Michigan Great Lakes
2025
Great Lakes/Michigan…finished!
August 25 – September 23, 2025 Suamico to Suamico, Wisconsin via Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula Michigan Final Stats: Total Days of Trip: 30 Total Days riding: 27 Total Layover/Rest days: 3 Total Miles: 1202 Avg miles/day: 44.5 Shortest day: 23 miles (2x) Longest day: 65 miles Total AIS (Ass in Saddle): 110:12 (hrs:min) Avg.…
Day 30. Closing the Loop
9/23/2024. Tuesday Denmark to Suamico WI Stats: Miles: 36 AIS: 3:16 Speed: 11mph Elev. 390 ft Today was great! The weather was just right… the roads were kind… the scenery was Wisconsin iconic…the trails in to Green Bay were smooth and paved. My whiny day yesterday turned right around and we finished with big smiles…
Day 29. Ferry across Lake Michigan
9/22/2025 Monday Ludington MI to Denmark Wi…via the SS Badger Ferry Stats: Miles: 23 AIS: 2:23 Speed:9.7 mph Elev. 800 ft Packed the bikes and arrived about 8:15 at the ferry landing. It was a short ride from the motel. We walked our bikes onto the ferry and they had a “spot” with a rack…
Day 28. The longest ride!
9/21/2025 Sunday Muskegon to Ludington MI Stats: Miles: 65 AIS: 5:45 Speed: 11.2mph Elev. 1249 ft It was 6am when I proposed to Jim that instead of riding to Hart (40 mi) we should bust it out and ride all the way to Ludington…. finishing a day earlier than we planned. I have a great…
Day 27. Everybody was outside today!
9/20/2025. Saturday Holland to Muskegon MI Stats: Miles: 52 AIS: 4:39. Speed: 11.2 mph. Elev. 751ft We wanted to see a few more things around Holland before we headed north today. First stop was the Dutch Windmill. In the spring they have a tulip garden but today we viewed it from the marsh. It is…
Day 26. Short and sweet
9/19/2025 Friday Byron Center to Holland MI Stats: Miles: 23 AIS: 2:05. Speed: 11.1 mph. Elev. 413 ft Edit: Greater Grand Rapids has 1.1 million people! No wonder it was so challenging traffic-wise. And we were just in the south half. I’ve added a couple of maps so you can see all the big trails…
Day 25. Navigating a big city… tough one today!
9/18/2026 Thursday Lyons to Byron Center MI Stats: Miles: 52 AIS: 4:55 Speed: 10.5 mph. Elev. 846 ft So just as we hoped we woke up to a dry tent. The park was dark and quiet so we both slept really well. It was a treat to be on dry ground and all of our…
Day 24. The smallest, nicest towns
9/17/2025. Wednesday Chesaning to Lyons MI Stats: Miles: 55. AIS: 5:05 Speed: 10.8 mph. Elev. 439 ft All the usual morning routine. We are now accustomed to a wet fly and damp tent every morning. It’s usually taken care of by the afternoon sun when we arrive at the next camp. We have had endless…
Day 23. Seeking birth certificate… 1884
9/16/2025. Tuesday Frankenmuth to Chesaning MI via Saginaw MI Stats: Miles: 46 AIS: 4:22 Speed: 10.6 mph. Elev. 239 ft What a beautiful morning it was as we left Frankenmuth. The early morning sun low in the sky shining long shadows and making the yellowing leaves of the crops shine so brightly. Once again we…
Day 22. Our Eastern Edge
9/15/2025. Monday Bay City to Frankenmuth MI Stats; Miles: 46 AIS: 4:12 Speed: 11mph. Elev. 324 ft. Leaving Bay City this morning it was easy to get out of town and on the backroads… no drawbridges to cross. There was about 1/2 mile of bike trail but I haven’t changed my mind on Bay City…
Day 21. Layover Bay City
9/14/2025. Sunday All day in Bay City, Michigan Week 3 Total Stats: Miles: 270 AIS: 24:51 Avg Speed: 10.9 mph. Elev: 3670 ft 0 assholes 0 dogs 0 flats Leisurely “sleep in” means you still wake up at 6:30-7am but you don’t have to get up and start packing. You can lay around awhile…. feels…
Day 20. Bridges, Tridges and more bridges
9/13/2025. Saturday Sanford to Bay City MI Stats: Miles: 34. AIS: 3:09. Speed:,10.9mph. Elev. 255 ft O Assholes 0 dogs chasing bikes. 0 honks 0 waves. Well our stealth camp turned out to be a non-event. We slept great… no people or critters disturbed us. We were not in a big hurry today as we…
Day 19. First stealth camping
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…
Day 18. Small town America
9/11/2025. Or just 9/11 Morley to Evart MI Stats: Miles: 44. AIS: 4:12. Speed: 10.4 mph. Elev. 472 ft. We noticed immediately leaving Morley the flag was half-staff. It took awhile to realize the date today. An Aha moment! Then there’s always the remembering that horrifying day… and the many days after. We are in…
Day 17. Perfect day, perfect evening
9/10/25. Wednesday Grand Rapids to Morley MI Stats: Miles: 41, AIS: 3:51. Speed: 10.6 mph Elev. 626 ft 0 assholes 0 dogs We had a comparatively short day today so no rush to get going early. We departed shortly before 9am and we were on our bike path within a couple of minutes. Navigating through…
Day 16. Leaving Lake Michigan
9/9/2025. Tuesday Montague to Grand Rapids MI Stats: Miles: 57. AIS: 5:18. Speed: 10.7 mph Elev. 970 ft 0 assholes 1 dog. Came running but stopped well off the highway. Invisible fence maybe? Today’s ride was a long one. Longer than I prefer but sometimes you just have to go further because of logistics all…
Day 15. Start week 3… easy enough
9/8/2025 Monday Ludington to Montague MI Stats: Miles: 45. AIS: 4:21. Speed: 10.4 mph. Elev. 1121 ft. Another chilly morning start 44’ . Because we were warm in a hotel we had our earliest start yet… 8am. Had all the warm layers going but as usual after a few miles and the first climb or…
Day 14. Ludington layover
9/7/2025. Sunday Ludington MI layover day Weekly Stats: Miles: 276 AIS: 25:53. Avg Speed: 10.7 mph Total Elev: 7529 ft. 5 friendly honk 1 unfriendly blast 2 friendly waves 1 assholes. And 1 apology O dogs chasing 3 walk ( Suzy ) 1 walk. Jim Chores of the day: laundry…done. Groceries… done. Bicycle lube… done.…
Day 13. Let’s enjoy some towns!
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…
Day 12. Surf’s Up!
9/5/2025 Friday Glen Arbor to Arcadia MI Stats: Miles: 47. AIS: 4:34. Speed: 10.3mph Elev. 1643 ft. 1 friendly honk 1 friendly wave out the sunroof 0 assholes 0 chasing dogs Walk the bike: 2 Suzy 1 Jim New top number for climbing on this trip… and I felt it! More about this later but…
Day 11. 43 years ago…this bicycle union began!
9/2/2025 Thursday Traverse City to Glen Arbor MI Stats: Miles: 50! AIS: 4:37, 10.8mph MElev: 1246 1 friendly honk 1 friendly motorcycle wave 1 angry honk 0 dogs chasing 1 hill walk (Suzy) Our host John made us an over the top deluxe breakfast this morning! We had coffee, fried eggs, Canadian bacon, English muffin…
Day 10. Wind and Rain
9/3/2025. Wednesday Stats: Miles: 26 AIS: 2:35 Speed: 9.9 mph Elev. 603 ft Kewadin to Traverse City MI Our gracious WarmShowers hosts Ann and Gary, had a nice granola, fruit and coffee breakfast for us before we departed. On the road at 8:30am trying to get as far as possible toward Traverse City before the…
Day 9. Extra Miles
9/2/2025 Tuesday Petoskey MI to Kewadin MI Stats: Miles: 55 AIS: 5:03. Speed: 10.9mph Elev . 1115 ft Let’s start with yesterdays videos We all slept well last night, up as usual for today’s long ride to Kewadin where we will stay with our WarmShower hosts Ann and Gary. We decided to push some extra…
Day 8. Mackinac Island and the Tunnel of Trees
9/1/2025. Labor Day Monday St. Ignace to Petoskey State Park Stats: Miles: 51, AIS: 4:41 Speed: 10.9 mph. Elev, 1587 Ft. Rise and Shine was early today. Jim and I were headed to Mackinac Island and thought we were going to catch the 7am ferry… but it was 7:30. So we watched the sunrise at…
Day 7. Layover St. Ignace
8/31/2025. Sunday Weekly Stats (6 days): Total miles: 258. AIS: 22:45 Speed avg: 11.3 mph. Total Elev: 2618 ft. 4 friendly honks … defined by a quick toot-toot. 0 Asshole drivers: This is actually not surprising because we had such great shoulders on the roads all week. I call them “everybody’s happy” shoulders. To be…
Day 6. A Great Day!
8/30/2025 Saturday. Labor Day weekend Naubinway MI to St Ignace (ig-niss) MI Stats: 46 mi. AIS: 3:42 Speed: 12.5 mph, Elev 619 ft Our tents were so wet this morning… you’d have thought it rained all night. The condensation and dew collided during the night. Our rain fly was soaking wet inside and out! It…
Day 5. Paul joins us
8/29/2025 Fish Fry Friday Manistique to Naubinway MI Stats: 46 mi. AIS: 3:49 Speed: 12.0 mph. Elev. 610 ft Could be a possible speed record today. It did feel like we were moving pretty good today. Far less wind than the last couple of days! We woke up to 41’F. Chilly chilly. I noticed that…
Day 4. Highway 2 all day
8/28/2025. Thursday Gladstone MI to Manistique MI Stats: 46 miles AIS: 4:14. 10.9 mph Elev 583 ft It rained for several hours last night but we slept like babies and our tent stayed dry. We expected it to but it’s always a relief when you haven’t camped for a year and it does in fact…
Day 3. Tailwind… rain to finish the day
8/27/2025. Wednesday Fox Park MI to Gladstone MI Stats: 39 miles AIS: 3:23. Speed: 11.4 mph. Elev. 282 ft. It was chilly again last night. I put off putting my socks on all night and my feet were cold. Finally about 5am I dug out my wool socks and slept great until 7am. We weren’t…
Day 2. Da U P
8/26/2025 Tuesday Peshtigo WI to Fox Park MI (north of Cedar River MI) Stats: 43 miles, AIS: 3:58 speed: 10.9mph. Elev. 288 ft. Started our ride about 9:15am. It takes us about 2 hours from waking up to departing camp. It was chilly last night… the low was 48’ F. But we have all the…
Day 1. Fresh Start
Monday August 25, 2025 Saumico WI to Peshtigo WI Stats: 38 miles. AIS: 3:39 m, 10.5 mph, Elev: 236 ft. Have a nice relaxed breakfast at Erin & Ryan’s this morning. It was back to work Monday for them. Erin left really early so we said goodbye last night and Ryan was up and out…
Arrival Day. Green Bay Packer Gameday
Saturday August 23, 2025 Long drive from Billings, MT to Green Bay, WI. Not including stops it’s a 15 hour drive. We left Billings at 10pm Thursday with goal of driving about 200 miles. It was 12:45pm when we parked at a Fish & Wildlife fishing access site on the Yellowstone River outside of Fallon…
Michigan and a couple of Great Lakes
Jim started planning this route for us last spring 2025. We like to travel the end of August and September. The crowds are gone (except Labor Day) so campsites are easier, traffic is lighter… all good for our mode of travel! We decided to start in Wisconsin near Green Bay where our former Billings friends…
cinnicrew 