Leg 3, Ride 6: Ann Arbor to Detroit

Another beautiful day today!

We got breakfast at a 24/7 diner in Ann Arbor before leaving town this morning, and followed a bunch of nice trails about halfway to Plymouth, our lunch stop. We were on-road for the second half. The road was largely decent, without a lot of traffic.

We left a little earlier than planned, and took less time at the diner, and rode a little faster than our usual speed. So, we got to Plymouth way earlier than expected. We hung around for a while in a nice little downtown park, and then got lunch.

For the second part of the ride, we again started on off-road paths. These paths weren't great: old bumpy pavement, accumulated dirt from flooding, sections "closed" for non-existent construction, etc.

Detroit, like Chicago, is geographically immense. It was like 15 miles from the city line to our hotel downtown. There are bike paths in the city, but none of them are oriented to be convenient for us, so we were on-road the whole way.

We were in Detroit about 12 years ago, and generally had a good time. But, we were not prepared for the level of abandonment and decay we saw in some neighborhoods (ex-neighborhoods?). The most extreme example: we walked along a street for about 3/4 of a mile as a short-cut between our hotel and the Motown Museum. Every single building on that whole section was abandoned, and I swear we saw a pack of feral dogs just sorta roaming around.

Well, today we biked in on that same road, and it's all under construction now. They're restoring a large old brick apartment block, and they've razed all of the derelict houses and are building what appears to be mixed-use mid-rises. So, that's really good news for Detroit. Detroit has a lot of character, and it's a shame that so much of it got neglected for so long.