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Despite what I said in my last post I went for a nice, long bike ride today. Sometime mid-afternoon the weather was looking better (only a few occasional drop falling) and I was feeling crappy, so I put on some BDU pants, my normal boots, a rainproof jacket, helmet and gloves, and hopped on my bike. I hadn’t intended to go particularly far, but I ended up doing a bit over 20 miles.

I started out by going west down 22 Mile to VanDyke, VanDyke north to 23 Mile, then 23 Mile west to Dequindre north. Not long after getting on Dequindre I came across a possible destination, the easternmost end of the Clinton River Trail. This is right near Onyx Ice Arena, and right where it meets with the Macomb Orchard Trail, which Danielle, Brian, and I rode a five mile section of last weekend. I then got on the Clinton River Trail, headed into downtown Rochester, and rode along the marked route to the beginning of the Paint Creek Trail.

After stopping for a few minutes to look at the river and grab this photo I turned around and headed home. Not long before this the rain had picked up, and so the rest of the ride home was in a steady drizzle. As noted a week ago it’s good to get out in the rain, and it really isn’t that bad.

This ride wasn’t all good, though. While crossing Shelby Road along 23 Mile, and preparing to cross to the south side of 23 Mile, I made a slow, but very sharp turn at a crosswalk. When doing so my front wheel slipped sideways and I almost fell, but was able to hop off and catch the bike. As this happened I felt my right leg above the knee quite gently, but thought nothing of it. Continuing to ride, I noticed that my front wheel now has a distinct wobble. After getting home I’ve since noticed that there are two loose spokes, 90° apart, on the same side of the wheel. I guess tomorrow I’ll pick up a spoke wrench (yes, I know, I really should have one of these) and have at sorting the wheel out.

That said, I’m almost tempted to just bring the front wheel into the shop where I bought the bike. It’s hard to imagine that it should have gone out of true so easily, and they do offer a free bike “tune up” after buying one, which I never took them up on. I could pick up a spoke wrench at that time too, I guess.

After work today I decided to try riding to River Bends Park in Shelby Township, just west of here. I wanted to get there safely using as most pavement as possible, and I did, going as far as one of the old buildings from when the park land was a Nike Hercules missile site. The military standard yellow paint can still be seen on some of the steps above.

Lots more about the Nike program can be found at Wikipedia and Ed Thelen’s Nike Missile Web Site .

Riding there with 20 MPH winds right in my face was a bit challenging, and they caused me to swerve whenever I’d be riding perpendicular to them, but they made riding home nice and easy. I then wound my way home for a total of about 13 miles, put the basket on my bike, then went up to the store for some groceries. All in all I think I rode just abotu 16 – 16.5 miles.

Hopefully another day this week, or maybe this weekend, I can try to make it all the way to Stony Creek via a reasonably safe route.

Here’s two KMZ files, one from yesterday when Danielle, , and I rode a bit over 10 miles on one of the local converted railroad trails, and one from today when I went over to River Bends:

· 06-Apr-2008.kmz (Google Maps)
· 07-Apr-2008.kmz (Google Maps)

After shipping off Mark’s P3 yesterday I decided to go for a bit of a bike ride. With the finally-like-spring weather here in SE Michigan (57°) I was actually able to wear a light shirt, biking shorts (baggies), and proper biking shoes while riding.

I first headed down Schoenherr with the intention of riding to Metro Parkway, but I soon found that sidewalk / pathway abruptly ends just north of Clinton River Road. That means that one of the largest north / south roads in the area misses connecting to one of the biggest east / west roads by about a mile. One can’t really ride in the road because it’s 50MPH with no shoulders, and riding along the side of the road means going through muddy grass, and crossing rivers while riding in traffic. So, I decided to head west along Clinton River road. Right after passing under the large set of high tension power lines I saw the entrance to the trails along the Clinton River.

Riding through there I eventually passed through Dodge Park, past the nature center, under M-53, and to the very muddy end of the trail next to the Social Security office along VanDyke. Riding along the trail was nice, as it’s a very curvy bit of occasionally mud covered (it is a floodplain, after all) asphalt, with not-huge-but-fun hills. There were a good number of people and dogs out on the trail, but for the most part no one was a problem and I was able to easily pass by just slowing down and saying excuse me if they hadn’t already seen me.

After hitting the end of the trail I turned north along VanDyke, but the first 1/2 miles or so there is only a well worn dirt path clearly used by other people taking the same route I did. I then headed along there and wound my way through neighborhoods and parks, across one of the new(-ish) M-53 pedestrian overpasses, through some more neighborhoods, and back home.

If you’re interested, here is a KMZ of yesterday’s route, and here it is right in Google Maps.

While I didn’t make it all the way to Metro Parkway, being able to easily get to Dodge Park showed that there’s a long, fun route which I can take to reach the trail to Metro Beach and possibly further than that. Now I just need to find a safe way to reach the Paint Creek and Macomb Orchard Trails.