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Tonight’s ride† showed me that the bridge being placed in Heritage Park, which will connect downtown Utica with some nice asphalt trails and allow for a safer crossing of VanDyke, isn’t in place yet. The pilings and approaches for it are nearly done and a crane is sitting and waiting, but the bridge itself apparently still needs to be delivered and set in place.
Per reports I’ve read online it’s slated for some time in November, so hopefully it’ll happen before the snow flies. This bridge allows for a very nice foot or bicycle route route from River Bends through Utica, then over to everything on the east side along Metro Parkway, including the new single track in Clinton River Park. While neither this nor River Bends are particularly challenging trails, they make for very nice, fun rides and a great place to go in evenings; particularly after dark.
The trails are in absolutely perfect shape right now, with the leaves gently breaking down over hard pack and leaving the trail route quite nicely visible. I was worried that River Bends would repeatedly become completely obscured by leaves, but it appears that a bit of raking right after the heaviest leaf falls has done the trick. Now I just need to wait for some vacation time (next week!) so that I can get out there and finish the seasonal loop. It’s almost ready, only needing some general clearing, line trimming, one segment reopened, and (maybe) a small bridge built over a creek down in the flood plane. Or the bridge could just not be built and I can recommend that people get better at bunny hops and/or cyclocross-style dismounts.
† Home, to River Bends via some neighborhoods, one lap of the single track (including the seasonal loop), pavement after the single track, over to downtown Utica via Shelby/Cass, tunnel under M-59, to the unfinished bridge, back into the neighborhoods, into Heritage Park, tunnel under VanDyke, asphalt path through Clinton River Park, CRP single track, Schoenherr, 19 Mile, Hayes, 21 Mile, Milonas Drive, a bit of Heritage Place North, a lap around Heritage Place West, then back home. 25.55 miles, 1:55:17 moving time, 13.30 MPH moving average, 25.9 MPH max.
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