Musketawa

51 miles over 4 hours, 28 minutes riding time; 6 hours overall.

The Musketawa Trail is a long, flat paved trail between Marne and Muskegon. Vic is in charge of the wind, and his goal is to get us a tailwind at the end of the day. Since winds were from the north, we started in Marne.



After plenty of fluids on the way up there, we discovered that there was no facilities at the start of the trail in Marne. We didn't see any official facilities until we reached breakfast in Raveena.

It was brisk, but not as cold as I expected when we started, and that was good because I forgot socks. Unfortunately, the north wind bit through everything, and even vigorous pedaling could not keep me warm. When we got to Raveena (12 miles and 90 minutes later) I was in a lot of pain as I regained feeling in my foot.

It took us longer than we expected to get to breakfast. Don was riding at about 9, and Vic and I felt like we were dragging him along. After breakfast, Don was riding at about 12, so I think we have to work on getting food down him a little earlier.



Vic saw this spreader as a political metaphor.



I saw this bus in the middle of the woods, and thought of the Krakauer book "Into the Wild". I wonder how bus drivers get stuck in these places.



Here I am -- I don't know why my feet aren't blue.



Here's Don with his new transition lenses.



Vic is looking askance at me: why am I taking this picture, and how much will it cost him?

This ride happened the day before Easter. Here's a picture Vic took of me: am I an alien? Or was it the religious fervor? The answer is written all over my face.



We did have a tail wind at the end, but it was weak enough that it seemed like a head wind. The real problem is that the trail runs mostly east-west, so we had a cross wind about 1/2 the time, a headwind 1/4 of the time and a tail wind 1/4 of the time. Still, winds were light, and after breakfast not cold enough to kill us. Overall a good, fun ride.

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Equipment notes: My body was warm with a light wool jersey under a long sleeve poly jersey under a wind jacket. My hands were fine with thin cotton gloves over normal riding gloves. My ear warmers created a nasty wind sound that made conversation almost impossible unless I cocked my head in a weird way. My tights were OK, but could be warmer. My feet were very, very cold.