9/6/2025 Saturday
Arcadia to Ludington MI
Stats: Miles: 47. AIS: 4:23. Speed: 10.7 Elev. 1335 ft.
1 asshole. Going really fast by us on a secondary road and didn’t move over at all!! Definitely made us jump a little!
Great sleep at the Arcadia bungalow last night. Our usual wakeup about 7am with a pot of coffee and oatmeal/apple breakfast but using bungalow dishes. It had rained last night and was still raining this morning when we were eating breakfast. But lucky for us…. Like yesterday, it quit before we started. We had an 8:30am on the road start.
Three Sisters..
Within 3-4 minutes on the quiet road we were climbing the Sister #1. As we understood it we were expecting 3 climbs back to back. We affectionally called yesterday double back to back “2 Brothers”. Anyway, the first one was long. I stopped to disrobe BEFORE the hill got steeper. It wasn’t bad… seemed similar to one of the yesterdays brothers but for this we were “fresh”. Shortly after came Sister #2… she was shorter but steeper. Made that one too. Sister #3 was longer but not too steep. The descent on #3 literally took us the first 10 miles into Onekama. We were glad we didn’t have to climb that going north… it was really long and steep. A “soul-killer”.
As we were near the bottom of Sister #3 we met up with a bike touring couple… Matt and Lisa… just starting up the long hill. They were from Dubuque IA. We stopped to chat about routes etc. from across the road. They seemed like pretty seasoned cyclists that were spending 3 weeks to circumnavigate Lake Michigan. However, he didn’t think they were going to finish it completely. They had a backup plan for a ride if they were short.
We stopped in Onekoma as the 10 mile break. To our surprise we found the cutest coffee shop. So we took the time to have a coffee and snack.
Manistee…
From Onekoma it was 12 miles to Manistee. We had looked up Manistee and saw they have a historic downtown built after a big fire 1871. It was a big lumber shipping port (as most towns in the area). Their historic district had lots of nice shops and restaurants and it was a nice river walk all the way to Lake Michigan. We walked a small part, then went to the TJ’s Pub for lunch.
It’s a hotel with busy Pub in the basement
fisherman are out
Fishing in Manistee is plentiful .. Coho, King Salmon and steelhead are returning to the lake this time of year. So many good fish to catch. The boats are at the mouth of the river into Manistee Lake.
After such a lovely midday stop in Manistee we had 23 miles to Ludington. We were traveling fairly quickly today. The winds were much kinder than yesterday… as long as you weren’t going due west they weren’t very noticeable. Once you got moving you warmed up and could take a layer or two off.
The traffic had picked up and the shoulders disappeared for about 10 miles. The cars were great for the most part. We separated ourselves a bit to allow cars to leapfrog pass us.
We arrived safely to Ludington where Jim and I have a layover day and Paul meets the ferry tomorrow morning. Paul took a quick trip to the ferry landing to buy his ticket for 9am. As a side note… the ferry did not run today either… too rough again!
We chose to “stay in” tonight and had pizza and salad delivered to our room. Watched women’s US Open Tennis Final and other sports… Bobcat football for Paul. The laundry is already done too! We can explore Ludington tomorrow.
Things I see…
We traveled past numerous orchards and roadside orchard vendors setting up today.
The last two days the shoulder was littered with twigs and sticks from the high winds. It was like dodging debris as we rode. When you were going downhill fast you had to be super careful because sometimes the sticks were big or clumped together. This was the second complete road block we encountered. In this case we stopped to move it off the shoulder.
Looking forward to our layover day and to the warmer weather that is coming our way!
Cold weather clothing… layers
On a typical chilly wet morning here’s my typical layering:
Headband, ball cap if it’s raining (visor shields rain in my face), clear glasses if it gray and/or raining), merino wool shirt, red warm polyester bike jacket, orange windbreaker or rain jacket. Rain jacket works well if it’s cold and windy as a better windbreaker. Bike shorts with cycling leggings underneath, wool socks and if it’s cold or rainy … waterproof shoe covers. For hands I have insulated waterproof gloves or lighter thermal gloves.
cinnicrew 