This isn’t my last time on the scooter this year, not even close. But it’s probably the last time I’ll be just getting on and riding out of town.
I rode to Saranac and back, mostly on Grand River Drive, a two-laner that follows the river east of the city. It’s about 30 miles each way, mostly through farm- and wood-land. It’s pretty this time of year with the leaves changing. But I missed a lot of them, and it’s cool even with the sun shining. Which is why this is probably it for the year.
I had an uneventful ride east. I stopped briefly in Saranac, and again in Lansing, but mostly just drove straight through.
The ride thru Lansing itself was pretty bleak: just a bunch of urban decay along Grand River Avenue. There’s an immediate change when it enters EAST Lansing, where suddenly you’re in a fairly vibrant university town with a thriving retail business district. But it wasn’t until well past metro Lansing that the traffic thinned out. I’m going to try riding around it on the way home.
I got a rustic campsite at Brighton Rec Area. I scouted out their other site, which is a little closer to Brighton, but that turned out to be a mistake. It was a long hilly dirt road, and also wet. I had to go slow and keep my feet out in case I slipped. It’d be faster and easier to get back to the rustic campground further out, near the day-use area. The site I got is nice enough, just off Appleton Lake.
The weather was rainy yesterday morning, and I really wasn’t in the mood for a cold overnight, so I didn’t try for a weekend shakedown cruise. Instead I took a smaller intermediate step, taking Flash on a fairly short day trip.
I didn’t have a destination as such. Instead I set out on a route I used to take fairly often on my bicycle, back when I rode frequently for recreation and exercise. I took Ada Drive all the way out to Ada (a nice little town that’s incongruously the world headquarters of Amway), then picked up Grand River Drive. This road runs loosely parallel to the interstate, so it’s low traffic, and following the south bank of the river, it’s not very hilly. It’s the sort of road I hope to spend most of my time on for my excursion around the Lake.
I cruised past Lowell (which is about the farthest I’ve gone on my bike) and continued on to Saranac, about 30 miles from home. I road a few blocks through the town, but I was feeling a little chilly, so I headed back for home. It was a total of about 60 miles and a couple hours, which is roughly half of what I plan to do in a day on the road.
In addition to being under 60ºF, it was also pretty windy. I knew that heading out, and figured it would be good practise: riding with the wind (mostly) at my back on the way out, and in my face on the way back. I definitely handled the wind with more confidence than my first nervous ride out to Ada, the weekend after getting the scooter. And I think the scooter handled it better as well, with the speedometer reading 40mph (which probably means 35mph) even with a headwind.
Certainly not a major challenge, but another step toward the big adventure.
