Episode 038: Fall Leaf Ride – Top Ride in Each State

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Bottom Line

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All right, Todd, the bottom line is get out on the Great River Road and get to riding. It’s October. Absolutely. Absolutely. So many of these roads, we actually have never ridden in the fall. ~Um, ~so what we did was we kind of cross referenced the great roads we knew about, dug into some of the, uh, internet favorite fall leaf areas.

Best Motorcycle Leaf Ride in Michigan

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So let’s start with Michigan. And again, we’ve rode the tunnel of trees a number of times, but never in the fall.

And Oh my gosh, I saw some of the pictures and they are amazing. So tunnel of trees just has to be amazing in person. 22 miles of M 119, which I am just imagining to be quite beautiful. ~Um, ~you know, we just rode this not too long ago. And boy, when you were riding along that,~ um,~ overpass of where the lake, you know, it’s, we were riding from north, excuse me, from south to north and wow, it was just, it was one of the coolest things and I’ve just forgotten it so many times and when you don’t go there and you go back and I can only imagine how many colors of leaves there might be in that area.

And so people must just have to completely pull over when it’s car to car. But yeah. Yeah. So that’s Michigan. Fill them with trees.

Best Motorcycle Leaf Road in Minnisota

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Minnesota and uh, you know the highway 61 which starts in Duluth and runs on the north side of superior there It’s amazing. I again I was all the way to the canadian border ~Um, ~I checked out the pictures.

Oh my gosh Uh, what a view and then kind of the super tip and this is uh, something they were talking about ~Um ~on there was there’s a ski resort up there and they call it the lustin mountains. Yeah You can take the, at certain days you’d have to make sure that you can do it, but they take the ski lift up to the top.

I couldn’t, it didn’t, it just had ranges when I looked. Beforehand. So you might have to give them a call. Yeah. I would, I would hope the weekends, because that’s when people drive and looking at the leaves, check the website.

Best Motorcycle Leaf Ride in Illinois

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So if we moved to Illinois, you know, the easy answer is great river road. And I kind of knew we were going to talk about that with other ones.

So, ~um, ~I dug in a little deeper and actually on the other side of Illinois, there’s the Ohio river scenic byway. So basically it runs along the river over there. Mm hmm. Wow,~ um,~ what a, what a beautiful looking,~ um,~ area. So kind of, if you think about in the four o’clock position of Illinois. There’s a town called Old Shawnee Town, Old Shawnee Town, Illinois.

It kind of just traces the bottom of Illinois. And wow, I was looking at some of the foilage from down there, and it is pretty, pretty cool. That makes sense. And we’ve never rode, again, we haven’t rode there in the fall for sure. Every time we’ve rode that area down there, it’s been raining. I don’t know if you remember that or not.

And again, every time we try to go there, it’s been raining. So sometime I’d like to get there, but the views and the, and what they’re

Just seems stunning from the pictures that I saw. Mm hmm. Is there any other places in Illinois that you know of? Off the top of your head? Not off the top of my head. I, I, I highly recommend that. I mean, that, that would be great. I would also have to say, you, you guys have been there. We’ve never been there together, but, uh, that Bald Knob Cross.

Oh, right. Yeah. ~Um, ~I believe they say you can see for many states. There’s like, it’s a, it’s like three to five states, I think you can see from there. Yeah, that’s. And that’s really looking over the Mississippi. It’s where the Ohio River and the Mississippi River meet, I think. Cause I think the Ohio River comes and puts in the Mississippi there.

It’s a great, it’s a great thing. Yeah. And, you know, Great River Road, you can always ride the west side of course. Of course. Yeah.

Best Leaf Road for Motorcycles in Missouri

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So when I looked at Missouri again, I looked at, you know, we talked about, you know, Highway 19 and Missouri is one of our favorites. That thing runs through all kinds of forests.

it would be amazing. ~Um, ~but I look for one specifically around Lake of the Ozarks. Oh, yeah. Just because we haven’t talked a lot about that area of Missouri before. ~Um, ~so if there’s,~ um,~ a really, really interesting ride, probably the most unique ride of any of the rides that we’re talking about today. And this is Table Rock Lake to Kimberling City, Highway 265 to 13.

~Um ~The pictures that I saw overlooking, like, Lake of the Ozarks area, was just, it was so neat, and then the one, it was probably some, a picture I could never take, but, like, it was reflecting just right off the lake, so you’re just seeing this, like, Massive, like, colors. Postcard. A postcard photo, right? Right.

The Great River Road is the Best Leaf Ride for Motorcyles in Wisconsin

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The longest road or longest leaf ride that we’ve tracked for today is Wisconsin. ~Um, ~I’m going to throw a bonus one out there is Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive is actually not too far from Milwaukee. It’s the Kettle Moraine State Park and there’s like a, it’s like an eight mile drive and there’s a lot of walking trails in this area by Milwaukee that you can go to.

Really, really great leaf ride. But I mean, this one probably is the best section of the Great River Road, as far as it comes to,~ um,~ to leaves. So this one is 181 miles.~ Um, ~I kind of got it briefly jumping into Minnesota, uh, just because I actually think the drive and the leaf view would be better. ~Um, ~but it really, that part of it keeps you right on the river.

~Um, ~and it was cheap too, by the way, I was like, I think we got five pounds of Honeycrisp for seven bucks. So, I mean, it’s a bargain too.~ Um, ~so what I’ve got on this one, So it actually starts in Prescott, Wisconsin, which is essentially the Twin Cities. I mean, it is all the way up there. That’s 35 coming down to Stockholm.

But, like, it was blocks and blocks and blocks of people. There was probably 5, 000 people in the town when we were there. What? Unreal. Not all to get pie. Well, I mean, there was probably a third of them probably had pie. No kidding. Oh my gosh. We waited probably five minutes just to get in line, you know. But it was worth it.

~Um, ~but then what I would do at the very end is Dubuque has a really great, uh, Dubuque, Iowa has a really great park called Pikes Peak State Park, and it is tall. And if you go up there, then you get a, you’re looking again over the river valley there. It’s unbelievable. And I think that might give you one of the best fall views that you could, they could get maybe the, especially you’re really looking at Wisconsin when you’re there at that Pikes Peak park.

Yeah. Have you ever been there? I have. Yeah. It’s been a while, but it’s crazy. And there’s a special like scenic overlook. I think that’s a little bit off that you can go to and you know You’ll see tons of pictures about it, but yeah, there’s We rode this section. This is a little bit further north starting and coming down this section of the great river road And again, it’s just it’s stunning.

Iowa’s Best Motorcycle Leaf Ride

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then the last one is the Iowa one. And again, we could easily pick the Great River Rub.

I’m like, yeah, let’s, And actually,~ um,~ my wife and I wrote, rode in a car this road, not too long ago. We were up in, uh, Dyersville and I wanted to come down to Bellevue. So we did. And,~ um,~ again, another great lock in Bellevue. It’s a cool one. The town of Bellevue is really cool. It’s been, they’re really trying very hard to continue to, uh, Maintain the historical value of a lot of the buildings there.

So even the ones that are on the river There’s a brewery there and some stuff they put some money into them And so you can really there’s a nice like river walk on that side ~um, ~but and that has a beautiful view of the wisconsin side when you’re looking across ~um, ~Or I guess that would be illinois by the time we got to billboard.

We took this and it was. Unbelievable. Now we were driving the car, but, but this was, I can’t even believe how this would be with the, with the bikes, because you’re going up and down. And then there’s a nice valley. They’re kind of like, ~um, ~you know, where these, these hills are meeting, you’re driving down along the base of the hill.

It is stunning. And that was not even on the bikes. I was just in the car. And I was thinking about writing this down. And then when I saw this, Grantwood Scenic Byway, again haven’t been there in the fall, but I think I think this is one that we might We might have to figure out how to get to this thing this year ~Um, ~it’s not too bad.

Yeah, I agree. I think i’ve only rode Motorcycles in the fall maybe I think we did like, uh, like, uh, kind of a little loop around Sibula, Savannah, that area in the fall before, but I don’t think I’ve ever hit it right in the money. Is this, do they call it the Grantwood Scenic Byway? Did Grantwood paint images of this?

So I’m thinking that one’s going to have to be a must, a must do this year. Yeah, that sounds good. What did the, and, and you’ve found too, like if you go to the local, like, ~um, ~like the DNR website for each state, they kind of start to help you. So, I mean. They don’t know yet when the best times are. If you keep watching, they kind of start to get it figured out.

So, uh, yeah, I’m sure each state has something like that. So take a look at the, you know, the DNR sites. Yeah. Yeah. So if you go there, then you can kind of see, because it’ll start from the north and work its way south, so, yeah. And it’s usually done by the end of October, probably. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, depending on how far south, but yeah.

Yeah, depending on temperature, I suppose. I suppose, frost, temperature, wind. Yeah, yeah.

Toolkit

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Alright, for the tool kit, kind of as you think about riding when it gets a little cooler,~ Um,~ I thought maybe a TPMS, uh, Tire Pressure Monitoring System is good. No. The newer bikes are starting to come with these. ~Um, ~but they’re pretty reasonably priced.

But,~ um,~ I know that I’ve read a few reviews, you the cheap ones and they don’t last more than about a year. So I don’t want to do that. And I’ve also read where,~ um,~ If they’re heavy, because they screw onto the cap, like you take the cap off, screw them on, if they’re too heavy, you actually need to replace the valve with a metal valve, because it’ll, it’ll, it’ll break off your valve, because they’re, they put a lot of pressure on.

I think if you have a straight valve, I don’t think it’s so, Problematic because generally the valve stem is in the middle of the rim I think when it gets a slight bit problematic, it’s some of the motorcycles have a 90 Yeah, I do think you have to be careful then. Yeah, and I think I have at least one 98 camera But sometimes the 90s are metal too.

Yep. And you will, very difficult to get off. Yeah, they start to share molecules and they weld themselves together. Yeah, it’s great. ~Um, ~so there’s that. ~Um, ~the other one is, is, you know, even, so I have the newer Goldwing that has a TPMS. Yeah. And when, uh, we recently rolled that road out west in the morning, I was shocked.

I mean, I was a little concerned that I had a punctured tire, but both tires had dropped similarly in pressure. So it was just a atmospheric thing, but it was weird. I mean, I was like, Oh man, like I was getting a little worried, but then when they were both, so I had to put air in both tires,~ um,~ during the trip.

Exactly. And then especially when you’re,~ um,~ kind of got to do a visual though, because like you might have the right pressure, but then you’re loaded up with a bunch of weight and you might need to get a little firmer, uh, when you’re loaded up, loaded for bear. Yeah. That’s a great point. Yeah. Do you know, are the ones that connect, uh, to a phone app, are they not quite as nice as the ones that have their own little.

Gauge that you can mount on the handlebars. I know a lot of people would prefer not to have, I mean, what’s nice about the ones on your phone is I think that’ll give you an alert. It’s like, like Bluetooth. Cause I think it’s Bluetooth. Oh, okay. So like they will alert you. So generally you’d probably be a little more apt to do it.

Yeah. Monitor monitor. Yeah.

BMR Closer

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