Tonight I headed south on the White Pine Trail without a real plan on where or how far I was going to ride. When I got to the ball park I decided to cross the river and head through Riverside Park. Much to my surprise I found a new, paved, marked, two way bike lane trucked between the park and and North Monroe. I decided to see how far this new bike lane went. As I neared the south end of the park the bike lane split to a single lane on each side of the road. I continued following as this area has had sporadic lane markings in the past. Now I was able to get all the way to the 6th Street bridge and the bike lane continued on. But I needed to turn back for home. So I crossed the river and followed the bike lane that runs along Seward Street. The roadway lane ends, but it then becomes a paved path which takes the rider north to Ann Street. At this point there are several directional signs pointing to the White Pine Trail. I followed these and ended up back at the south end of Riverside Park. This time I traveled along the path near the river, crossed the Grand river again on North Park Street, and then hooked up with the south end of the WPT. The entire trip was 22 miles. The great part is that I can now ride from my house to downtown Grand Rapids on bike trails or marked bike lanes the entire way. All the talk about being a bike friendly city appears to be coming true.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Urban Riding
Tonight I headed south on the White Pine Trail without a real plan on where or how far I was going to ride. When I got to the ball park I decided to cross the river and head through Riverside Park. Much to my surprise I found a new, paved, marked, two way bike lane trucked between the park and and North Monroe. I decided to see how far this new bike lane went. As I neared the south end of the park the bike lane split to a single lane on each side of the road. I continued following as this area has had sporadic lane markings in the past. Now I was able to get all the way to the 6th Street bridge and the bike lane continued on. But I needed to turn back for home. So I crossed the river and followed the bike lane that runs along Seward Street. The roadway lane ends, but it then becomes a paved path which takes the rider north to Ann Street. At this point there are several directional signs pointing to the White Pine Trail. I followed these and ended up back at the south end of Riverside Park. This time I traveled along the path near the river, crossed the Grand river again on North Park Street, and then hooked up with the south end of the WPT. The entire trip was 22 miles. The great part is that I can now ride from my house to downtown Grand Rapids on bike trails or marked bike lanes the entire way. All the talk about being a bike friendly city appears to be coming true.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Happy Father's Day
The best part of Father's Day was hearing from all three of my children, plus Colleen is home from D.C. for a few days, and we went out to visit my Dad in Lowell. We started the day with a 33 mile team ride. We left from team mate Mike Barnes house in Jenison. We traveled through little towns of eastern Ottawa County. I know they were towns because they had green road signs announcing their names. They was no other way to tell. The ride itself was good except for Mary getting three flats, two before we started, and having a tire almost explode. We were about 22 miles into the ride and were taking a quick break to get reassembled. Mary looked down at her front tire and said "Should my tire have a little bubble on the side like that?" She had a cut in the sidewall of her tire and the tube was starting to poke through. A quick field fix with an empty GU wrapper (thanks Coaches Mike and Derek) and she was good to go again. We finished the cycling part of the day with burgers on the grill on a beautiful Summer Solstice.
Mary and I also got out for a ride on Thursday, just 21 miles on the White Pine Trail through Rockford up to Russel Road. That's 54 miles for this weekend. After a couple weeks of very little riding because of work and weather it feels good to be getting some miles in.
Mary and I also got out for a ride on Thursday, just 21 miles on the White Pine Trail through Rockford up to Russel Road. That's 54 miles for this weekend. After a couple weeks of very little riding because of work and weather it feels good to be getting some miles in.
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