First, we did not ride a century (100 Miles). Fortunately this celebrated annual bike ride in southwest Michigan offered plenty of route options (15, 25, 37, 50, 100) and there was no shaming. We all rode the same last stretch into Three Oaks, Mi. there was no way necessarily to know who rode 15 miles or 100. Dirck and I contemplated chatting loudly as we rode into Three Oaks about how “the first 75 miles were a breeze, but those last 25, man they were tough.”
In truth we road about 34 miles, we think, since we shaved off one wee bit of the 37 mile route (that dipped into Indiana). It was a lovely ride. Mostly flat but with a variety of scenery, from farms with old barns, yellowing corn and browning soybeans outside Three Oaks to big mansions and charming small cottages, old inns (Gordon Beach and Lakeside Inn) and camp along Lake Michigan in New Buffalo and Lakeside to exurbia who-knows-where-exactly with the occasional McMansion or Hamptons-like faux chateau or denser communities of luxury houses or mobile homes on the way back through the woods to Three Oaks.
We couldn’t help comparing the ACC experience to RAGRAI, the Des Moines Registers’s annual great ride across Iowa, which I have partially ridden several times (1 to 3 days) and dirck has done in full (seven days). We saw several RAGBRAI bike jerseys and one woman bragged that she’d ridden ragbrai 21 times. Interesting to find out that the ACC ride and Ragbrai are both 51 this year. RAGBRAI is much longer (a week not a day) and much more of a production to ride and organize. It’s also a lot hillier, windier, hotter (in late July) and challenging, often with 70 or more mile days, one day after another.
I loved that the ACC was so chill. Much smaller so no lines. I was surprised that there were no vendors along the route – no eating your way across Michigan, as in Iowa. No Mr. Pork Chop or loud hand -cranked ice cream machine or pop-up beer gardens. No beer at all, or circus. No “teams” wearing tutus or tiny port-a-potties on their helmets. Or riders trailing boom boxes blaring music.
Very different scene. The only vendor we encountered was a few girls serving free lemonade outside a contemporary house near Lake Michigan. A pumpkin farm also had free cider. We stopped at Roar, an art gallery in a big red barn in Three Oaks, which kindly laid out candy for riders and had the most immaculate port-a-potty I’ve encountered. I appeared to be the first customer, judging from the toilet paper roll which did not roll. (figuring out where to tear it was a challenge.) the gallery owner, whose work exhibited includes his own, also runs a cool Airbnb in Sawyer called Ozzie’s Place.
We encountered only one official “sag stop” on the grounds of a pretty old yellow house in a clearing in the woods and much appreciated the free cider, apples, bananas, trail mix, cookies. water. At the end of the ride, people piled into a Catholic Church hall in Three Oaks for a free spaghetti dinner (spaghetti never tasted so good) and, shades of RAGBRAI, church women served slices of apple or pumpkin pie. No lines. No crowds. No traffic jams. No exhaustion. No major hills. Some families. Lots of Chicagoans. What looked like a few Detroiters.
I wondered how the five different routes would overlap and be marked. EASY Peasy. There were occasional spray painted apples on the street, each route coded a different color. We mostly followed the blue apple signs for the 37 mile ride. and there was enough overlap that we could edit the route, cutting off a little here (sorry, Indiana, maybe we’ll ride your way next time) and adding a little there (to make sure we rode along the lake, a highlight.) Anyway, totally fun and well run and we hope to return.
We’ve cycled along the Des Moines River Trail from downtown at Mullets southeast to the Cownie Soccer fields but yesterday we discovered the trail has recently been extended about six more miles to Easter Lake and it’s a glorious ride that is surprisingly rural in parts (for a city trail). (Turns out this leg of the trail is named after an old friend and now city councilman Carl Voss!)
We passed a lush soybean field and rode through the woods along the river to Easter Park, which we’ve also spent little time at. The Park has a wonderful six-mile trail looping around it and through it with nice playgrounds, cool bridges (including a red covered bridge — shades of the Bridges of Madison County). We found a perfect picnic spot on one bring crossing the late — a stylish high-top circular table with two high-top metal seats, where we ate as a few canoeists paddle below us and some pimply teens goofed around and played Lynyrd Skynrd louder than we’d like but hey, it’s a public park.
Two years ago, when I wrote a cover story about the Raccoon River Valley Trail for Rails to Trails magazine, the trail was looking good. Now it’s even better, as promised two years ago. Where the trail intersects with gravel roads, the section you ride over is now paved – rather than gravel, which is a huge improvement. There is also new landscaping here and there – some with new amenities such as picnic tables — which is also greatly appreciated.
TakeBetsywithyou 