Iowa spoiled us when it comes to biking, offering so many great trails hidden in the woods, lining rivers or along former rail lines, away from the cars and pickups that rumble down rural backroads, kicking up dust and occasionally causing heart palpitations.
But here in SW Michigan, in the absence of designated bike trails, we are getting into biking the backroads (aka “secondary roads”) around Three Oaks, with help from handy brochures with 9 routes to the north and 9 to the south. We found the brochures at the Dewey Cannon Trading Co./three oaks bicycle museum which also offers rental bikes.
The routes are charted by Three Oaks Spokes, a nonprofit bike touring club, the same folks hosting the annual “apple cider century” bike tour this weekend (last September Sunday), offering 15, 25, 50, 75 and 100 mile rides. I also found slightly different routes online at applecidercentury.com.
We rode most of the “Dayton Lake Trail” and learned the hard way that improvising can be tricky.
We tried a few alternate roads to shorten the 28-mile ride (due to daunting headwinds that slowed us so much that I wondered if my bike had a flat tire) and occasionally found ourselves on a scary highway (route 12) with huge trucks speeding by, way too close, or bucolic dirt and gravel roads lined with tall browning corn or yellowing soybeans, dotted with an old barn or farmhouse. One very scenic and empty paved road (Buffalo Road) turned suddenly into an “un-improved road,” according to the official sign. Too unimproved to ride safely.
TakeBetsywithyou 