Memorial Day

Mark C. and I rode the pre-Memorial Day ride at Island Lake this past Thursday. Mother Nature served up some nice weather and the trail was in great condition. Surprisingly there weren’t as many riders as usual in the parking lot. The holiday weekend is probably the reason for the reduction. No gripes here though. Less traffic on the trails is a good thing. No falls to report. The controlled fire area that was there last month on the long loop is now a sweet field of some purple flower plants. I’m sorry I didn’t bring the camera. Pretty sweet visual.

The grill was in attendance for the post ride. Good polish sausage to add back some calories that may have been lost during the ride. Add that to the three or so liquid pork chops and I pretty much gained some poundage during this ride. Oh well, Memorial Day weekend is what that is for.

From the park, it was over to Jim M.’s house for some Piston playoff basketball viewing. Jim was a bachelor for the weekend in that his lovely and talented one went to visit her family in Greene, NY. The Pistons played ugly, as did the Cavaliers, but we’ll take an ugly victory any day. I see the Pistons taking it in five as I thought they could have had the Sunday game but Lebron had his A-game in the 4th quarter. I don’t expect Chauncey and Rip to play that bad again. Run, Rip, run.

On a non-riding note, it was a great holiday weekend. I went up to the Roth family cottage on Higgins Lake. What a beautiful lake that is. The Roth’s cottage is on land owned by the American Legion around the northwest end of the lake. Each cluster of cottages is owned by a different city’s legion group which was pretty cool. The Roths are part of the Breckenridge chapter. Near their place were the Alma, Blanchard, Mt. Pleasant, and even the Royal Oak chapters. Quite a few cottages packed in within the area but each group/chapter seem to be like a family. The mission for the weekend was to clean up around the place (no winter time here) and put in the dock for the eight or so cottages that share it. This is not just your basic 10-20 foot dock. Because the lake is so shallow, the dock extends out probably around 40 or so yards with about eight boat hoists mixed in. The cottage owners have done this process for years so I just waited for direction on what they needed from me. The Roth family let me use some spare waders they had but the only problem is the boots were about three sizes too small. I could have gotten them all the way on but would have had to cut them off in removing them. I wore them with half of my feet in the boots and boy did they hurt. There was no visible crying though. The whole operation took a couple of hours and went pretty smooth for the most part.

I brought my fishing pole but didn’t have an opportunity to rip any lips. The locals tell me that the lake trout and rock bass (boooo!) seem to be the fish that are caught most in the area. As noted, the lake is shallow for quite awhile from shore and there isn’t much on the structure side for fish to migrate so my guess is that you might be here awhile if you are looking for the trophy fish. I could be wrong though.

I saw some great local flavor at the watering hole, The Silver Dollar Saloon. Quite an original name, eh? I saw a girl with a Playboy shirt and another with a Hustler shirt on. I got caught looking too much though. Bummer. The band (name?) played all of the cover tunes and actually weren’t too bad.

Memorial Day was spent honoring my freedom with a motorcycle ride to where my family cottage used to be, Kingsville, Ontario. Route 20 and Route 50 around the edge of Lake Erie is a beautiful ride with minimal traffic. The road could probably use some TLC in that some parts are a bit broken up but overall, a great ride. I stopped in to my old neighbors, the W. family. Judy W., her daughter Jennifer, and a friend of theirs were chilling on the deck and as they always are, were more than hospitable in greeting and entertaining a weary (and thirsty) traveler. Our former cottage was looking pretty much how we left it. I sure miss that place.

That is all for now. We’re riding at Brighton this Thursday but the location may change. Go Pistons and get healthy Tigers.

Trail Head

Highland Recreation Area

On what started as an overcast afternoon ended up to be a nice evening at Highland Recreation Area this past Thursday. I was lone rider due to one fellow rider having an unforeseen circumstance occur (and might be out awhile) and the other being pretty much a “frady cat” of riding at Highland. He seems to either have something come up or when he does ride, his bike mysteriously breaks down quite early in the ride. Coincidence? I think not. Besides Pinckney Recreation Area and maybe Gruber’s Grinder at Holly/Holdridge Lakes, Highland has to rate as probably one of the tougher trails in SE Michigan. While some other trails in the area get upgrades and trail re-routes to accommodate the beginner level riders, Highland seems to stay the course with its many hills (high point el. 1,140’) , cutbacks, rocks, tree roots, and logs throughout. While doing just the ‘A’ loop isn’t quite enough to get the blood moving, completing both ‘A’ and ‘B’ is a bear, not to mention the ‘C’ or ‘D’ loops. I’m still looking for some shortcut within ‘B’ but the trail area is so large, I’d probably end up in some “Deliverance” scene if I were to lose the trail. I’d rather not do any squealing in this life.

Highland was one of the first trails in the area that friends and I rode when we first got into mountain biking. Well, we weren’t really getting into it. We had a Saturday morning with nothing to do so we went to Highland Rec. This was probably thirteen or so years ago when the trail was shared with the horses and located near the ranger headquarters. None of us had helmets. I do recall a friend hurling on the trails back then (Trig or Mark?). That is precious. I can’t remember the bike brand I had back then (Huffy?) but it was a dog of a bike. It could get me up to Mason’s Party Store or Cobblestone Corner okay in its day but get it off the pavement, forget about it.

I am happy to report I passed a rider on the trail Thursday so the “blind squirrel finding a nut” theory does prove true. The rider did have a kickstand on his bike so I have to keep this conquest in perspective. No wildlife to report besides the birds and chipmunks. Besides a pedal loop breaking and my back brakes squealing loudly, there were no mishaps or falls.

After the ride and a post ride soda pop, it was time for the Sports-a-Palooza. The Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings were playing and 59-West would allow me to view all without the need to channel surf and was right up the road from Highland Rec. While the Tigers and Red Wings gave it a nice try, the Pistons decided to show up and quiet the Windy City. It was an ugly victory but a victory it was and now we get to see more Piston playoff basketball. I ran into my old basketball coach, Don Palmer, who was there with Al “always on the move” Bageris. Due to the new schedule structure in high school sports, guys and girls basketball seasons are now in the winter. With that, Palmer had to choose between coaching the two. He chose to hang up the whip that he used on me so many times and coach the girls. There were many instances in my junior year of high school where I was the brunt of his frustration in basketball practices and games. Did it scar me for life like so many parents today cry about when little Bobby is getting yelled at by the coach? No way. It only made me a stronger person and has helped me to this day. I only wish I knew then what I know now about basketball. I would have chucked up some more shots.

Island Lake is next week. If Mother Nature cooperates, I’m thinking about bringing the grill so come on out. Have a great weekend and embrace the outdoors.

Trail Head

Milford Trail

Thursday night was the first look at the new trail in downtown Milford. The Milford Trail I guess it is labeled. While I do enjoy riding the many trails in the area, it is always nice to experience something new.

The trail is at the ball fields off of Peters Rd. just off of Commerce near the YMCA. If you are expecting to see a bunch of mountain bikers parked in the lot, don’t forget that it is Little League baseball season. There were maybe three cars that were there for mountain biking and 50 family cruisers there for little Bobby’s big game. It was a sea of SUV’s. I won’t complain, however, because there are too many fat kids in the world today and at least these kids aren’t sitting at home in front of their Xbox games with a bag of potato chips. In addition, some of the kids had some quite attractive mothers. [I’m losing my focus here, back to the trail.] The trail is kind of similar to Maybury in that it has quite a few switchbacks throughout but I would rate it more difficult. It runs down behind the YMCA, over to the edge of Mystic Creek golf course, and around Hubbell Pond (pictured), which is nice place for resting or just admiring the scenery. I’ve been advised that the trail is five miles but with the switchbacks, it feels much longer. I did the loop twice which took about 35-40 minutes per loop.

There are parts of the trail that need more riders and there are other parts of the trail to remind us what our forefathers left us, old refrigerators, tires, beer cans, and even one rare “glass” bottle of Mountain Dew (probably left there by John Bakkila). Attached is a picture of the refrigerator section of the trail. Nice. Overall though, it really is a nice trail and will get better as more riders put some miles on it.

Parts of the trail did bring back some fond memories from my youth. I had visions of Brian Hamilton's red Firebird with Tony Haag in tow and Matt Brown’s Montego with four people in the extremely large (not) back seat. I scratch my head on how cars were able to drive back into the area where the trail currently resides. Really using our heads back then, eh?

With the Little League crowd, post ride soda pop consumption was limited. I stopped into O’Tooles in Novi on the way home to catch the first portion of the Pistons’ game (what a game that was). If anyone out there is ever going to own a sports type bar and a big game is on, please use some common sense in getting your televisions set up correctly to watch the game. There are probably 30 TV’s in O’Tooles and the Pistons were on ESPN and FSN. The telecast on FSN was probably about five seconds behind ESPN. So what does O’Tooles do? They have one TV with FSN on and all the others were on ESPN. This is fine but they used the audio from FSN. The play already happened before the audio was able to catch up to it which was frustrating the heck out of me. Get it right O’Tooles.

The dreaded Highland Recreation Area is next week. Have a great weekend. Go Pistons, Wings, and Tigers. I have no comment for the Lions.

Trail Head

New Rider

A beautiful evening it was at Pontiac Lake this past Thursday. The trail was in good condition with no new trail re-routings to report. I'm sorry to advise that “Heart Attack Hill” is still there. A bear it is. No wipeouts to report. Besides a hand full of chipmunks and many birds, no other wildlife was seen.

The great thing about mountain biking is the thrill of the ride, the great scenery views, the many thoughts that go through the mind during the ride, and just the enjoyment of being out and about. With that, what was with the uptight riders at Pontiac Lake last night? Was it the full moon? They were taking the whole experience way too seriously. Maybe they had their spandex riding uniforms on too tight (not a big fan of the matching yellow spandex shorts and shirts with decals throughout)? I must have passed ten or so riders on the main strip of the trail coming and going and not one even gave a “howdy” reply back to me. Way too hardcore. Those must be the snobs who clock their times during the ride and go home to look at themselves in the mirror. Let’s just have some fun out there and enjoy the ride. That is my commentary for today.

The post ride was a bit chilly once the sun was setting. After getting a good laugh at the hardcore riders doing their post ride stretching so everybody and their brother could see, a trip to 59-West was in order for a meal and a good dosage of some second hand smoke. Dave “3-3-9” Munson assures me that he will be in attendance one time this year but he advised his marathon training might get in the way. Ron Morris was attached to the Hold‘em tables and was not doing too well from what I could see.

That is all for this week. While Maybury is on the schedule for next week, I am considering checking out the new Milford trail that I’ve heard so much about. Stay tuned and have a great weekend. Go Pistons, Wings, and Tigers. What can I say about the Lions draft? I’m excited to see Calvin Johnson play but he is about the only player I see having any impact this year. Being the digit head that I am, you would think I would have known something about the other players besides Drew Stanton that were drafted. That is not the case. I’m hoping for a surprise, as I do every year.

Trail Head