The title of this post refers to an organization in the header called the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy. You can find their website here: Rails-To-Trails. I’ve been a member since 2011 — which just means that I donate at least $35 every year. It’s a small amount and I encourage anyone that’s interested to do the same. Their mission is to connect America by abandoned railroad corridors. They are a fantastic resource, allowing biking, running, blading, hiking, or walking with the family, depending on the surface of the trail. Many are asphalt, but I’ve seen crushed limestone and wood chips too.
Greg, Jason, and I all rode rail trails this weekend. Not together yet; Greg and Jason in Tallahassee and me in the suburbs of Detroit. It’s nice to be able to stay off the roads and still get some quality riding.
This picture is of Jason and Greg at the trailhead of the St. Mark’s Trail. It’s 32 miles out and back plus another 16 miles to get there and back from Greg’s house. I’ve shared the picture of the St. Mark’s sign, but it’s worth a repeat here.
My use of the rail trails was a little more complicated. On Friday, I rode from my house in Brighton to North Troy. The route that I took used the Island Lake Connector Trail, to the Island Lake Pathway, to the Huron Valley Rail Trail, to the Michigan Air Line Trail, to the West Bloomfield Trail, to the Clinton River Trail. (The last 4 are all rail trails). The first 3 and the last 6 miles were on paved roads for a total of 43 miles. I spent the night in Troy and returned home the next day. On Sunday, I rode another 40 plus miles with a portion on the Lakeland Rail Trail in Pinckney, MI. I created a 2 minute video of some of the riding.
I’m using some new tools for this video. I uploaded my video from my GoPro 10 to iMovie on my Mac. I’m a total rookie on the iMovie app. For some reason, when I created the movie, it created a 480p version — which is really low quality. I uploaded it to my account on YouTube which defaults to Private. I tried to make it public by changing the visibility setting, but it wasn’t changing it. So, I had to create a link right on my website. I don’t know what I’m doing yet, but I’ll keep trying to learn. I have less than 2 weeks before kick-off. Whoa!
What a great idea to make old railroads into these kinds of places.