DALMAC 2026 – 5-Day Michigan Ride
By Kurt Minges
Back in February, I was finishing up a bike ride with Bill Hamilton (a good friend and former club member) when he casually mentioned “Hey Kurt, if you’re not doing anything the week before Labor Day, why don’t you come ride across Michigan with me? There was a long pause on my behalf as I downshifted the gears between my ears to digest what he had just asked me.
Bill, who grew up in Michigan, had only recently learned of the DALMAC (Dick Allen Lansing to Mackinaw City) 5-day bike ride. Dick Allen, a Michigan State Rep. back in 1971 challenged his friends, colleagues and constituents to “ride all the way to the bridge” from Lansing (the capital of Michigan) to Mackinaw City, the northernmost tip of the lower peninsula, “to prove that bikes and cars could share Michigan roads safely”. Thus, 55 years ago, DALMAC was born “to develop awareness of bicyclists and their needs among the citizens of Michigan, to promote bicycling as a healthy means of transportation and recreation, and to encourage the wider use of bicycles”.
When I got back home from riding with Bill that day, I knew I had some googling to do. I found that DALMAC had an amazing website where I got all my questions answered and all my blanks filled in. I got back in touch with Bill to talk with him further about the possibility of doing the ride with him. When he told me that his sister Jean, who lived very close to the ride start, had offered accommodations for us and that his brother Rob had offered us logistical support for the event, I thought what an amazing opportunity for me to do this, out of state, 5-day event ride. I would be a fool not to!
Fast forward about a day and a half. I had registered for the 5-day West route, the most popular and scenic route, and purchased my airfare. Wait… airfare for me and my bike… I’ve never done that before. I was flying with American Airlines, and I found that if my bike, packed in a box, came in at under 50 lbs., I would just be charged a standard checked bag fee. I watched a few YouTube videos on how to pack a bike for air travel, picked up a cardboard bike shipping box for free from the Trek Store, weighed it up and it was well under 50 lbs. I was good to go.
DALMAC is described as “one of the oldest low cost, all-volunteer-run bicycling tours in the country.” This is a cycling/camping event where event participants are camping mostly on High School properties and utilizing gym locker rooms for showers. Breakfast and dinners are provided in the school cafeterias, often prepared and served by athletic booster clubs. I found the food to be very good and there was plenty of it! Tents and gear are packed up in the morning, and personal bags are loaded onto the box trucks bound for that night’s camp location. We were usually rolling off on our bikes just before 8:00 am. There were about 360 participants on our route this year; things never felt crowded, and the event seemed to run like a well-oiled machine.
The ride started on the campus of Michigan State University in Lansing, where Bill went to school. I got street view updates as we peddled through campus, Bill telling me how things went down around here “back in the day”. We were soon outside of Lansing peddling north through agricultural fields on very low-traffic roads. It was to be the warmest day of the ride, reaching 92 degrees with high humidity. We had three 75 mile days and two 55 mile days in total. It rained pretty steady with distant thunder for about half of the ride on day two; it was all part of the adventure and was to be expected. Things got better from that point on. As we made our way north agriculture fields and occasional wind turbine farms gave way to forested landscapes with rolling hills. We enjoyed some spectacular scenery as we rode through the picturesque waterfront towns of Charlevoix and Harbor Springs. The ride finishes in Mackinaw City within a stone’s throw from the iconic Mackinaw Bridge that links the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. Buses and box trucks are utilized to return participants and their gear back to Lansing. Participating in this event was the highlight of my summer and I would highly recommend it to other club members who have a sense of adventure and a pair of well-padded riding shorts! …well, maybe two pairs!
