Originally Posted by
fishtoes2000
Riding on the 696 service drive would not be my first choice. I find east-west bike travel in Detroit's inner ring suburbs is best done on the half-mile roads. For Huntington Woods, that's Lincoln (10.5 mile), which will take you to Warren. It's also easy to drop down to Woodward Heights (9.5) or Meyers (8.5). Keep in mind that these roads change names at the county line.
In my occasional riding in Macomb County beginning in Fraser, I have found the half-mile roads pretty good for cycling, but it seems they are all discontinous along their routes, and when I try to follow them I get shunted onto the major unfriendly thoroughfares. I looked at mapquest and it confirmed my opinion.
As noted above in this thread:
Originally Posted by
Copper1122
[rage] Detroit-Metro Sucks for Cyclist Especially the east side[/rage]... For actual city commuting, get yourself a solid MTB frame and as the other reader suggested you'll be stuck on sidewalks for many parts of your trip. I know its counter intuitive to someone that lived in a cycling viable area but it probably is the safest way to commute through those areas. Especially the closer you get to Warren...
I haven't done much riding in the suburbs to the west in Oakland County, mainly because I would have to drive to get there, cutting into my cycling time since the bike ride west is difficult, other than on the service drive. How is the riding out there?
BTW, when I used to cycle in the City of Detroit itself in the 1960's and 70's, I thought the basic infrastucture was pretty amenable to bicycling with pretty wide roads and nice residential streets that extended for fairly long distances.