I'm coming from SE Michigan this coming weekend (thur->sun).

How does this basic itinerary sound? Friend has a house in Boyne City.

Since M22 is south of boyne city, and M119 is north of Boyne city, I'm thinking we'll zip over to Manistee (southern terminus of M22) from Detroit area on Thursday morning arriving at 1PM. Spend a leisurely afternoon riding M22, and have dinner in Traverse City (great food there), then after dinner head north on 31 toward Boyne.

Then on Friday morning head north out toward Cross Village and do 119 on Friday

Reasonable? Any specifics places I need to see along the way? Legs Inn is definitely in the plan for Cross Village.

THANKS!

 

Good plan.I would not use M72 from Empire to TC.Construction and fresh tar and chip.

 

If your in no hurry and like lakes and curves here is the route I would recommend from TC. to Boyne City. There is a WKLT bike night at the Bellair Bar on Thur.

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And here is the route I take to The Legs Inn.
After lunch there you may want to shoot over to Mackinaw City to the Dixie Saloon for a drink or dinner, good food.
There is also a WKLT bike night at Northern Lights in Harbor Springs on Friday.

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JB thanks for the suggestions - your links don't work, but I'll take a look at that bike night for sure!

 

How was your trip?

 

Really terrific, but we had to cut it a day short, weather was not ideal. I don't mind riding in the rain at all, but all day would not have great especially since we wanted to go to the UP, but the scenery would not have been all that good in the mist and the rain, so we stayed in lower Michigan. I wish I had taken more pictures, but when you are riding, you want to enjoy the scenery as it passes. Also, its harder to signal you want to stop, so you just don't bother.

I loved seeing northern Michigan from a different perspective - back roads, farms, lakes, towns, it was great. We will do it again soon.

Here's the write up I sent to my friends:
____
http://keithhu.smugmug.com/Motorcycl...14485496_KowEF

Well, its done a day early because we thought today’s weather would be bad, and tomorrow would be worse, but from what I can tell it would have been a decent day up north, at least in the afternoon.

Yesterday was quite an adventure, but more on that later.

On Thursday we headed over to Frankfort, had lunch and picked up M22. Quite a gorgeous ride from there to Northport.

Then we headed south on M22 into Traverse City. Left some money at the Traverse City Harley dealership of course and had a beer in Traverse City. From there it was on to Elk Rapids to have dinner at a great Cajun restaurant.

On our way back we picked up some beer, I guess that’s what bags are for, LOL.

Friday was a crazy day. We headed over to Alpena to check out Kens place. Rode about 2 miles on a gravel road to get there. Gorgeous place Ken!

From there we were going to head to Makinaw City, but when Jeff was talking to Ken, he went to weather.com, apparently bad weather to the north.

So we shot back to the west side of the state by staying a bit south. On the way (In Onaway) Jeff got stung by a yellow jacket. By the time we got to Levering, just outside of Cross Village, Jeff’s whole hand was swollen. Not good.

While gassing up we notice that it looked like some light rain coming. Should we don the rain suits? NAH, just the rain jackets should be fine. I learned first hand that light rain at 45 miles an hour can get you very wet. My feet were a bit wet as well as my pants below the knee. Oh well, dinner at Legs Inn and we’ll be fine.

Had a fine dinner, Jeff iced up his hand. We looked out the window – pouring rain. The bar staff said it would probably rain all evening. OK, time to put on the full suits this time.

We rode M119, the “tunnel of Trees” in a torrential downpour. It was insane. It was dark, hard to see (especially since my glasses fogged up and the only other eye protection I had was my TINTED visor on my helmet. But we got thru that ok, got to Harbor Springs, then the closer we got to Petoskey the better the weather got, but man that was nuts. But my rain suit worked as advertised, anyway, I was quite dry.

We decided to head home today, we rode down I75 until just above Bay City, rode 13 south into the city and caught 15 headed home. Jeff and I commented that neither of us had ever set foot in Vassar, MI, but it was a cute little town.

We had a late lunch at Bullfrogs in Ortonville, as we were finishing lunch, about 20 bikes showed up in a group.

 

Rain sucks.....but the area you were trying to ride in is a beautiful area. After living in south central Mich for nearly all my life I always preferred north south routes to be M-37 From Battle Creek to Traverse City (the road Classic Harley in TC is on.) or M-66. 31 out of TC on up to the bridge is picturesque with lots of quaint little towns along the way. I hate I75 below Clare with a passion.

Even considering that, and the UP, I have to say the riding in south central Ohio headed on down into the south easter portion of Ohio is by far prettier, less traffic, far better conditioned roads with loads of hills and twistys to match all levels of biking abilities and styles. Cmon on down to the Hocking Hills area. We are only a half hour away here in Circleville (straight down 23 from Ann Arbor)....we can all go riding!

 

Hey, Mike, I'd like to take you up on that! My email address is keithhu at hotmail dot com, that sounds great! Probably couldnt pull it off until Mid-August at this point (vacation and business travel), but I'm rarin' to go!

 

Sounds like you must have eat'n at Pearls in Elk Rapids?
I went down to Grand Rapids to pick up my new bike that Friday afternoon and came straight back and never seen a drop of rain. In fact I rode both Sat and Sun and never got wet. It rained a little Sun morning while I was cleaning the road dust off but by the time I was ready to ride the roads were dry. You should have stayed up and rode.