First official trip.

Just getting around to posting my first trip I went on a month ago. 4 days and 3 nights (170 miles) to arrive in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan. Lots of country roads, cornfields and apple orchards lol. I stayed in campgrounds which was nice, but also a bit of a hindrance as I had to rush to get to camp before dark. (Next year I'll be aiming for more summer trips, aka longer days.) The first 35 miles were bike paths and the rest was road with a few trails. There were a couple stretches of zero bike lane which sucked. By the end my ass started to hurt a lil, but it was my triceps and elbows that were the most in pain. A bit of finger tip numbness on my left hand also. (That took about 4 weeks to completely go away.) Gonna have to fart around with my seat fore/aft. I made a rookie mistake and trusted Google with directions lol. Holy shit – first timers – DO NOT DO THIS. At first it was fine, but eventually Google had me going through 2 tracks on public hunting land. That was sketch af. Shotgun shells everywhere. Deer cams. Lots of deep sandy patches where I had to walk my bike. Google even had me bike 2 miles through the woods only to have me exit through someone's yard and out their driveway. I underestimated the cold and froze my first night. Luckily the camp store at my second location had those cheap little fleece blankets for $10 that did the trick. I loved my bag setup and my only change would be to potentially move my stem bags (or get different ones) as they bumped into my upper frame bag when I turned. I had a 2L water bladder in the bottom frame bag, a water bottle and a Powerade. I never ran out of water throughout the trip. I look forward to going out again next spring/summer as I'll have more daylight to ride. Also, thank you to everyone reading this as you've all served as inspiration to get me out there. 🤙