Planning a Motorcycle Trip Around Lake Michigan and Huron | Gear Tips, Safety, and ChatGPT Route Planning

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- Tie-Down Straps for Ferries

- Locking Bike Cable for Helmets and Jackets

- Credit Card and Debit Card Management Tips

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⏰ Timecodes ⏰

0:00 - Teaser: Planning the Great Lakes Trip

0:10 - Intro

0:40 - Pre-Roll: Join Our BMR Rider Alerts

1:00 - The Toolkit: Gear Recommendations

4:00 - Ride Wise: Safety and Planning Tips

8:00 - Mile Marker: Our Story Segment

12:00 - Promotion: Visit Our Website and Subscribe

12:30 - Roadside Q&A: Your Questions Answered

14:00 - The Last Mile: Reflections

16:00 - Closer: Thank You for Watching

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About:

Welcome to Best Motorcycle Roads, where we share our combined 65 years of motorcycling experience and 30 years of trip planning to help you make your next motorcycle trip the best it can be. From essential prep to unforgettable routes, we've got you covered!

(1) episode024 movie - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DHRSKrqLOo

Transcript:

(00:38) essential prep to Unforgettable Roots we've got you covered before we Kickstart today's Journey we ask you to sign up for our BMR Rider alerts it's our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only the essentials to enhance your motorcycle Adventures join the BMR crew today we'll put a link in the show notes this segment about motorcycle gear reviews and tips we call the toolkit in today's toolkit we're going to talk about credit cards tie

(01:40) was a Labor Day weekend so we left in August and it was August 31st then the card wouldn't work I couldn't forgot why expiration yeah I still haven't replaced it oh but you know but that's a great Point I've done that myself where I've traveled out of the country went to use a credit card or debit card it stops I'm like what's going on and yeah the bank stops that are automatically puts a whole well and we use kind of a local bank and they're a little overaggressive sometimes on their stopping I mean I can

(02:40) d-rings somewhere close so generally when you ride the FY they'll generally have the motorcycles load first they usually have a little pocket for them and then usually they'll you just never know what they'll have but uh a lot of I've never seen usually we just Center stand and then went D rings is what we did but yeah but and they did Supply them on the particular one we were on but I know the other there's two like Michigan a Southern and a northern one the northern one doesn't um Supply tie

(03:36) a little you know I think mostly well the one on the south really it hustles so yeah and then lastly just like I think we've talked about it before but a locking I use like a locking bike cable um when you get into some of the bigger cities it's not always a horrible thing to just uh run a bike cable through your coat and your um helmet and then that way it just slows the slows the the thieving down well you know keeps the honest people honest but yeah yeah and then one more toolkit item I think we'll

(04:38) to those wooded areas or any sort of Critters that uh you know like to Scurry across the road right in front of you and there's a lot of Curves and elevation changes in this area so just you know be watching for people um on these sharp Corners coming across the center line uh you know a lot of them are blind corners and that so pay attention and then some of these uh roads will have beach access points yeah and when there's strong winds it'll blow a bunch of that uh beach sand up onto the road oh yeah and you know that's not

(05:44) about there's a lot of Scenic o overlooks there uh make sure that when you're going off to these Scenic overlooks you're you can still be visible you know make sure um you're seen because or put your hazards on as you're coming up to those because sometimes they're pretty sudden little off you know offroads off these uh these roads and and just watch for the pedestrian traffic when you get into some of the tourist areas like uh Port Austin and Lexington and uh just you know kind of be aware yeah for extra

(06:36) other thing that you'll I mean you know Canada is lot I mean when you go to Michigan you go to Canada there's some areas that are but like Canada is pretty much nobody in most of the country so like most of Canada the people are near these Lakes you know areas like so like you'll just see big truck traffic you know they run some pretty good siiz trucks semi- trucks up there um and then this will start to become some of the seasons when they're in there logging and doing different things um also um

(07:38) Canada which is uh fries with gravy you just got to make sure there's a stop you know in your future cuz you will be stopping to to uh to rid yourself of that so good point yeah so plan your stops and you can pretty much get poutin at any gas station in Canada so and how are the gas stations I mean is it pretty sparse up there um you know most of the time it's not so bad I mean most bikes go 150 Mi that's whatever 200 change kilometers that's pretty far especially when we're in the coastal areas but um

(08:47) destinations well what I was thinking it was a full all the Great Lakes Loop and I looked at that and it was like 3,000 mil or 2500 maybe and I was like well that's not going to work but so starting in Chicago I sorted diving it up and it looks like we might be able to sneak in a two Lake Circle mhm and then um you and I were just kind of preparing a little bit for this and thinking man this is going to be cool there's a fairy ride um that's too so so what we've been looking at is maybe leaving from Aurora just take the

(09:51) of on the edge of civilization really which will allow us maybe the next day second day to go and visit White Fish Point yeah um which is cool that's the wreck of the um Edmund fist J Edmund fit yeah that's right it's cool um and I highly recommend if you get in that to go to see it it's it's quite fascinating and you know the museums do such a great job always like you know the walking tour with the headphones and you can kind of go at your own pace and boy they have like a reenactment of the whole

(10:54) hon and then maybe I don't is this Hon up here I'm looking at the maps on the as yeah that's all Heron so so basically a heron Michigan Lake tour hitting a ferry and then coming back through but then it's like okay so we get asked a lot of times well how do you figure all these places out you know we gave all these super educated ideas of how you can you can research all the towns and all the Chamber of commer and you know call the Canadians and ask them where to go right and I would say we use we will

(11:58) took a screenshot of the Google Map page so just did a screenshot okay and I pasted that in here and I said we're going to go clockwise we want to we don't care about Aurora to Green Bay we don't care about get when you get into from Canada to in the South part of Michigan we don't care about that we'll just take the interstates in those two places what else can we do what are things to see okay see put a picture in there it's a JPEG yep and you actually said we don't care about D D D D D this is what I

(12:59) version to upload the picture but I'm not positive on that cuz the the new version just came out the 40 and it allows you to do um it allows you to do a lot more I just can't remember if you're going to upload a picture not all right I'm not on Pro so I if you can't do that you could I'm sure find a picture of the Lake Michigan area and I know you can link to the picture okay so I'm sure you can do that because it can read the web so then I said you know we're going to be traveling clockwise

(13:54) Escanaba Michigan which is a too it's at lington Park there is a Sandpoint Lighthouse oh and then I got a little scared because I saw some names that I might not uh be able to read on the podcast so I said would you help me with some phonetic pronunciations as well and so um when it when it I don't think we'll be going to Marquette but in muning there is Picture Rocks National Lake Shore which was seemed kind of interesting but then this was the one that was really cool is that boat tours if you want to see the cliffs now i' had

(15:04) um you're going to Mino City so that's about where you cross the cross into the other uh area it appears that Fort Mish manau I didn't I I probably remember seeing that but I know we didn't stop there and then I I think that one time we stopped at the Bridge Museum which was kind of interesting but it's kind of a one time stopper um but then when you get over into Ontario um and this is what they listed the fairy ride that we're talking about the Chi-Chi the chichim fairy ride so that would take us down to tuber Mori

(16:12) start to plan the trip out that's really interesting and I what I'd be really now interested my next thoughts when I start to think through this more it's like what if we would tell it how many miles each day maybe we wanted to ride oh wow or maybe now start to say well you know Chris he's kind of a Camaro guy and Todd's a music guy and Tom's an idiot but he might like all kinds of be things he's kind Brad's a farming kind of guy you know if we started to add those things in are there things to see related too

(17:15) super interesting I think another angle that we haven't taken yet but I think we'll be um be interesting so I like that idea yeah I might have to post this into the uh into the Facebook group of well then you know in Facebook pretty polarizing half the people will say that I probably you're stupid yeah or the CIA so you just want to know where I'm going to a motorcycle trip you already posted that you were going to North Carolina so anyway so yeah I mean it I get asked so many times like how do you

(18:16) been 5 miles four miles 3 miles from something amazing that we love you know one of the coolest places we haven't talked about I don't think that we stopped that was the um what was the recording studio oh muscle shs I mean that was amazing and I know that happened cuz Brad accidentally and you remember I don't know if you remember Brad's like well I don't know if you guys want to stop at muscle shs or not but you know it's along the way yeah and they were like what I what is that yeah

(19:14) chat GPT could see more of the details of the actual roads would that help or not does it no is it that smart that it can I don't I mean yeah it's not smart that gets you know things get confusing what I would do is probably put a few more points along the way add a few more uh little dots if we see something that's interesting like one of the things I saw when I was zooming in a long time ago was there's a lot of Shoreline in some of these places and then you can kind of see some like little like areas that you would

(20:18) your mind now I don't know if that's anything or not but it's something right like and as you as you keep looking around like what am I missing you know what is this Gateway 57 up here right like you see these things on the map you know and you're looking around and some of them have this one happens to have a you know it happens to have a a thing but I think if we were to put in descriptions of what the things we like I think it would be better you know and looking forward to trying that yeah

(21:26) yeah send us questions it it help helps us with some topics sometimes and uh you know just tap into the things we've done yeah um so I thought uh on this one I would talk about like multi-day motorcycle trips around Lake Michigan Lake hon uh including a few things to see um that was cool that the chat GPT picked all those things out um because I had just brought up a few like Sleeping Bear Dunes I've heard a lot of people went to that and really like it yeah I I've been to Warren Dunes I don't like

(22:31) the oh gosh cenic Al Sable River in ascada uh in historic sites in Shaban uh Port Austin's turnup Rock and uh there's some other Charming towns long M25 yeah um do you know of any others that well what I would say also like I would just say this is um you know you know what you want to do and then you just got to dig around and look you know um you just got to got to try some stuff but I think the biggest tip like and 10 years ago I started that Facebook group you know motorcycle trips and advice or whatever and it took a long time before

(23:45) would say find a good Facebook group and ask questions because good ones answer great and they're that's so helpful and I'm definitely going to do that for this trip as well but yeah I think there's 25,000 or so in that group now is there yeah and I think uh motorcycle map is 50,000 50 yeah so both of those groups are well monitored well admin and answer well now it's time for The Last Mile it's kind of our way to close out the episode reflecting on the things we talked about today Todd what do you got

(24:47) the fairy ride so that's one of my first things but the second thing I think if we dialed this thing in even a little bit more it could be helpful um as far as like I think if we were took a little more time on it even and went a little deeper yeah like we talked about describing the people and then even um yeah I don't know I haven't quite formulated all the extra prompting but I think a little more prompting might even be even more more helpful so if we can figure that out we'll share it again in