Friday June 2, 2006 I was off work a little early so Bob and I decided to do a bike ride.  Since it was such a nice day we just wanted to get out and do something outside.  Bob had a couple errands to run so instead of driving we just hopped on our bikes and started pedaling. 

Our first stop was the Secretary of State office.  Bob had gone away for the Memorial holiday weekend and he lost his drivers license.  We figured the closest Secretary of State office was the one on Crooks near M-59.  We took a series of roads until we ended up on Crooks.  The last little segment before you arrive at the shopping center just north of M-59 does not have a bike path so you have to ride on the dirt shoulder and for a very short distance on the main road.  We got there relatively quick.  Bob took a number and we sat down to wait for his turn.  They had four people working behind the counter so the wait wasn’t bad at all, maybe ten minutes total.  Once Bob got all his paper work processed and his picture taken we were back on our bikes headed for our next destination. 

Bob needed to pick something up from a hardware store so we decided to head over to the Ace Hardware on Livernois just south of Walton.  From where we were located on Crooks we took the section of the Clinton River Trail which runs kind of north east in that area.  The Clinton River Trail is relatively new and it has been improving over the past few months.  They have added rest rooms and paved entrances at the main road crossings of this trail.  They also added cross walk areas where it is easy to cross the main roads.  The majority of the trail is still dirt and stone, but at least the entrances and exits at each main road crossing are set up very nice.  There still aren’t many people out using this trail, but I predict over time it will become quite popular and get a lot of use in the future.  We don’t hesitate to use this trail when ever we are in the area.   

We were only on the trail for about 1.4 miles before we came to Livernois where we got off and headed north.  We rode about another mile before we came to the shopping center where the Ace is located.  We each did a little shopping and after a few minutes we were done ready for the ride home.   

Melissa was working at Maggie Moos and we considered stopping for an ice cream, but we figured it was getting close to dinner time so we didn’t stop on this trip.  We rode pretty much straight home after our hardware shopping stop.  

Following are the statistics from this ride, 13.5 miles total, 21.0 max mph, 1 hour and 13 minutes time on bikes and 11.0 average mph.   
David Lindquist