Remember that thing I said yesterday about being able to get around/out of Flint without much fuss? That was dumb, I was dumb.
It was absolutely awful for 40+ miles, some of the most unpleasant riding of the trip so far. Unsurprisingly, the pleasant 15-20 miles were my approach to Ann Arbor, with its ample bike lanes and paved trails.
Googlemaps had me on Linden Road out of Flint, the same road I’d come in on. It parallels 23 south from Flint and appeared to be the only thing that went through for a long stretch. It was icky. Four lanes, no shoulder, high curb to grassy berm with no sidewalk. Honestly, that’s fairly rare. Usually it’s an established pattern: you hit a town and the shoulder disappears and the road becomes two lanes. A sidewalk or trail appears, and it may be cracked and poorly maintained and run through dozens of bumpy entrances to strip mall businesses or fast food places, but it keeps you off the road. Not in southern Michigan, it turns out. There was zero acknowledgement of the existence of pedestrians or bikes; even in the residential parts there was no sidewalk communicating between the houses—just grass and then driveway then grass then driveway.
It was not cool, and I didn’t like it. At some point, in desperation, I sat by the road and googled “ride bike Flint to Ann Arbor.” I found a post on a bike forum by a guy who was looking to commute between the two cities and wanted to know about good routes. The advice he got was that if he could make it Brighton there was a nice road from there to Ann Arbor. I looked at the map; Brighton was about 20 miles short of Ann Arbor.
I was also eager to meet up with Andrew, which made me impatient. So I trucked through the miles, realizing not for the first time that some places were not meant to be biked through.
At some point a thing resembling a shoulder appeared, and I was so excited I took a photo.
Then I neared Ann Arbor, and bike lanes and trails appeared, and the Huron River, and also a hill at the top of which was the B&B Andrew had booked for us. It was totally adorable, a loft room with a treehouse feel, and we had a rest day in Ann Arbor ahead of us tomorrow. We walked down to the river path and watched folks tubing down on the lazy current and ogled a great blue heron. Later we went out for tapas and cocktails followed by frozen treats. Totally worth the ride ❤️
Glad you made it. Flint feels like a free range penitentiary.
Enjoy!!! I love Ann Arbor. It is such a great town ☺️ Zingerman’s is a must.
I’m feeling about Flint the way I did about North Dakota. 😒 I could feel the clouds parting and the sun shining again in your description of Ann Arbor though. And rest day with your main squeeze—YAY!!!
Ooo, that’s a tuff ride today. But how was the ice cream!!??