Yesterday I started pedaling. I left in the rain and throughout the day the rain was ever present ranging from light to medium downfalls. In the end I pedaled 94.7miles (152.4 km) over a long 9.5 hours. I started at my Aunt’s house in Fenton, MI and ended up crossing into Canada via a ferry. It was only a short two day visit in Michigan straight from the last few months I spent in Whistler. I got my new Weekender for this trip rolling and then without any test ride pedaled down the driveway and out into the big wide world.

Michigan struggles to maintain its roads for cars and sadly bicycling infrastructure is even lower on the priority list. My route had me skim across the top of Detroit. Some communities might have a small chunk of bike trail but then it would abruptly end and I’d be forced back out into the road. Or maybe there would be a short section of bike trail on the other side of the road and I’d sit and wait for traffic so I could cross over. Almost none of the roads had any kind of shoulder. There was one particularly harrowing section where the road was so busy and there was no shoulder of any kind that I actually rode on the grass median for a few miles. Combined with the rain it made for slow going yesterday.

Still I plugged along and was happy to find that my legs seemed able to pedal despite only riding lifts and downhill for the last few months.

I came across a few bridges that were out (which really were just closed to work on the railings) and those would give me a mile or two of quiet riding and an escape from traffic that was unable to cross them. The route gratefully kicked me on to one 5 mile long straight bike trail through the woods that was also a much needed relief from battling traffic. Overall though it was not a particularly pleasant route with a lot of traffic and not very good places to cycle.

When I finally made it to the ferry into Canada I hopped on smiling and happy. The ferry operator told me I could ride for free and as we neared land on the other side of the water I was confused as to why there was USA flags everywhere. The ferry driver had a good laugh telling me that I had hopped onto the wrong ferry and we had just motored over to a small USA island. He turned the boat around and then I pedaled another couple miles up to the ferry that went to Canada. This one was $3. After a quick chat with the border agent on the other side I started pedaling the last 10 miles to my hotel. The sky opened up and it rained the hardest I’d seen yet. Luckily the road was pretty good and my lights were still working. Once I finally made it to my hotel I hopped in the shower with all my riding gear on and washed off a whole days worth of road grime and sweat.