This ride was part of our 2011 Fall vacation.
The Fred Meijer Heartland Trail in Michigan is a paved 41 mile rail-to-trail that runs from (near) Greenville to Alma. Since 41 miles is more than we can do out and back in one day we decided to ride 25 miles of it out and back starting at the Lake Road trail-head near Greenville. This was a great trail that ran through farms and forest, a couple stream crossings with small towns along the way.

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Other notes: We stayed at the AmericInn in Geenville which was nice and ate at El Rancho which was really good.
It looked as if they were working on completing the trail from the Lake Road trailhead on in to Greenville. A short section would bypass the rail bed and take a road.

This ride was part of our 2011 Fall vacation.
The Betsie Valley Trailway in Michigan runs from Frankfort to Thompsonville and is a 23 mile rail-to-trail with the first 8 (or so) miles of the trail paved and the rest gravel. We rode it out and back from Frankfort for a total of 47 miles. This was a great trail with a lot of variety. Water, forest, open grassy areas and hills. The trail runs along Crystal lake and then in to secluded forest. The town of Beulah is in-between and has restaurants and shopping and the old depot is a visitors center with bathrooms.

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Other notes: We stayed the night before and after the ride at the Super 8 hotel in the town of Manistee and drove to and from the trail-head in Frankfort.
We ate dinner at the River Street Station in Manistee

This ride was part of our 2011 Fall vacation.
Yesterday we ferried our bikes over to Mackinac Island, Michigan in Lake Huron. This island is well known for not allowing motor vehicles. Bicycles, horses and feet are the modes of transportation there. We rode around the entire island which is about 8 miles and we also rode up into the center of the island for a total of around 15 miles. We ate lunch at Horn's Gaslight Bar. We spent the night on the mainland in Mackinaw City. When leaving today we spotted a rail-to-trail right there in Mackinaw City. Can't believe we didn't know it was there but we couldn't ride it as we had to move on. We had reservations elsewhere.
We've since found out it's the 63 mile long North Central State Trail.

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This ride was part of our 2011 Fall vacation.
Yesterday we rode the Little Traverse Wheelway in Michigan. This is a 24 mile paved trail that goes between the towns of Charlevoix and Harbor Springs along Lake Michigan. We started in Charlevoix and rode it out and back. The trail was listed as a rail-to-trail but very little of it was on an old rail bed if any. It is a really nice path though with a few short moderate climbs and a few sections which were basically the shoulder of the road. Along the trail we ate lunch at the Harborside Deli in Petoskey. We stayed in the town of Acme and then drove about an hour to the trail-head in Charlevoix.

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This ride was part of our 2011 Fall vacation.
We're off on another trip to ride rails-to-trails and other paths/trails. A couple of days ago we rode the Lakefront Path in Chicago, Illinois. We rode it out and back for a total of 35 miles starting at the South end. We stopped at the Navy Pier and ate at Harry Caray's Tavern for lunch. It was a really nice path and a really busy one. Nice views of the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan. A couple days prior to our visit the lakefront path was in the news because of these giant waves. This makes the 3rd Great Lake we've visited.

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In an effort to beat the heat (at least the predicted high of 103) we headed out around 5:00 this morning to ride our local rail-to-trail the Prairie Sunset. The temperature was around 80 and it was a pleasant ride. Along the way we spotted 8 deer, more than a dozen rabbits and a skunk. Deer and skunk in the video below...

The last ride on our trip was Thursday which was a out and back ride that was on gravel and forest roads in Grand county Colorado. The ride takes you to the top of Dice Hill which seemed more like a mountain than a hill. It was a pretty challenging climb for us. It was a 12 mile ride total with a climb of 1768 ft.
GPS track here.

Video from our ride up Vail Pass and back.