In the area for work and I was blown away by the trails out here. Had a blast breaking the bike in.

I grew up in Grosse Pointe and my grandparents had a cottage on Lake Huron in Canada about 15 minutes outside of Sarnia. One time when I was visiting, some family friends showed up and they had biked up from GP. I've since made reproducing their journey a bucket list item. My route would probably be different from theirs: I *believe* you used to be able to bike over the Blue Water Bridge, for example, and there was also the Sombra ferry.

How would you do it? My priority is a route that's as bike friendly as possible, not speed. Bonus points for quality nature and/or camping options.

I'm registered for the short course 32mi DRVG that's coming up in a week or so. It's a new-to-me event. What can I expect of the course, event, vibes? Looks fairly hilly. Anyone else planning on it this year? I'm still relatively new to the racing events -- I've done Waterloo G+G a couple times but that's it -- and hoping for a little better performance than my out-of-condition showing in April! But looking forward to a festive event!

What is the best route to take from Charlevoix to Petoskey and back? I know there is the little traverse wheel way but I heard part of it is closed and we would like to make it a loop. Has anyone cut back down Horton Bay to Boyne-Charlevoix road to get back?

I grew up in Michigan, but I live in Colorado now. Competitive mountain bike racer. Home for a while to race ore 2 shore and some other events.

I'll be staying in the Traverse City area for a while, but I haven't done a ton of mountain biking up there. Excited to see what there is to ride when the smoke clears!

Wondering if anyone has recommendations for a good mountain bike centric shop up in that area. I'm going to be putting in a lot of miles up in that area in the coming weeks.

Also would be open to trail/gravel recs!

Thanks!

Went out with a buddy today and got cooked. The trail was in mostly great shape. Still some debris from the storm but nothing that requires a detour or dismount.

First ride with the new gearing and crank.

Checkpoint ALR5 Gen 3. Been out of the game for 8 years, excited to get back to it. I’m looking for some nice gravel routes that aren’t TOO far away from the SE area. I’ll be getting into bikepacking once I build up some endurance and outfit my bike correctly. Thanks in advance. Looking to join a couple clubs too and make some friends in the community.

P.S. - I know I need to rotate my bars a little more forward. Bike is fresh out of the shop

Edit - spelling typo

Hi y’all I’m in traverse city for the week. A couple days ago I rode around the mission peninsula and it was amazing. I’m hoping to do a ride tomorrow that goes SW Bay Shore Drive and connects to the Leelanau trail. I just wanted to know whether this a safe well traveled road. I’m happy to do an out and back on the trail, but id love to ride along the water if I can. Link to the route here: https://www.strava.com/routes/3510446757827576274

Hey yall, I’m in the Detroit area trying to find a shop who can do a same or next day tire change on an ebike. I already have the tires just don’t have spoons and stuff. Any recommendations would be highly appreciated, thank you!

I am upping my rides this season and pushing into uncharted territory. Usually head towards Richmond / Armada / Romeo from my door and am able to refill before heading back.

I don't see any parks or anything that might have water other than a fuel center in Capac and the overpass looks like it might be a little too busy for my liking.

Anything in that general area that I am missing? Not seeing much other than Almont and Memphis.

Also, any roads up that way that are nicer than the others? I try to stick to dirt

Thanks

If you had to choose three bikes to own in metro Detroit, what would they be? I currently have a Felt tri bike (for sure not getting rid of, my baby!) and a trek Domane AL5 with two sets of wheels for gravel and road. I would like to add another bike into the mix, but unsure on what to do. So I buy a mountain bike? Something I would love to get into. Or do I buy a gravel bike? A carbon road bike? Upgrade my domane to carbon? I am in west bloomfield area, enjoying gravel as much as I can. Haven’t explored much on road thus far.

Hi, I’m biking with a friend to Sault Ste. Marie from near siren starting in two days. I saw that the Michigan state trail (105 mile rail trail) is an option for part of it. I’m looking for knowledge and advice on the conditions of this trail—I have a gravel bike but my friend has road with wide tires (28c). He can ride on crushed limestone no prob.

I’m also looking for route recommendations more broadly. There is an adventure cycling route, but I’m hesitant to buy it because I am on a budget and don’t know if it’s worth the money.

Any info really is helpful. Thanks!

Along the North Central State Trail in Waters.

It's actually gonna be around 5 weeks there. I'm not familiar with the area, so I don't know if there are many gravel routes near there. Any suggestions for good rides or group rides?

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My name is Jason. I'm going on 2 years of sobriety. I am turning my life around for the better and I'm trying to get things in order but it's a slow process. I started a job that I genuinely enjoy doing and I don't wanna lose it because I don't have a way to get to work. I currently have to travel about 20 minutes one way to work on my bicycle. But I will be moving to westland and the end of July and my ride time will increase to an hour one way. So working 8 hours a day then 2 hours of biking is not gonna be possible. I'm looking for an electric bike but I'm limited on money and being able to pick it up. Is there any advice or anyone have something they have that will fit my needs? I'm a fairly large guy. I'm 6'3 330ish pounds. I have a mongoose Aztec 26" fat tire bike right now. It holds my weight well so I'm looking for something close to that. Comment or inbox me. If you send me a message leave a comment so I know you've messaged. Thank you!

Preparing for a long ass ride so I took to route 1 starting on the portion closest to me (West Bloomfield) and then booked it across the state. Figured I'd break this down by trail so it's easier to digest. Feel free to ask questions as I probably left out plenty!

TLDR - Loved the ride. Kalamazoo sucks. 200 miles is long. Happy for a light to finish the ride

West Bloomfield trail - Great suburban trail. If this isn't your starting point there is a water station on the trail which can be mighty helpful. They cut down a lot of trees this year so areas that used to be shaded are not as great as they were.

Airline trail - Also a great suburban trail. They redid the bathrooms at one of the parks but I think they got rid of the bottle filling station. I haven't confirmed that.

Port Huron trail - Same as above. One of the steeper climbs is here on your way to Island Lake

Island Lake - I spent most of my time on the road and not on the walking path. Eventually you're on the road so I just skipped the people part. Water is nice. This was my first water stop.

23 connector - Meh... It's a path that keeps you out of the road and then it ends. At least the construction at 9 mile is done so you can get under 23. Construction at silver lake road is also done.

Mike Levine Lakelands Trail State Park - Delightful. For your suburban spoiled biker this is where water started to become difficult to come by. (side comment: I love how much trail infrastructure we have in this state. My water gripe here is trivial compared to riding in other states). I am happy to report that a new fountain was installed in Stockbridge! It's easy to miss because it's near the equestrian staging area. Had a good mix of gravel and paved sections along with shade and exposed areas. Enjoy the prisons.

Mike Levine to Jackson - The only protected bike lane that I came across. Honestly I was shocked it existed. Clearly new.

Grand River Arts Walk - Kind of neat. MI Trails said there was water in Lions park but I certainly couldn't find it

MLK Equality trail - I'm not sure I was on this but somewhere in Jackson the trail was closed and poorly marked for detour. It wasn't hard to figure out but annoying. Google shows it as "Inter city bike trail". Generous path size and very new. Get some mature trees and it will be lovely. Looks well illuminated for the night too. For those from Sterling Heights they have their own interpretation of the golden butthole

Falling Waters Trail - Started with a nice art exhibit and the scenery was pleasant.

Trail in Concord was taped off by the sheriff. Looks like they were having an event in the park. It's interesting to me that Concord claimed to be a very bike friendly place and there was just a single port-a-potty. Maybe in the closed park there was more.

Random roads - Took a bunch of roads through Michigan farmland to Albion. Very little traffic so it was enjoyable.

Albion River Tail - Fine trail. Plenty of people were out and about enjoying the park. There is a natural spring with a big sign saying it was not potable, darn. There was also a water fountain downtown that didn't work. I should have stopped downtown to get some water this is on me. Oh there was a really cool Coke sign on the side of a building on the river.

More random roads - Headed to Marshall and it was at this point that I had run out of water. Luckily there was a gas station so I bought a gallon of water and restocked. They had a nice square that had plenty of shade and a fountain that was a nice spot to recover a bit. Marshall itself was pretty nice from what I could tell. Back on the road I headed towards battle creek.

Calhoun County Trailway - Another nice trail. They had water (yay!) There was also a really entertaining run of gravel here. I wish it lasted longer. There were signs that this was part of the North Country National Scenic trail which I'll definitely have to look at because this was fun.

Battlecreek linear trail - Great except for part of the trail being closed. Detour signs just sort of stopped too but again nothing too hard to navigate. Was surprised I didn't come across any water in the downtown area.

M96 - The paved trail here is not in great shape. I debated numerous times about just getting on the road and in hindsight given what I found in Kalamazoo this is probably for the best. Not a fun part of the trip.

Kalamazoo river trail - I was hoping for more from this. The eastern most section starts well and then you're just zipping along M96 (albeit this was in better shape). Needed to be on alert for traffic on side streets. When you do veer off M96 you end up with what could be nice, but alas... Plenty of homeless camps and trash everywhere. One of the parts of the trail was closed so I had to use a cross walk and boy were people pissed. The whole experience left a lot to be desired. I hope your ride goes better. Once you get the the other side of the city things are better.

Kal-Haven Trail - I got to this point pretty late and the sun was setting. It's a nice trail and I'd love to have been able to see it beyond what my bike light could illuminate. What I can say is that it was a well deserved downhill. It was dark, the rain was coming in, and the lighting was entertaining if not a bit concerning at this point in the trip. I almost missed the buoy for route 1! I did grab water at the eastern end. Water was pretty rusty and the hand pump is difficult to operate so just put that bottle on the ground. I ended up not using this water. I did see a few other pumps along the route but didn't stop.

I've biked to two state forests and both were very ATV-centric with unrideable beach-like sand covering much of the paths. Are all state forests in Michigan this way? I love the draw of dispersed camping in these areas: free and fully natural. But the trails are nearly impossible to enjoy on a bike.

NOTE: I am talking about state forests, not state parks. It looks like Manistee National Forest would fit the bill, but just curious if there are any other options for decent dispersed camping in MI.

Everyone talks about DTE, Merrel, Fort Custer, Yankee Springs, etc. But one that's almost never talked about is Maple Hill. It's genuinely one of my favorite trails in the state, I think it has arguably the best dedicated downhill sections out of any other trail (maybe Merrel beats it, but some of the jumps are not beginner friendly). The jumps are super chill and forgiving while being capable of getting big air, and you can carry some serious speed down the trails.

The climbs (depending on the day) aren't too bad and the whole system isn't that large. I was able to do 4 laps of all the trails before I was wiped. But another good part is that both trails meet at the top, so you can just take the easier climb for that day, and cross over to the other trails downhill section.

Every time I go there on the weekend there's like at max 10 cars and they're usually locals. I just wanted to spread the love for Maple Hill and say it's a super underrated MTB trail imo. Go check it out!

I can say i rode 300 miles now but good lord do i hope i never become delusional enough to do it again. Atleast michigan is a beautiful state and had great scenery the entire way

Hello, I am wondering if anyone has the new 30 mile course map for The Divide, Manton, MI gravel race? I am not able to do the ride this year, since it conflicts with my family reunion, but I want to try to course since it's omitting the sandy Gilbert Corners. If someone has the route can you please share it with me. From my understanding, the map comes with the registration and is different from prior years.