The Spokesrider

I’m off on a bike ride today.   It rained most of the day.  If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have gone.  But I’m glad I did.   The new Ortlieb panniers did their job of keeping out water.   I put on my rain jacket only a mile from home.   Late in [...]

In yesterday’s post (Maiden voyage of new panniers) I referred to two railroads crossing each other a few blocks to the east of the present-day depot/Mexican restaurant, in the direction where this train is headed.    I had tried to interpret the scene shown in this photo in terms of the 1872 atlas: This snippet shows [...]

I got new panniers last week — a set of Ortliebs from Wayne Boroughs at TheTouringStore.com These are the Bike Packer Plus and the Sport Packer Plus. I took them out for an overnight campout this weekend.   My goal was to get in 100 miles on the two days, but I ended up riding 120 [...]

On the way to Coldwater this Sunday, a couple of bank signs in Union City caught my interest.   One objective of this ride was to get photos of the current version of Clyde D. Randall’s bank in Coldwater, as well as some of the sites of previous buildings where it was housed.    But it turns [...]

I still haven’t found any evidence that any of the stories about “free banking” in Michigan in the 1830s are myths, but I’ve still been concentrating only on the story about the Coldwater bank, which may also be the only one I know about.   The information as reported in the Branch County histories seem to [...]

  Back on April 26 I posted a photo of Allen’s Root Beer Drive-In, from a ride through Coldwater in October 22 2005.    I’ve since found a web site, Roadside Peek, that has photos of a number of old Root Beer places and Drive-In eateries that are still doing business.    It’s fun to browse there, [...]

Back in December, after hearing the news that the Hodunk Mill had burned down,  I posted a couple of photos (Hodunk Mill has Burned Down) from the same October 2005 ride that took me past the Newton Grange.    Here are a couple  more.  This is downtown Hodunk, looking back toward Union City. Here is another [...]