Leelanau Harvest

I was waiting and waiting to see if the weather was going to cooperate and fulfill the long range forecast hope. Hey it worked!  I had great weather for a weekend in the woods.  The Leelanau Harvest Tour is a charity ride I hadn't ridden.  Starting  a few miles northwest of Traverse City

 on the Leelanau Trail which is also part of US Bike Route 35 following the lake shore from New Buffalo to

 Mackinaw City.

We didn't do  that, but the trail is a beautifully paved trail to start the ride, cutting through the orchards and vineyards of the Leelanau peninsula.

Dancing ornaments were found

as well as the ripened orchards of the area

until we reached the main attraction.  

Lake Leelanau is enourmous and was peeking

 through the trees all along the roads.

Unlike the Paw Paw harvest tour

 there were more orchards than vineyards

 and I missed the fragrance filling every breath.

E-bikers were out gliding through the hilly course,

not with  monsterous mountains

but frequent steep climbs. 

I'll admit to some conceited smugness as 

I pedaled my Sam Hillborne past a number of

 spandex hamsters pushing their 

crabon crotch rockets up the grades.

It was a windless 40 mile ride through the fruit industry

 back to the village of Suttons Bay on the big lake

where a few hundred surviving riders shared 

 lunch, ice cream and stories.

It was a welcome break from the routine and another

night in the woods by the lake at Interlochen.

A couple good books

      I managed to squeeze a couple good books about cycling into my frantic summer reading schedule.  

      The first was Camageddon: how cars make life worse and what to do about it.   The author, Daniel Knowles, is a journalist who lives in Chicago.  Thanks to his globe  trotting assignments writing for the Economist magazine, he is able to provide an expansive look at the effect the automobile is having all over the world.  His vision compares experiences in cities on every continent. 

This very well written book explains effects the automobile has had from Mumbai, to Kenya to Houston, New York and elsewhere.  It provides a macro world view of social problems, air pollution and concrete everything that has developed to support the auto industry.

     The second one is The Immortal Class; Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power.  The author, Travis Hugh Culley, is also a Chicago resident.

His is a more personal, gritty, street level look at urban cycling.  A former theater student who needed "A JOB" found his way into the life of bike riding for a profession.  It's a beautifully composed story of sweat, confusion and success living and racing on dangerous streets at high speeds.

     Carmageddon is a cold blooded analysis of the global insertion of the auto into urban life and the challenges it is creating for the future.  The Immortal Class is a shot of adrenaline straight off the street reaching the same conclusions.  They're both a pleasure to read.

If you can't trust Google...?

     It was time to get out of the house for a few days, so I wandered up north into the Manistee forest while 3 beautiful days were predicted.  It's just a 2 1/2 hour drive to Mesick.  The weather charmers were right, it was intoxicating to be outside for a few days.

The location was motivated by the green dotted line you see on Google Maps

It's a bike trail I had seen on the map for years but had never heard mentioned by anybody.  It's about 45 miles long stretching from Mesick, Mi. to the coast at Frankfort.  There is some charming countryside in the area meandering through Thompsonville and the Crystal Mountain area.  So I set out to give it a try.

I found it, and never set a tire on it.  It may be an abandoned rail line because the gravel is about the consistency of granite slag used for rail beds.  It's rough stuff.

my 45mm tires would have made that some real work.

The sign on the intersection forbids motorized "wheeled" traffic so I assume it's a great place for snowmobiles in the winter time and probably a commuter route for some of the locals in January.  But, for bikes I'd give it a big thumbs down.  Well, I suppose a hyper competitive, masochist on a fat bike could have some fun with it, but I just don't qualify.

That really  doesn't matter because there are miles and miles of well maintained gravel roads winding through beautiful forestland with virtually no traffic.  Enough to keep me smiling for a few days.

Day at the beach

Thought I'd take a trip over to the coast since the weather was spectacular.

The ride on the Kal Haven trail is well known but

 the western half has been rejuvenated and resurfaced.

There are several upgrades along the way 

with rest areas added to the more scenic spots.

and the surface has been graded and

 the packed limestone surface expanded.

Of course you never know who you might meet along the way.

Several smaller bridges have been replaced with steel structures

At the end near SH. They've made extensive upgrades with steel piling along

 the Black River and erosion control to prevent  dramatic washouts 

during the river floods

and despite the local protests, the "iconic" covered bridge has been replaced as well.  The campground at Van Buren State Park was overflowing.  It's nice to have a modern campground with showers and toilets but it's truck loads of kids crammed together to "experience" the outdoors and rough it in a trailer park.

With the weather as perfect as it could be, the town was en-thronged with tourists. So much that it took an hour to find a seat at a bar to order a burger at 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon.  It was in the the 60's during Thursday, so the beachcombers headed indoors and left most of the beach for the grazing seagulls.

It's always beyond beautiful on the coast 

and off the coast when taking a few days for the trip.  

The temps remained in the 50's to 70's for all three days 

which made the 130 miles pedaling a virtual dream.