UselessPickles
Making Grand Canyon replicas from air boxes...
I finally got to experience some roads that are not flat, straight and arranged in a grid like most of SE Michigan. I got up into the upper peninsula of Michigan and dipped down into Wisconsin a bit. Unfortunately, there was quite a conflict of interests and road trip styles among all in the group (motercyclists were outnumbered by young and elderly people in cagers that got invited along on this motorcycle road trip because "they'd love it!"), so I didn't get to ride all the roads I had planned and didn't get nearly enough time on the roads that I did make it to.
I sure wish I had fun roads closer to home. I was laughing out load in my helmet at times. It feels amazing to roll on the throttle in 3rd gear and have the front end float up as you crest a hill mid-corner
. I even got both wheels off the ground on a couple hills in the straight sections. I spent most of the time in 3rd gear so I could focus on cornering without worrying about running out of revs mid-corner. 3rd gear seems to have plenty of torque to put a smile on my face through the curves.
One of my favorite areas was US-41, M-26 and Brockway Mtn Drive near Copper Harbor, MI (google map clicky)
My brother is up in Houghton going to Michigan Tech right now, so he gets to go ride these roads any time he likes. He calls the 26 and 41 loop "the rollercoaster of the upper peninsula". I determined that Brockway Mtn Drive should then be called "the Meanstreak of the upper peninsula" (the Meanstreak is a very large and old wooden roller coaster at Cedar Pointe that is very rough, but very fun).
My biggest problem with the curves was that I regularly overestimated the corners, so I would initially turn into the corner too much and need to stand the bike up and re-situate. I suppose it's much better than coming into corners too fast, but it was a little frustrating to find out that I could've very comfortably gone quite a bit faster through almost every corner. Part of it was because I didn't know the roads and had no idea what was coming up next, but I even turned in too quickly on corners that I had a clear view all the way through and could see exactly what I was up against. I assume that I just need to get better at "reading" corners with more experience. I think it just might be worth the 10 hour ride to go spend a long weekend up there again (without a large group of vacationers in cages in tow).
Here's a couple videos from the trip. The wide angle lens makes the curves and hills look more straightened out than they really are. Now I'm thinking of getting a standard angle camera too.
US-41:
I sure wish I had fun roads closer to home. I was laughing out load in my helmet at times. It feels amazing to roll on the throttle in 3rd gear and have the front end float up as you crest a hill mid-corner
. I even got both wheels off the ground on a couple hills in the straight sections. I spent most of the time in 3rd gear so I could focus on cornering without worrying about running out of revs mid-corner. 3rd gear seems to have plenty of torque to put a smile on my face through the curves.One of my favorite areas was US-41, M-26 and Brockway Mtn Drive near Copper Harbor, MI (google map clicky)
My brother is up in Houghton going to Michigan Tech right now, so he gets to go ride these roads any time he likes. He calls the 26 and 41 loop "the rollercoaster of the upper peninsula". I determined that Brockway Mtn Drive should then be called "the Meanstreak of the upper peninsula" (the Meanstreak is a very large and old wooden roller coaster at Cedar Pointe that is very rough, but very fun).
My biggest problem with the curves was that I regularly overestimated the corners, so I would initially turn into the corner too much and need to stand the bike up and re-situate. I suppose it's much better than coming into corners too fast, but it was a little frustrating to find out that I could've very comfortably gone quite a bit faster through almost every corner. Part of it was because I didn't know the roads and had no idea what was coming up next, but I even turned in too quickly on corners that I had a clear view all the way through and could see exactly what I was up against. I assume that I just need to get better at "reading" corners with more experience. I think it just might be worth the 10 hour ride to go spend a long weekend up there again (without a large group of vacationers in cages in tow).
Here's a couple videos from the trip. The wide angle lens makes the curves and hills look more straightened out than they really are. Now I'm thinking of getting a standard angle camera too.
US-41:
