9/12/25. Friday
Evart to Sanford MI
Stats: Miles: 49 AIS: 4:14. Speed: 11.4 mph. Elev. 226 ft
Wake up time was 6am this morning. I was determined to start riding at 8am. Sure enough we did start right on time. Woke up to fog all over the campground along the river. The chill didn’t last very long. By the time we were cooking breakfast it was more comfortable. I have this new routine of putting my long underwear over my bike shorts to keep my legs warm until we start to ride. We knew we were going to warm up quickly but we both started with hat/headband, warm gloves and down puffy jackets. Very comfortable until about 8-9 miles. Then we started to peel layers.
The trail was excellent out of Evart and we were cruising along pretty fast. A few early walkers and joggers on the trail at 8am. The numbers increased steadily throughout the day. A few serious cyclists went blasting by in both directions after lunch.
Much of the trail for the first 25 miles was marshy. The trail was dappled with light but we had plenty of shade cover all day today as it really warmed up today.
This section of the trail had new staging stations. This one looked brand new. The trail in this section was recently repaved too! Every once in a while there was a bombardment of tree root eruptions. Fortunately this only happened twice today.
We planned to stop in Clare for an early lunch. Found a great restaurant where we could get some yummy food with eggs and vegetables and a fruit smoothie bowl. I know… bowl?? But it was really good! Also in the restaurant were two “kitted out” road cyclists… meaning shorts and matching jersey. Then another guy comes in and asks them if they’re bike touring… I was in the next booth and told him it was us. He just wanted to talk to other touring cyclists. He was riding from Seattle (his home) to Boston. He had 2 months off work. He actually rode through Billings and had the Spoke Shop do some tuning maintenance. He will always remember Billings because he said they did everything except… lube it! He did it himself when he realized it. Uh oh! He mentioned the bike was worked on by the intern mechanics.
Clare was a descent sized town. I looked up a little history. It is named for County Clare Ireland. To this day they have a strong Irish music culture.
We took off for our final 24 miles to Sanford. We really were moving fast today or at least it felt like it. The elevation profile was downhill all day and we could feel it. When the trail was smooth we were rolling. Shortly after Clare we entered a section of the trail that was even wider. Widest trail I’ve seen anyway. Much wider than many of our back roads in Scotland! Like a freeway trail!
Checkout how wide it is
Things I see…
Reminds me of Hotel Howdy Hotel in Forsyth Montana
The silo for indoor growing is unique!
We arrived quite early in Sanford..2pm. We had planned to camp at a State Forest campground… water and pit toilet only. It was 3 miles up a road. We arrived at the staging area rest stop so we used some available outlets to charge phones and lights etc. before we headed to the forest campground. We also used this downtime to dry out our tent fly and tent in the warm sunshine.
The staging area was connected to a big park along a river with some big open grassy areas and trees along the river. It seemed to be setup for a music event on Sunday so there were perfectly new clean porta potties and picnic tables scattered throughout the park. After checking it out on my bike, we decided we could definitely stealth camp back toward the river and off to the far side away from everything. Once we decided to do that we leisurely hung out all afternoon in thus park. About 4:30pm we left our bags behind a big bush and pedaled a few blocks down the Main Street of town for dinner. When we came back we hung out near a picnic table about 1/2 hour until no one was around. Then we surreptitiously went behind this big bush and set up camp. To be clear… there were NOT any “No Camping” signs. Pretty sure no one is going to notice… or care! Wish us luck. This is a first!
the skinny tree .
I spy a tiny bit of orange to the left.
Pretty good huh?
Tomorrow we slide into Bay City for layover day. We have an easy short day… 30 miles. We only have 9 miles of Pere Marquette left and we’ll be on the road into Bay City.
cinnicrew 