Great Lakes, 
Great Riding

by Bill Wood

Hide and seek.

That’s the game we keep playing with Lake Huron.

This pastime is hardly unique to Michigan. In fact, I’ve noticed that most roads claiming to offer scenic water views are located just far enough away from the shore that you get nothing more than tantalizing glimpses. 

So it’s little surprise that in 20 miles of U.S. Route 23, clearly marked as the “Lake Huron Circle Tour,” Grant and I have seen a lot of trees, and no waves. 
But now, approaching Point Lookout, on the northern shore of Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay, it’s time to do something about that. We turn off the main highway and start hunting water views on smaller roads. There’s a major-league lake out there, and we mean to find it.

When we set out to locate the best motorcycling roads in Michigan, the focus of our search quickly narrowed. This is, after all, the Great Lakes State. You’ve got Superior way up north, Michigan to the west, Huron to the east and a little bit of Erie on the southeast corner. The Superior shoreline makes a great ride, but it’s better on a bike that can stand to get dirty, so we went adventure touring up there (see “Unpaved Paradise,” page 31). For this ride, I’m on Victory’s big V92TC tourer, and our goal is to work our way along the Huron and Michigan shorelines.

Starting in Bay City (picture the spot at the “thumbpit” of the mitten that is Michigan’s lower peninsula), we quickly leave the state’s industrial south behind and go lake hunting. 

Our Delorme Michigan Gazetteer, an indispensable guide for those seeking the roads less traveled, shows some promising possibilities at Point Lookout. But when we get to the narrow two-lane paralleling the shore, we discover it’s still separated from the water by a single row of cottages. Riding by, we see Huron in a series of quick peeks—cottage, lake, cottage, lake, cottage, lake—like flickering images of an old-time movie.

The first uninterrupted view of Huron comes up the road in Tawas, which has a city park along its downtown waterfront serving as the doormat for a sheet of blue stretching all the way to the horizon. 

Even better is the ride to Tawas Point, a comma of land curving into the lake. Out on the point is a lighthouse that dates back to 1876 and is still in use today. It’s a great place to sit for a while, watching people playing on the beach and sailboats skimming the open water. 

Beyond Tawas, the Huron shoreline takes on a rural character that fits the lake’s laid-back image. Indeed, you might think of Huron as the underachiever of the Great Lakes family. 

Superior is known for its massive size, while the other Greats are all linked with major cities: Chicago and Milwaukee on Lake Michigan, Cleveland on Lake Erie and Toronto on Lake Ontario. 

Then there’s Huron. It may be the world’s fourth-largest lake, but around its 3,200 miles of shoreline, you won’t find anything bigger than Bay City. Instead, there’s a tenuous thread of civilization—usually one cottage wide—separating the water from the northern Michigan forest. 

That makes for an exceptionally relaxing ride up Michigan’s east coast, especially because other traffic is practically nonexistent. And if you’re looking to slow down the pace even more, branch off Route 23 onto Lakeshore Drive just north of Harrisville and follow it to Alcona Township Huron Park, where on a late-summer weekday the crowd is likely to consist of you, your bike, and a couple of great blue herons. Just sitting there is guaranteed to lower your blood pressure 20 points.

Also going down, though, is the sun. So we start considering places to stay for the night. You might think this would be a fairly straightforward process, but it’s not. Grant is one of those people who wants to know he’s got a room reserved and waiting for him. I, on the other hand, would rather take my chances on stumbling across small, independently owned motels of the type that flourished in the ’50s—the kinds of places you just don’t find in traditional hotel guides.

To me, the best of these aren’t just old. Like a Triumph Thunderbird or an Indian Chief, they’re vintage. To Grant, the worst of them can turn an otherwise enjoyable trip into a concave-bed tour.

But in Alpena, we find a place we can both agree on. It’s an 18-room motel built in an “L” around an old house where the owner lives. As in most of these places, the rooms are tiny. They’re also spotlessly clean, and the old gray-and-purple tilework in the bath alone is worth the price of admission. Besides, each room comes with a pair of lawn chairs, so you can sit outside and enjoy a warm evening in the company of other guests, their cars and your bike. Now, this is what I’m talking about.

This part of Michigan has been nicknamed the “sunrise side,” probably by some chamber of commerce trying to boost the area’s image. But the trick works on us, and we roll out early to catch dawn over Huron. It turns out to be the best show in town, complete with all the pastel colors of the big, 64-crayon box. Nice.

North of Alpena, we get into lighthouse country. A state survey lists more than 120 lighthouses in Michigan, more than any other state. And 15 of them can be found in the 90-mile stretch from Alpena to the northern tip of the lower peninsula. 

A side trip out to Presque Isle to visit two of them is almost like a New England tour, except much less crowded. The first Presque Isle lighthouse you come to is one of the oldest surviving lights on the Great Lakes, dating from 1840. At a mere 30 feet tall, it’s also one of the shortest. The lighthouse had been in operation less than 30 years when Congress decided a taller one would guide ships over a much greater distance. You can find the replacement—in fact, you can hardly miss it—just a mile farther up the road.

The “new” Presque Isle light, as it’s known even though it’s been in operation continuously since 1871, stands more than 130 feet tall and is the center of a 99-acre park offering lake and harbor views on three sides. The highlight here is climbing to the top of the lighthouse’s 138-step iron spiral stairway for a great panorama of the Presque Isle woodlands and the surrounding lake. They say this light can be seen 20 miles out in the lake, and on a clear day, you can see at least that far across the open water.

The natural wonders are impressive, but just up the road in Rogers City we find an equally imposing man-made attraction: the largest limestone quarry in the world. Following a small sign to the quarry overlook, we stare down into a huge open space, with tiny vehicles crawling across the bottom. The scene looks familiar, and then I realize why: This is the view of the world we all had when we played with toy trucks in sandboxes as kids.

Just beyond Rogers City, The Lake Huron Circle Tour finally delivers the kind of non-stop lake views we’ve been expecting all along. It’s a great stretch of road all the way to Cheboygan, where you start to hit the outskirts of the tourist phenomenon known as Mackinac Island.

There’s a lot to like about Mackinac, which has everything an island should: historic resort hotels, a cool little town where you can walk from shop to shop buying fudge and salt water taffy, and a slower pace of life than you’re used to at home. But motor vehicles aren’t allowed, so instead, we hit Mackinaw City, the jumping-off point for the island ferries, ready for lunch. In particular, we’re looking for a specialty of the area known as pasties. 

What’s a pasty? It’s a meat pie (pronounced “PASS-tee”) in the shape of a small football. Pasties originated in England, where they made a hearty, portable lunch for miners. Brits who emigrated to Michigan brought the recipe with them.

At their best, pasties are just what a motorcyclist needs for a long day on the road, with beef, pork, potatoes, onions and rutabagas, all freshly cooked in a doughy shell. At least, that’s what we get at a Mackinaw City restaurant. But be aware that not all pasties are created equal. Later in the trip, we’re served up the “nasty pasty,” a frozen, then microwaved substitute that’s still icy in the center. Oh, the horror.

After lunch, we’re out of Mackinaw City, heading southwest on a network of county roads that takes us to the water. This time, though, it’s the upper reaches of Lake Michigan that we’re following. Huron ends, and Michigan begins, right under Big Mack, the 5-mile suspension bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac.

The roads in this area are among the motorcycling highlights of Michigan. Great lake views mix with flowing curves, all leading toward a place that’s become a destination for Michigan bikers—Legs Inn, in the tiny community of Cross Village.

Approaching the Legs Inn parking lot, we see everything from sportbikes to full-boat tourers mixing with the standard tourist minivans and SUVs outside the old, fieldstone building. And although lunch was only 15 miles ago, we decide we’ve got room for dessert.

Legs is a Polish family restaurant that’s an institution up here, so we look for anything on the menu we can’t pronounce. We end up with delicious servings of something called nalesnik and fruit pierogies. 

But the attraction of Legs isn’t just the Old World food. It’s the fact that this is the jumping off point for one of the most incredible state highways in the country—Michigan Route 119.

For a dozen miles from Cross Village south to Harbor Springs, 119 is known as the “tunnel of trees,” for good reason. The road is perfectly paved, but it’s barely a lane-and-a-half wide. It sweeps back and forth under a canopy of leaves, occasionally opening up into a spectacular lake view.

We keep thinking we must have made a wrong turn onto a private drive, but the signs assure us this is a state highway. We’d like to meet the highway engineer who signed off on that—and thank him.

The cool stretch ends in Harbor Springs, a tourist haven for the rich on a sparkling blue bay. We’re sure it’s a nice enough place, but the bikes we saw up in Cross Village have all been replaced by Volvo station wagons and Lincoln Navigators. They’re parked in front of antique shops, queuing up at stoplights and pulling out in front of unsuspecting motorcyclists.

After two full days in Michigan’s relaxing north country, we don’t know how to react when confronted with so much civilization. 

But then it comes to us: All we need to do is turn around. 

© 2003, American Motorcyclist Association