This year's route: Spring Lake to St. Clair

Perhaps a few words about this year's route. While we always start at Lake Michigan and go east, we change our route every year. The last couple of years we did a more southernly route, but this year we are up north: starting at Spring Lake (by Grand Haven) , going to Rockford, Carson City, Owosso, Millington, Almont and ending at St. Clair. This means that the distance is longer (about 290 mile total. The last two years had total mileage of 260 and 275 miles.) The course will be more hilly, at least for those of us who live in SE Michigan. The schools we'll be staying at will be a little smaller. Our ride has a 700 rider limit. The last couple of years we've had 750 people on our ride. In fact last year the ride sold out at the beginning of April and at one time we had over 800 people registered before people started to cancel because they couldn't be with their friends. This was way too many. We could have 750 riders because the schools in the southern part of the state were larger (and newer). No such luck in the north. We are going to be tracking the number of people registered closely because the schools are too small to handle over 7oo riders.

The meals on PALM are optional: you buy the ones you want, if any. We suggest that you consider buying the meals for Carson City, Millington, and Almont. Those towns are small and there are not a lot of places to eat.

PS. The last time we were at Almont, a whirlwind picked up one of the tents and sent it 100 feet in the air. We have pictures. It bounced off the bike repair truck on its way down. The flying tent: a legend of PALM