getaway for Michiganders (judging from the license plates and the Detroit newspaper boxes) but has found a niche with Chicagoans willing to make the 300-mile trip.
For locals, there are three kinds of people: "townies" who are lucky enough to live in the area year 'round, "lake-ees" who spend the entire summer and the "fudgies" who catch a week or two and, apparently, freak over the local chocolate.
Our "fudgie" family has camped at the federal park -- the Platte River grounds is well-organized and offers clean restrooms and showers while the more rustic D.H. Day site has no electricity but is closer to the Lake Michigan beach. Most visitors, however, rent cottages that surround the area's inner, sand-bottom lakes.
On our trips, we've spent time tapping all forms of local locomotion -- the kayaking is terrific, with gentle streams that flow into Lake Michigan. I've spent hours tubing the creeks, floating amidst the thick vegetation and wondrous wildlife. We've galloped aboard horseback along the sandy trails cut through dense stands of sweet-smelling pines.
There also are ferry rides to Sleeping Bear's pair of off-shore explorable islands -- North and South Manitou -- that give the area its name. Indian legend has it that a mother bear and her two cubs were in Wisconsin when a raging forest fire drove them into Lake Michigan. They swam across the lake as far as they could; the mother made it to Sleeping Bear while the two cubs -- represented by the islands -- didn't quite.
Most of the area is quite hilly so in the past we've been reluctant to try biking. The trails around Frankfort aren't too tough, though, so my 12-year-old daughter and I jumped at the offer to try the bullet bikes. (My wife and 15-year-old son followed in a surrey, though the teenager, perhaps initially horrified at being seen on a "tricycle," succumbed and happily took a turn on a bullet himself.)
After Lutz adjusted the seats on the three-wheelers, we were off, cutting across Frankfort's eclectic main street to connect with a paved path in the town's lakeside park. Bullets have no gears -- they're all one speed. The brakes are of the coaster type where riders reverse peddling to slow the vehicle down supplemented with a hand break. I had a flashback to riding peddle cars as a kid, though these glide much easier and are far more quiet.
Lutz provided helmets though, with such a low center of gravity, bullet bikes would seem hard to flip. Indeed, a few moments after getting the hang of things, it became apparent that one of the more exciting features of riding a bullet is making it fishtail. Peddling while jerking the handlebars left or right just so creates an effect like skidding in a car on an icy street. The turning radius of bullet bikes is so tight that you can create a Tilt-A-Whirl dizziness doing doughnuts.
Much of Sleeping Bear's hilly terrain was created by millions of years of ice, wind and rain, and the sandy mountains present incredible views of Lake Michigan and vigorous hiking trails. But the path that runs the shoreline of Betsie Lake and its feeding river, between Frankfort and nearby Elberta, is fairly flat, an hourlong round-trip trek that's varied enough to be challenging but without sapping the fun out of the adventure.
Tall flags attached to the backs of the three-wheelers help other riders see bullet drivers, a required safety feature given that the profile of the tricycles are so low they easily could be missed. Bullets are odd-looking enough to attract second looks from other bikers but sleek enough to avoid the "dorky/geezer" label.
They're no more difficult to ride than a regular bike -- though if my sore muscles the next day are any indication, most of the peddle power seems to come from one's posterior.
Gluteus Ouchy-mus, indeed.
So, um, where's that BenGay, anyway?
For more information, contact Pedal Perfection at (231) 352-8090 or visit www.pedalperfection.com.
Bullet bikes rent for $12 an hour, $50 for a half day or $90 for the entire day.