Day 1 - Grand Rapids to Muskegon State Park

 Miles - 57.3


After a lovely breakfast Tim and I headed over to Charlie and Cathy's place to gear up.  And we're stashing the car here.  They aren't around today but we're kind enough to allow the car in their driveway. A quick rain shower rolled through. At 10:30 we were rolling. My knee hasn't been doing great but thankfully it loosened up after a while. 

Ready to roll

The first thing was to get thru Grand Rapids. We did some urban riding and then got a bit lost on a gravel track. In time we found our trail that we will take most of the way to Muskegon. The Musketawa Trail is a  23 mile paved trail through rural farm land. We  had it to ourselves. What a delightful way to cover a bunch of miles without worrying about vehicles. 


The Grand River


Lost in Grand Rapids 

Muskegon is a busy Great Lake Port.  There's a nice bikepath along the waterfront that we rode all the way through town. We had a lovely greeting from the locals. 'Hey welcome to Muskegon!"  A quick 5 miles on a local road and we see Lake Michigan for the firsttime. The campground is just behind the dunes enjoyed a quick walk on the beach before cooking up some pasta and crashing. A god first day. 

We are ready to roll. Sun comes up late here on the edge of Eastern time. I will post more pics later. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Dr. Al's Lake Michigan Circle Tour

Image
A few years ago I rode across the US on my bicycle.  I'm getting the itch to go back on the road.  In late August I plan to ride around Lake Michigan with my adventure buddy Tim.  We will leave from Grand Rapids and work our way counterclockwise.  The ride will take us through everything from rural and remote areas like Michigan's Upper Peninsula to urban areas like Milwaukee and Chicago.   The route is about 1100 miles and we expect to be riding for about 2 weeks.  Riding across America was a 2 month tour and I found it was just too long to be away from family, especially grandkids.  This should be a much more manageable trip duration.  A highlight of the tour is going to be a stop in Green Bay over Labor Day weekend where I am going to watch the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame play football versus the Wisconsin Badgers at Lambeau Field! Many folks loved following me when I did the cross country ride so I decided to create another blog for this...
Read more

Day 2 - Muskegon to Ludington, MI

Image
1100 miles for NH's Children. Please support CASA NH at this GoFundMe link:  https://donate.casanh.org/1100MilesforNHKids. Miles today - 67.5 Trip miles - 124.8 Check out my activity on Strava: https://strava.app.link/qznvt8swX5b Today was a great day for riding. Up early as usual we had everything ready to go by 700. There was no one on the road as we began riding north on the scenic coast road. The first car didn't appear for 6 miles. It was pleasant and in the low 60's. We are following US bike route 35 which will be our friend for the next few days all the way to Mackinac.  After passing through some coastal villages we jumped onto another lovely rail trail. Michigan does a great job investment in quality rail trails. Ten feet wide asphalt with apron going for miles all over the state. 23 miles later we are hungry and pull onto a small diner. They're not serving lunch yet. We settle for a elevensies.  Another Rail Trail  The lunch spot Back on quiet coastal roads...
Read more

Day 0 - Drive to Grand Rapids

Image
 Tim and I had the bikes and gear loaded by 4:30 and we're heading west. I'm not thrilled about the long drive but it is the best way to get us and the bikes to the start and end point. We took the Mass Pike to the NY State Thruway to Niagara Falls where we crossed the border. Uneventful but long. The border crossing was easy with no line. In Canada it is the QEW to the Transcanada highway to Sarnia at the base of Lake Huron where we easily passed back into the US of A. Finally we crossed Michigan to arrive in Grand Rapids around 6:00. Thirteen and a half hours and almost 900 miles.  My inlaws John and Theresa gave us a warm welcome and a nice meal. We are crashing with them. In the morning we will get the bikes ready and start the ride. Our aim is to ride to Muskegon about 55 miles away on the coast. There's a state park there which looks great. Us at 4:30   John grilling the pork roast I'm supporting CASA NH on this ride. Please consider supporting this great cause:...
Read more