Blue Star Highway
If you are ever in the southwest part of Michigan (St. Joseph area) looking for a good ride I recommend riding up the Blue Star Highway. Last Friday KT, Ryan, Sherrie, Brani and I did this.
Our ride started in St. Joseph, Michigan where we headed north on M-63. As soon as you cross the drawbridge to leave St. Joseph M-63 becomes a nicely paved 4-lane highway. It follows the eastern edge of Lake Michigan through lots of small lake towns and villages. Along the way we passed state parks, antique shops and lots of small places to eat. There are also several golf courses if you care to strap your clubs to you bike.
I recommend ending this ride before you get into Holland, MI. The highway continues becoming very busy stop and go city traffic near Holland. Or you can stop to enjoy yourself in Holland mostly known for its annual tulip festival. We continued on trough Holland and turned east to Grand Rapids. Our destination was Shawmut Hills, one of the largest motorcycle shops in the area, but the fun part of the ride ended in Holland.
Returning home we took the expressway. This makes for a much faster but far less enjoyable trip.
on July 21st, 2008 at 12:32 am
Hey you forgot about me! Oh well.
A bit of history about the Blue Star. This highway was once US-31 before the existence of I-196 - which snakes about within a mile or two the whole length of the road from St. Joseph to Holland. The four lane section just north of the drawbridge in St. Joseph was actually an abandoned start to a northern freeway around Benton Harbor that was never completed. This is why there was the complex Klock Rd. interchange on M-63 (Old US-31) for years and years (Klock Rd. was recently changed to an at-grade intersection). The Blue Star widens to four lanes again at South Haven where somewhere back 50 years or so ago a bypass was made for US-31 to drive around the city to save some time. So in essence I-196 was a bypass for a bypass later on when it was completed in the 60’s. When I-196 was completed US-31 was transferred to follow the new freeway and the Blue Star became a locally controlled county highway also called A-2. Well enough road geek talk.
Motorcycling up this road and then taking BL-196 (Old M-21) in Holland to Grand Rapids made me appreciate the advent of freeways. Normally it only takes 1 1/2 hours at a pleasant pace to get from Berrien Springs to Grand Rapids. It took us closer to 2 1/2 hours taking the old route. It didn’t help that when we got closer to Grand Rapids we hit almost every light red. Whoever timed the stoplights along Chicago Dr. must be a real jokester.
Backroads are great for discovering new scenery but at least on the freeway nobody can pull out right in front of you. There’s pro’s and con’s to both.
Kudos to Chris Bessert and michiganhighways.org.
on October 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
It was that trip that gave me confidence riding a motorcycle. Before that trip, I wasn’t really sure I could be trusted “behind the bars”.