Rails to Trails and Parks - Oh, my!

As I have previously noted, the first big, long-term goal I set for myself after I retired was to ride the two hundred miles of the Katy Trail in Missouri. This is the trip that my friend Sue spearheaded and that we trained for during the 5 months leading up to the tour. Our training rides included the three Metroparks in the New Boston area (Oakwoods, Willow and Lower Huron), the KalHaven rail-trail and the Pere Marquette rail-trail.

So far, the park ride is my favorite. It is a scenic 25 miles, with a few "hills" to give it some texture and enough flat land so that new riders are not over-taxed. Our training group, including a few drop-in friends who came along for the exercise from time to time, would meet at a picnic area in Willow. We started by riding down to the nature center at the far end of Oakwoods, then back up through Willow and onto the connector path that takes you to Lower Huron. We would ride the length of the park and out the far end onto a nice flat road that took us back along the edge of the park and into New Boston. A little way past Waltz Road, there is a little breakfast/lunch place which is a great place to take a break, about 18 miles into the ride. After the break, we would take the connector back to Willow and our cars.

By August, only 6 weeks away from our Katy trip, we were ready to do a back-to-back, two-day ride. Doug and I had run across literature on the KalHaven trail when we were at Al Petri's one day. It was described as a family-friendly and novice-friendly ride of 35 miles between Kalamazoo and South Haven. This seemed an ideal way to experience a fairly significant ride two days in a row.

One of the things you have to remember about rails-to-trails paths is that they used to be railroad tracks. This means that the grades are relatively moderate. It also means that they can be somewhat narrow in areas where the land is hilly and had to be built up to keep the grade low enough for a train to manage. (Staying on the straight and narrow has real meaning in those places.) When the train lines fell into disuse, parks were formed by interested parties to take advantage of the existing rights of way, and the trails were converted to use by bikes and, in some areas, by horses.

On a mid-week August morning, we met at the trail head in Kalamazoo and set out on the adventure. The first stretch of trail was a very pleasant downhill grade through the woods. I think it must have been at least a couple of miles of this easy going before we came out onto flat land, with only intermittent shade. One stretch of trail was really quite unpleasant as it took us close to a pig farm. There is nothing fun about being down wind of that, I can tell you.

The ride took us about 5 hours, including the lunch stop we took in the town at the halfway point. By the time we were approaching South Haven, it was late afternoon. We were all looking forward to the showers in the rooms we had reserved at a local camp ground. Doug had a flat tire about a mile out, but managed to fix it well enough to ride in. After settling in to our rooms, we all rode into town to an Italian restaurant for dinner and found out on the return trip just how dark it can be when there are no street lights. None of us had headlights on our bikes, and the road was pitch black for the last mile back to the campground. I will never ride at night without a light again.

On the way back the next day, Doug's tire, which seemed to have been fixed, blew out again as we were approaching the halfway point. He tried to fix it, but the wall of the tire was damaged and couldn't be repaired. We were 17 miles from our cars at that point. How were we supposed to get a disabled bike and its rider back to the trailhead? The most likely plan involved me staying with the bike, while Doug (a stronger rider than I am) rode my bike to the car and came back for me. That would mean a wait of a couple of hours, we figured. Could have been worse!

As it happened, though, a very kind soul hanging around the sandwich shop where we had eaten was headed to Kalamazoo and offered Doug a ride. Off they went, bike and all, while the rest of us took to the trail for the final leg. Sun, shade, sun, pig farm (ick!), and finally the welcome shade of the woods leading up to the trailhead. Oh, yes, remember the lovely downgrade we started with. Payback time. But we could all smell the barn by then. We just wanted to get to the cars and get off those bikes!!! Doug was there as we rode into the parking lot, waving us in with a smile.

It was a trip with its ups and downs, literally and figuratively, challenging and empowering. It strengthened our riding skills and group esprit de corps. Things I could not have imagined myself doing a year ago I had done.

Look out, Katy, here we come!