The wheel dip in Lake Huron! Yay!! That was a really cool adventure. I had been thinking about it for a while and some astute weather watching by Becky kicked this effort off to take advantage of great weather. Morning temps were in the 40’s and 50’s with highs in the 70’s all week. Tons of sun made the riding fantastic! For a bike rider heading North and East, one of the down sides to cooler summer temperatures is that the wind comes from the North and East — so I had a head wind most of the way. Only today, the last day, did the wind give me a boost from the Southwest. And after I finished, the temps got into the 80’s.
The total journey, Sunday to Saturday was 358 miles with about 27 hours of riding. Just getting across the state from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron was about 270 miles.
For all you non-Michiganders, note the beach here on the East side of the State — rocky. If you recall the beach in South Haven on the West side — super sandy! One of the features of this great State.
The day started out by back-tracking to the Clinton River Trail and continuing East. When I got to Rochester, I had to battle for space on the trail with an organized run heading West, but that was exciting seeing all the runners coming out of Bloomer Park and along the trail to the typical balloon arch finish.
The Clinton River Trail ends at Dequindre and turns into the Macomb Orchard Trail. The whole trail is paved from this west trailhead to the east trailhead in Richmond, 24 miles later.
I stopped and looked back at the east trailhead. This marker was different than the one I showed at the west trailhead earlier and the first time I had seen it. Unfortunately, this was the end of trail riding. The remaining 25 miles or so would be along regular paved streets. The good news was that when I turned to go northeast on Gratiot, the wind was directly behind me for the 18 miles to Marysville. That was a blast as I spent most of that distance riding about 21 mph.
I had a really nice ride along the St. Clair River as I rode through part of Port Huron. This bridge is the Blue Water Bridge which connects the U.S. (Port Huron, Michigan) on the left with Canada (Sarnia, Ontario) on the right. Just past the bridge in this photo is the opening to Lake Huron, and just past that on the left is my destination.
The beach on the East — Lakeside Park! Just past this sign were a group of security guards standing in the shade. I wasn’t sure if they were going to let me take my bike to the water, so I approached them and asked them if I could take a picture of the wheel dip. One guy asked me where I was coming from and I told him South Haven. He said I’m new in town, where’s that? One of the other guys said, “Holy Sh##”, that’s on Lake Michigan.” I confessed I didn’t do all of it in one day, but they were super excited when I told them the story of the past week. They walked with me down to the water and offered to take the picture for me (at the top of this post.)
What a great finish to the week! Becky met me at Lakeside Park and we put my bike in her car. We then met my sister Janet and her husband Brian at the River Crab Blue Water Inn for lunch. We spent a couple hours on the deck watching the boats go by and just relaxing over good food and conversation. Brian and Janet picked up the tab for all of us to celebrate a week of riding for me, and the paying off their mortgage. Good news all around!
Thanks for coming with me on my journey and making comments on my posts. I will be working on a video to tell the story in that media, so I hope my next post will be about that.
Cheers!!!
D, Inspirational ride, can’t wait for the next one!
Thanks Ian!
Congrats, D! Nice ride! Thanks for all the work documenting and posting. It’s like we were on the trails with you! (I’m tired. I think I’ll get a glass of wine…)
Thanks Brian!!! I’m glad you enjoyed! LOL – glass of wine!
Great stuff. Sounded like a great ride. Will watch for the video
Great ride! Like we talked about — looks like you and I need to create another adventure ride soon. Can’t wait!
Cheers to creative planning and a successful adventure! Next time I’m riding MOT with you!
Heck yeah! You’ve done a lot of MOT already — 32 miles to Coon Creek Rd and back. Let’s do the whole thing! You’ll have to train up for a 50 miler.
p.s. Thanks for all your help! ❤️
Congrats on your success. What a great adventure.
Thanks Lori. It was quite a trip 😁
Great Pics! That’s a lot of miles. Wish I had that energy.
Thanks! I’m working on the video (a little bit) right now. That’s going to take a few weeks — I have over 2 hours of recordings so that’s going to take some editing. It took more energy than usual this trip since I had to haul my own camping gear. Super fun though!!!