Well I don’t like to moan on the blog ….  But. Those were 138 miles of the worst roads I have ever ridden – anywhere. Including eastern europe. We had to ride a lot of it at low speed, standing up. 

The problem is that all the concrete roads – presumably from the 50s and 60s – are breaking up. Not just gaping joints between sections – thats a problem across the USA – bu-bump over each joint. No, here the entire slabs have turned to crazy paving, tilted at angles and with huge gaps. Nightmare! And noone has the huge amount of money it would take to dig out all the broken concrete and start again. Michigan has a problem.

Got that off my chest! Feeling calmer now. But it did provide the chance to road test the new Bianchi carbon fibre ‘countervail’ vibration damping technology that sold us the bikes. I think it works – but it’s hard to tell, what with all the bumps and crashes! 

Otherwise, the weather stayed fair, nice temperature for riding, still air with no wind. A mixed day scenically. We rode through Saginaw – a medium sized town where the suburbs are prosperous but most of the central housing is dilapidated, abandoned, boarded up or for sale. We were only a few miles north of Detroit. And we rode a lot of rural roads through farmland. Here is one of the posh housing estates where each detached house is the size of a small palace, set in enormous grounds.

  
The highlight of the day was a total of about 20 miles on 3 separate rail trails. These had good surfaces (yippee!) and were quiet and peaceful – if unspectacular and often hemmed in by mature, line-side trees. Out of 250 miles across Michigan in 2 days we managed nearly 100 on rail trails. Excellent.

Marine City is within sight of Canada, just across the Saint Clair river that links Lake Huron to Lake Erie.

 Our motel is on the waterfront. Tomorrow we take the ferry to Canada for a few days. Today was our 30th day of cycling and we have ridden 3024 miles – so we have crept over 100 a day average for the first time on the trip. 10 cycling days left.