Biking in Leelanau County: an outsider’s perspective

By Astrid Code

Sun contributor

Coreopsis. Cardinal flower. Spring beauty. Goldenrod. Buttercup.

As I biked the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail, I repeated these names to myself over and over so I could write them down in my biking journal later. Each new bench I passed was emblazoned with a different flower name in capital letters, and they began to feel like mile markers, a mental record of my journey on this uniquely beautiful trail.

I had started my ride from the Glen Arbor trailhead at 6 p.m., hoping to finish before dark. It was cloudy and colder than I had expected, and as time went on, I found myself yearning to pass other people, nervously pedaling faster up and down the steep hills in silence.

The more I listened to the insects chirping and felt the rushing wind around me, repeating the flowers to myself like a mantra, I began to feel connected to nature, far more so than the cars rushing by me. It’s a sentiment shared by many of the bikers I interviewed in Traverse City and Leelanau County. In this region, biking is inherently connected to the natural beauty to be found.

“It’s the natural resources that make this place so special,” said Julie Clark, director of Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation (TART) Trails, when we sat down for a chat on a picnic table outside TART’s office. “But the trails that provide access to those natural places, that’s the difference here, I think that you have an opportunity to get out of your car and enjoy the incredible beauty and bounty that we have, from our agricultural lands to our waters and woods.”

In a 2019 TART Trails benefits study, the Leelanau Trail, which goes from Traverse City to Suttons Bay, and the Heritage Trail, which goes through Glen Arbor and the Sleeping Bear Dunes, local business owners said the trails increased traffic to their businesses and provided a direct economic benefit.

When biking the 38 miles of the Leelanau Trail in August, I stopped by Shady Lane Cellars, a winery that sits just a quarter mile off the trail. At 1 p.m., their bike rack was full with about two dozen bikes, and employees I spoke to estimated that typically around 25% of their customers arrived by bicycle.

As I got back onto the trail, I passed by a wooden sculpture of two dancers that I learned from TART’s campaign and development officer Caitlin Early was made by artist Bart Ingraham, a beloved member of the biking community who was one of the original members of the Leelanau Trail winter grooming team.

“I like to think that it’s Bart and his wife, Gail, who also recently passed away, just dancing trailside, to keep an eye on everybody and the land that they protected,” Early said.

According to Clark, the Leelanau trail is entirely funded by private donations, while most trails are part of a private-public relationship. However, this results in a stronger sense of ownership and community that may be unique to the region.

“It’s actually exciting, right? Because if this were all government driven, maybe it would look a lot different and feel a lot different in some respects because the community is the one really pushing and actively engaging with nonprofit partners,” Clark said. “Maybe that gives us a different feel, and a different sense of ownership, which is very strong. In TART trails, volunteers, they’re out there, fixing boardwalks, you know, they’re out there trimming trees, they’re out there taking care of the trails, and they’re also out there advocating for further development. So, trails here are truly built for the community by the community.”

When imagining the ideal biking utopia, people often think of places in Europe like Copenhagen, Denmark, which was named the world’s most bicycle friendly capital city. Before spending time biking in Northern Michigan, I lived in Copenhagen for a seven-week study abroad program and was able to see firsthand just how popular and supported biking is.

In Copenhagen, contrary to Northern Michigan, biking is not an identity, it’s simply a way of life. Just like some people in the U.S. wouldn’t consider driving part of their identity, biking is so normalized and supported by infrastructure in Copenhagen that it truly is seen as just another way to get around. According to the World Economic Forum, bikes outnumber cars in the city by more than five to one. Going to class on foot, a steady flow of cyclists on their morning commute passed me in their own protected bike lane, stopping at special bicycle traffic lights at each intersection.

In Denmark as well as Scandinavia as a whole, connection to the natural world is so ingrained into their culture that biking trails are only one option of many ways to regularly engage with nature. I found myself comparing this with the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail’s explicit intentionality to “connect people to the nature and wonder of the lakeshore,” as a trail sign proudly proclaims.

The few times I biked in Copenhagen, I traveled with my aunt so I could learn the rules of the road that are necessary when so many people are biking at the same time. While everyone owns a bike and the streets are full of bike commuters during rush hour, it’s not necessarily a specific point of pride to define yourself as a cyclist like it is in Northern Michigan.

What truly sets Northern Michigan apart is the strong biking community—something I never truly felt despite growing up right next to the Portage Bicentennial Trail. Over the summer, I attempted to engage more with the biking community by taking on the Kal-Haven Trail, a 33.5 mile paved and gravel bike trail from Kalamazoo to South Haven.

This being my first foray into longer bike trails, I was surprised at how pleasant and peaceful the trail was. I passed farmland, forests, wetlands, and I felt I was experiencing a sense of place that could never be felt in a car. I felt time expand and contract as my existence was reduced to going in a straight line for as far as the eye could see. It felt so freeing to not be limited by frequent intersections with cars or the end destination of my short rides in Portage. The community atmosphere made me feel reassured that if I got a flat tire or needed help in any way, the next person to pass would offer it.

However, biking on the Kalamazoo Valley River Trail, another important biking trail in the area, was a completely different experience. Even though the actual infrastructure of the trail is there, I didn’t pass a single person using it for biking. Unlike in Leelanau County, the trail was not clearly marked when it intersected with the road, so I got lost at first. After reaching my destination of the Kalamazoo Nature Center, I quickly hurried back, spooked.

Outside at a local cafe in Kalamazoo, I interviewed 64-year-old Mark Johnson, who commutes year-round despite having been in six bicycle collisions. To him, cycling is a way of life. He’s on his 7th lap around the world, according to his calculations of how many miles he’s ridden on his bike.

“I’m a cyclist. It’s just an identity and I love it so much,” Johnson said. “It’s not just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle.”

I now understand what Johnson and so many others were telling me: biking is a mindset, it’s an identity, and infrastructure plays a big part in that identity. For example, Portage’s motto is “a natural place to move,” and the city’s logo features a bike. My AirBnB in Traverse City was in an apartment complex with a picture of a bike on the door, a bike closet with tools on each floor and five bike shops within a few minutes’ ride. Traverse City clearly takes pride in its bikeability.

Biking in “the County” is different from the other places I’ve biked for many reasons—there’s an unspoken natural element that draws people in, but there’s also a culture and community of biking that’s developed. While volunteering for one of the TART trail cleanup crews, I met Mark, who plants trees in secret on the bike trails and tends to them so that they will grow up to shade bikers long after he’s gone. On a morning run, I would pass by NORTE’s bike valet station or Cherry Capital Cycling Co’s tent on the Leelanau trail, installing bike bells and offering cookies and water. When I biked to an outdoor concert, there would be others watching from the back who also arrived on their bikes.

More than a specific bike trail, my time in the biking community of Traverse City unlocked the confidence and mindset that I needed to start biking everywhere that even living in the “bike utopia” of Copenhagen could not unlock.

Astrid Code is a junior at the University of Michigan and a member of the Great Lakes Writers Corps, a cohort of U-M students writing literary journalism about the Great Lakes region. As a senior news editor at The Michigan Daily, she has also published stories in the Traverse City Record-Eagle and Great Lakes Now.