Pavement – Bike Trails and Tales

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!

Welp, Day 5 was an adjustment, in terms of riding. We woke up from our hotel in Cumberland, biked to Mile O of the C&O Towpath and, as anticipated, found that it was indeed quite bumpy.

While the GAP is primarily crushed limestone, the Towpath is a 1-lane dirt road covered with tree roots, sticks, mud puddles, and horse manure. Running parallel is the old canal, which fell out of use in the 1920s, and is now green and boggy.

Mentally it was a difficult riding day, as it was one of our longer ones at 60 miles. But, we also know that every adventure trip has its ups and downs, and knew we would soon rally.

A cool point in the ride was seeing Paw Paw Tunnel, which we had to walk our bikes through for the entire 0.6 miles. It was much cooler in the tunnel than outside, and the ground inside was very uneven and bumpy. I remember looking to my right a couple of times at the wall and seeing large chunks of brick missing (a perfect spot to hide a treasure if you ask me).

A high point was stopping at Bill’s Place for pizza and crab cakes. Although, it did have a Confederate flag on the ceiling and some interesting signs:

I have no idea what this means.

Along the Towpath, every couple miles is a lock, which is cool, as each one also has an old lock house:

Now, remember our flat tire a few days ago? Well, when Ellen and I were at the bike store getting some tubes, the owner gave us a tip to pick up the Western Maryland Rail Trail, which is paved and runs parallel to the Towpath for 22 miles. That started about 50 miles in:

Wonderful, heavenly pavement!

At the end of our ride, we made it to Happy Hills Campground. This site was teeming with people and families celebrating the July 4th weekend. Despite the crowds, we were happy to shower, set up our tents, and eat supper. Lauren cooked a delicious meal, complete with pie for dessert:

Everyone was very friendly at the aptly-named Happy Hills. Some of the regulars there, those who seem to pay for spots on a seasonal basis, have quite impressive campers and set-ups. The family next to us had a massive camper, complete with a big TV, a front porch, a shed, and a cool tripod grate (which they let us borrow to roast our pies over our campfire!)

A couple hours after we arrived at Happy Hills, a few guys probably in their mid-20s showed up after us who had also ridden from Cumberland. Although, lucky them, a man was supporting them via truck and had set up their tents for them, brought them a cooler, and inflated air mattresses for them.

Not going to lie, we were proud of ourselves for doing the ride completely self-supported, and for being at least a decade older than them.

We then made our campfire and, later, retired to our tents to the sounds of a live country music cover band, underage girls drunkenly talking, and random young men shouting “whooooo.”

Onward we go!

Today’s Mileage: 60

Tomorrow’s Itinerary: Hancock, MD to Harper’s Ferry, WV

Tag: Pavement

White Pine Trail – Part I

Day 5: The C&O Towpath Experience

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