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Yesterday while hurriedly riding around before the rain I happened over to Utica‘s Heritage Park to check out the new bridge. My last post about this showed just some bare concrete footings, but now there is a quite nice, wide bridge. Once Shelby Township has finished with the asphalt path through River Bends there will be a solid, safe route from Stony Creek all the way to Metro Beach. There’s still a bit of work that will be needed on a frequently flooded crossing under Van Dyke, but everything takes time.
Here is another photo of the bridge as seen from one of the approaches, and this amusing pipe that’s been in place long enough for a tree to grow around it.
What a beauty!
Is there a good route between River Bends and Clinton River Park? Distance?
Once (if) things dry up, I’d like to check out CRP, and linking it with River Bends could make a nice little after-work special.
brad: There is, but it involves riding out a side path from the Seasonal Loops, hopping the train tracks, riding through a field, then into downtown Utica. CRP is pretty darn wet right now (as is River Bends) but if you want to see the path between the two I could probably show you. It’s basically where the forthcoming asphalt path will be going.
Thanks. How quickly does the “seasonal” loop dry up, compared to CRP? I think I recall that side path from our ride a year or so back… basically the trail just seemed to end at the RR tracks, and at the time there wasn’t a nice clean loop in that area.
brad: With all the rain we’ve been having lately I’m guessing it’ll be late June before the whole thing is dry. One can actually ride the half of it on the ridge which is quite nice, as that’s dry sand/clay trail. Unfortunately the continuation of the asphalt path is going to destroy a bunch of that trail.
The specific route to Utica is to hop the tracks via a gap in the brush before really getting to the end of the seasonal loops.