Leg 3, Ride 3: Ionia to Lansing
Today was... not good!
We are at our hotel in Lansing, with no injuries, so there is a happy ending to the day. But, today was the toughest day of the trip, and the toughest ride I've had in many years.
Leg 3, Ride 2: Grand Rapids to Ionia via Lowell
Looking at the stats for today, it seems like an easy ride: 40 miles, half of it on a bike trail. But, it was actually a bit of a slog, mainly because we were fighting against a 15mph headwind all day. Winds generally blow west-to-east here, and along our entire route, but there's always going to be an exception here or there.
This was also our hilliest ride to date (you have to climb out of a valley to leave Grand Rapids), and our bike trail was unpaved and not in great condition. So, this was our slowest day since the first few days of the trip.
There aren't many good biking roads out of Grand Rapids. So, when I was planning this trip, I routed us through lots of shenanigans: Cut across a college dorm parking lot here, use a middle-school access path there, take advantage of a shortcut path through the woods, etc. It's actually really fun when this all works out in real life -- you can't be sure what these will be like when planning them on a computer monitor.
Leg 3, Interlude 1: Grand Rapids
We took a day off here in Grand Rapids today. This wasn't for resting (we've only done 50 miles or so over the last 3 days), this was for exploring the city. We've never been here before, and we probably will not be getting back anytime soon.
As an overall impression, I guess I would say this city feels like a midwestern version of Hartford. They both feel like they're trying to be big cities with modern glass towers downtown, and so on. They both have a good amount of cultural institutions: museums, live performance, sports teams, etc. They also both feel a little sterile and corporate, not a lot of character/charm.
Leg 3, Ride 1: Muskegon to Grand Rapids
Today was a beautiful day for riding. Mostly sunny and in the low 60s. Warm enough to be comfortable, cool enough so you don't get sweaty. We've now gone 500 miles, which is farther than we've ever done in one trip before (previous longest was about 450 between Québec City and Boston).
