Month: July 2016

Well, it seems it has become a sort of July 4th tradition to go on a bike trip!

Most recently, we traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan to ride the White Pine Trail (in 2014, we rode Great Allegheny Passage – C&O Towpath, and in 2015 rode Elroy-Sparta).  Here are the details of the White Pine Trail – in planning the trip, we primarily relied on the Friends of the White Pine Trail website:

• Who: In addition to myself, other riders included Ellen, Yesica, and Autumn. Lauren came along as well, but was our wonderful SAG wagon driver (which also meant we didn’t have to carry panniers and gear on our bikes this time!);
• What: The White Pine Trial is about a 94-long rail-trail that heads north from Grand Rapids to Cadillac, Michigan. It consists of both paved (very nice) and unpaved sections. As a heads up, the unpaved sections would be a bit rough for road bike skinny tires, but hybrid tires were fine.
• When: July 2 – July 5

Our more detailed itinerary and photos are below:

Day 1: July 2 – Grand Rapids to Morley (~35 miles)

Once we arrived in Grand Rapids, we found what we thought was the trailhead pretty easily. Apparently, we were just a tad bit north of the actual trailhead, but we found a free carpool lot to leave a car at over the weekend, so we decided to just leave from there.  It was a gorgeous day for riding – here we are at the start:

Mile 0

And, here’s our Support Crew:

Service with a smile!

This first day’s section of the trail was about 21 miles paved versus 14 miles unpaved, so overall it was pretty  smooth sailing.  We passed some small towns and made one stop to watch what we thought was a rodeo (exciting!), but actually turned out to be a greased-pig-catching contest in which a variety of little kids tried to catch (or something?) a pig that had been greased up.  I was rooting for the pig, to be quite honest.  Anyway, it seems many people from the town where in attendance, and the event had some standard carnival food like elephant ears and lemonades.  Delish.  We stayed about 15 minutes though and then it was back in the saddle.

Carnival Food

The first night we had booked a tent site at Mecosta Pines, which is about half a mile or so off the trail.  It was a quite nice campground with clean showers and friendly people. True to its name, the entrance to the campground was a cool alleyway of tall pines:

Once there, we had a good dinner at camp, built a campfire, and then went to bed somewhat early.

Day 2: July 3 – Morley – Cadillac (~60 miles)

After breakfast at camp, we hit the trail again around 9 am to get an early start for what would be a longer day of riding.  Overall, this day of riding would be pretty evenly split between paved and unpaved sections, and would consist of more uphill than downhill (although, of course all moderate hills since it’s a rail trail).

Along the trail, we sporadically saw old railroad milstones.   I always think it’s cool to see some of the old railroad relics on rail trails.

And this old sign:

Here’s a paved section of the trail, with some sort of old building next to it:

Prior to Cadillac, Reed City has a very nice depot, with bathrooms and water, and the Pere Marquette Trail also intersects with Reed City if you’re looking for another route.

All in all, this was a hard riding day. In addition to riding about 60 miles mostly uphill, it was also in the mid-80s and the trail had little shade on the unpaved portions.  The unpaved sections seem to get little use (we saw maybe 5 other riders the whole day on these sections) and are a combination of gravel, dirt, and grass.

Still not as rough as the C&O Towpath!

Our destination in Cadillac was William Mitchell State Park campground, which is in a really cool location on the isthmus between Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell.  The campground was very crowded, primarily with RVs, but it’s hard to beat a location near the water. Yesica and I jumped in one of the lakes, happy to get out of the heat!

Relief

Autumn’s parents and sister met us at the campground for dinner – for brats, burgers, veggie burgers, portobellos, corn on the cob, and s’mores!

Continue reading Part II:  Days 3 and 4!