This is the natural compliment to https://www.reddit.com/r/MichiganCycling/comments/1uj4lfi/west_bloomfield_to_south_haven_my_thoughts/ .

TLDR - Great ride but certainly a lot more surface streets once you get east of Richmond which some riders may not be comfortable with.

It's been a minute since I went east for any real distance and that was driven by the Clinton River Trail having been under construction for a bit. They had a detour and I just didn't enjoy it. With the trail reopened officially this past week I figured it was time to head east and see how things are.

West Bloomfield trail - Great suburban trail. If this isn't your starting point there is a water station on the trail which can be mighty helpful. They cut down a lot of trees this year so areas that used to be shaded are not as great as they were.

Clinton River trail - West of Pontiac you would be forgiven if you didn't think you were just on the West Bloomfield trail, there is a sign but the trail feels the same until you hit Pontiac. I took the official route and went south to South Blvd East. By far the worst part of the trail and no one is really shocked. I'd love to see a northern route included as they continue to try to revitalize Pontiac. There is an extension east of Opdyke so I remain ever hopeful.

Once your east of Opdyke the trail is really quite nice. The area they worked on seems to be well done and I hope it gives many years of faithful service. There is water by Adam's street and a nice area of hammocks by Letica Dr. Perhaps the biggest thing that struck me as odd is that the road crossings are not signalized and there are a number of large roads that the trail crosses. Patience may be required. I'm not looking for HAWK signals but some flashing lights would be nice.

Macomb Orchard Trail - I thought this was fully opened but clearly I got that wrong. Only the section from Dequindre to 24 mile was closed, not worth complaining about. The detour was quick and easy. Rest of the trail is delightful. A number of orchards (hence the name) abut the trail and have access. I love when businesses take advantage of the trail because that shows value of the trail network as a whole.

There is a new water fountain being added in Armada which is nice. It's not operational yet but I expect that it will be next year. MOT has water in several spots so this just adds to the accessibility. The trail ends in Richmond at a nice park. Water, bathrooms. Good rest stop.

M19 - If continuing onto Port Huron the official route is to go north on M19. M19 is busy, no doubt but I found the shoulder is 2-5 feet in most places which gave me more than enough comfort. You can jump off on some side streets if you wanted. I've taken Weber road in the past which works well. Today I went to Memphis and then started heading east again.

Boardman/Wales/Alpine/Fitz/ Smith Creek road are all the same. No real shoulder but plenty of farm land. There are very small Route 1 signs but they are easy to miss so GPS is your friend or a good memory! Eventually Smith Creek road does get a shoulder but it will take a minute. The traffic on these roads was very courteous and there wasn't that much of it. You'll ride this all the way into Marysville

I-94 Business - Sounds terrifying but wasn't bad. Decent room. Eventually you can elect to jump onto the Blue water River walk or stay on I-94 which becomes I-69 BUS.

Blue Water River Walk - Scenic. Right along the St. Clair River. Eventually though you do end up back on I-69 to cross over the Black River.

Bridge to Bay Trail - After crossing the Black River you can head back to the river and eventually find your way to this trail. I stayed on the Thomas Edison Parkway which had no traffic on it and it allowed me to go faster. Plenty of spots to stop and take a picture of the Blue Water Bridge. This eventually leads to the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse and Lighthouse beach. The later has water and bathrooms by the parking lot which is where the eastern terminus of route 1 is. The water fountain had a ton of pressure.

On this particular ride I went back to Richmond and grabbed a ride from there because it was dark.

I’m considering signing up for the 38 mile Lowell Classic gravel race and would love to hear some feedback from those who have raced it before. I’d be making a bit of a drive to attend, so I’m curious whether it’s worth the trip.

Let's talk about the Irish Hills Gravel Race. It's a beautiful hilly course that starts and finishes at a cool venue (Michigan International Speedway). Unfortunately, that's the only positive thing I can say about it.

Let's start with the biggest issue: a $100 entry fee is very high. It's the most I spent on a race this year. And there was no charity partner as many other races have. So what did we get for $100? Not much.

• No finisher medals. Not a necessity, but many less expensive races have them.
• No post-race food other than a tent selling a few snacks and drinks (but we did get one drink ticket) and a slushy truck. This was especially egregious given the long wait for awards.
• They didn't print enough number plates, so the mini course racers (24-miles, even though it was advertised as 30K) got blank white race plates with black numbers. They even added a digit with black marker! Seriously, printing is cheap and this is what they skimped on?
• Not enough chips for the race plates. Many racers had to have plastic chips zip-tied to their fork and return them after the race.
• Off-white race shirts. Nothing says cheap like a white T-shirt.
• No age group awards for the mini course, which was 24 miles with over 1,000 feet of climbing. This wasn't well communicated before the event and even at the event people were told different things.

Other things of note:

• Their system for live results did not work and we waited forever for them to post. When they did, they weren't even accurate, as the top two finishers for the 24-mile race were listed at under 41 minutes (a 35 mph pace!). The next three were listed as 51 minutes. All of these still show up the morning after the race. We know these aren't right.
• Even finding the venue was problematic. Google takes you to the MIS front gate, but that's not where we needed to go. There were no signs at that gate or on the main road to direct us to the correct entrance. I saw several cars approach the front gate and turn around trying to figure out where to go.
• The course finish was really nice, going through the MIS grounds, but poorly marked with cones. An experienced racer friend of mine got turned around at the end.

Overall, this was an absolute rip-off for the money. I don't want them to fail. I want them to get better. As is stands, this race shouldn't be part of the MGRS series. If they don't make major changes and/or reduce the price substantially, I won't be returning and would discourage anyone else from attending next year. We have many other great races that are better organized and give you more for less money.

I finally got out to The Dragon Trail yesterday and had nearly perfect conditions. We started from Newaygo State Park and went clockwise. It's such a well developed trail, absolutely worth a visit.

Colors were booming

Wet(ish) ride in the middle of the LP yesterday. Good times.

Vasa, Mackinac Island, Little Traverse Wheelway (Petoskey), TART/Leelanau Trail, White Pine Trail (Cadillac). I’m from the west coast so the fall colors had me gagged the entire time!

Has anybody recently been on the Kal-Haven Trail or the Musketawa Trail? How are the conditions and colors? Got a friend coming up for the weekend and was thinking of doing an afternoon ride on one of those.

Would love to do the Manistee Overnighter this weekend, anybody have tips?

If you're local how's the weather? Is it swampy?

Any info would be very helpful!

Made a new friend. He seemed a bit angry, so I made sure to give him his distance.

After taking a bunch of mountain biking trips this summer all my wife wants to do on her birthday is a “long, leisurely ride” to view the fall colors and ride to lunch. We ride the Polly Ann, Paint Creek, CRT, MOT, and Oakland County gravel roads all the time so I want to venture out further and make a weekend of it. Her only stipulation is that it’s some kind of trail, she doesn’t want to deal with vehicle traffic on this ride. Her favorite away from home has been the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail and that’s what I’m leaning toward again, but wanted to see what other trails like that we should check out. If it’s closer to home that would be great since we’re a little pressed for time that weekend as well. Looking for scenery, hopefully with a fun town like Glen Arbor we can ride to for lunch and shopping.

I was talking to some NW MI locals a month or two back about some great trails in the stretch between Traverse City and Mackinaw City. I'm driving through there next week, and now that I'm looking at Trailforks, I can't remember which trail network(s) they said was worth the stop! Glacial Hills? Boyne Forest? Avalanche Preserve? The Highlands? Would prefer blue/black more challenging stuff (as opposed to VASA which I'll be riding over the weekend). Thanks!

I'm looking to ride the full loop of the Dragon trail on Monday and camp there Sunday night? What's the best place to tent camp. Need a shower, would like a nice natural campground.

Also, wondering about water on the trail. Looks like there are a lot of places to get it... but are the pumps still on in mid-October?

Thanks in advance.

Really great trail through mostly woods.

Does anyone here own one and if so what do you think?

I took this picture out on Mike Levine today. It was a bit out of focus, but after playing around with it a bit I think it’s actually a pretty decent picture.

It was a gorgeous day for a ride. Probably not too many left before winter hits.

It's looking to be a gorgeous weekend and we are hitting record numbers for Rode to Hell. Seeing as how I spend way too much time on Reddit I thought I'd offer everyone a $10 off code (code is simply Reddit). Happy to answer any questions anyone has.

Website

I am working on some cool new stuff for course marking and think we will have over 300+ markers on course, and that doesn't count the paint I put down for each route on the corners. It takes so long to set this course that we actually start two days before the event instead of the day of.

I'm planning a tour that loops from Lansing up along the Manistee river, around sleeping bear, up to the bridge, and then back down along the huron side of the state. As part of it I'm stopping in TC to visit family.

I'm having trouble with the section headed north from TC to Petoskey. Normally I try to stick to gravel roads or bike paths to avoid cars, but on RWGPS I don't see any good options in this section until the little traverse wheelway picks up.

So, for people who ride in this area, what is the best way to get North out of TC? Would you follow 31 to at least have a shoulder? Are there good secondary roads? Would you bypass Petoskey entirely and head east to one of the bike paths going north by 75?

I was at a charity ride for Garrett”s Space in Ann Arbor this past Sunday and met the Executive Director of League of Michigan Bicyclists who was also riding. I had a great chat about their priorities and their mission to Unify the community, Advocate for safety and access and to Educate road users on the rights and responsibilities regarding vulnerable road users. I encourage you to join. If you have not had a chance to review the LMB site, here is a link.

Got out for a quick 2 night 3 day bikepack last weekend up to newaygo. Rode lots of gravel single track and sandy two track covered just about 200 miles over half of which was off-road.

Wanted to share some pictures I got along the way.