Day 49. Bay City to Flint, 51 miles

I left the coast of Lake Huron today, and I was so busy navigating my way out of Bay City that I neglected to get a final photo. It has been great, Lake Huron 💙💙💙

The day started on the later end; I didn’t get out of the place until 10, and leaving friends is hard! It was a short day to a crappy motel in a destination I wasn’t excited to explore—the seedy outskirts of Flint—so I figured I’d take it slow and enjoy the journey.

Also, the wind had mysteriously turned northward, directly into my face for the only sustained southward portion of my trip 😒 Road don’t care, weather don’t care. And, as I remind myself regularly, none of it compares to the plains winds.

Bay City, like many lakeside tiny cities with some money, had created a nice trail network along its waterfront. This one had art!

I was to be on US Bike Route 20—part of a growing national bike route network—for the first half of the day, which was nice for several reasons. It doesn’t say much about the quality of the road, honestly, but if it’s signed well, as this one was, it tells drivers you belong there and it keeps you from having to stop to verify turns.

I’m still free-mapping it until early Ohio, so this means a mix of state bike maps, Googlemaps routing, and real-time assessments and decisions.

Joyce and I figured out some years back that it’s easier to memorize turn-by-turn directions if you separate the direction of the turn from the street name, effectively memorizing two sets of simple data instead of one complicated one. For example: LRRL; Smith, Healy, E Shore, Hawthorn. Repeat each set a few times, and you’ve got it.

So that’s what I use when the route gets more nuanced, which keeps me from having to stop as often for map checks. The Wahoo device, which I keep on for data even when I’m not running routes on it, also provides a very rough map—when it has one, which it sometimes doesn’t—that I can use for visual cues: “oh, that major-looking road is probably my turn.” And I try to keep a good idea of how long it’ll be between turns; it’s silly to spend nine miles looking for your next turn, and then I can just keep an eye on my mileage and know when to start looking for my road. It’ll be nice to be back in the supportive embrace of the ACA routes with maps, elevation profiles, and cues I’m guessing; it takes that element out of the planning, and I know the route has been vetted. (I’m looking at you, Googlemaps bike routing.)

Though dogged by a persistent headwind that increased in strength throughout the day, as they do, I enjoyed a short stint eastward on trail, a double bonus that I took advantage of by enjoying a break on one of its several thoughtfully placed, shaded benches.

Then the trail ended, as they inevitably do, and I parted ways with USBR 20, because it does not want to go to Flint, while I, apparently, do.

The roads got noticeably worse as I continued south, both the condition of the road and its friendliness to cycling. (I am after all, in the orbit of Flint, a once-big, industrial city with no money anymore. And the outskirts of cities are always dismal.)

I arrived at my motel, and I believe these two photos speak all my words.

I had dinner at the closest place, the Cracker Barrel; Andrew agreed with me that Subway was probably not worth a mile walk. After dinner, I browsed the shop and bought some snacks. This place is so weird.

A 40-second walk back to the motel, and I was in for the night.