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).

Today was our longest deviation so far from our planned route. The largest chunk of today's ride was going to be a 30-mile stretch of off-road bike path from the outskirts of Muskegon to the outskirts of Grand Rapids. But, the majority of the path was closed for construction. And, in this case, the trail really was being actively worked on, and most of the closed-off section was definitely impassible on a road bike. (We did sneak onto the still-closed trail for the last segment, which had been recently paved, but not officially reopened)

The detour was not much of a problem, though. We just zigzagged on farm roads to remain as close to the trail as we could. This slowed us down a bit -- some of the roads were unpaved, and the relevant distance went up by a factor of 2/√2 or so. But we were in no hurry today given the relatively short ride distance, and the 4pm checkin time at our hotel.

People complain about the road layout in New England, but I dunno, man. Back home, the main road between two places of interest pretty much goes in a straight line in the desired direction, potentially with some curves to avoid hills or ponds or whatever. Here, if you want to go 6 miles northwest, the road will go due west for 2 miles, then make an abrupt 90° turn to go due north for 2 more miles, and then do that again. They love rectangles enough here that they are willing to travel up to 40% further than necessary!

This is the start of Leg 3, which is going to have more off days than the previous two legs. This isn't because of long distances, it's just because we're going through interesting places where we've never been before, and we want time to explore. We'll have one day off in Grand Rapids (tomorrow), one in Lansing, and two in Ann Arbor, before finishing the leg in Detroit next Friday.