Planning on a Ride to the North Shore/Ely

[Dave S]

A friend called today to confirm my desire to take a ride up to the North Shore and over to Ely. I'll be looking forward to this trip.

Anyone have any recommended routes to take? Beginning on a Friday, I'm either going to go cross country and maybe head up through Askov and up 23 to Jay Cooke State Park, then up through Duluth finished off by taking HWY 1 to Ely. We're thinking of staying in Ely.

Saturday will be spent riding back down 1 to the North Shore and heading up towards Grand Marais, stopping along the way.

Sunday, will be spent heading back home.

If there's any must ride, paved roads along the way, let me know. There's a couple other paved, scenic roads around the Ely area that would be fun to ride. But the only time I've been on them is in the winter time.

[Hafnutz]

Sounds to me like you nailed it. Some of those roads are my favs. Hwy 23 doesn't get used a lot and is especially nice the closer you get to Duluth.

[MAB]

Highway 1 is real nice lot's of curves and not real rough. I rode the same route you have planned minus the trip back, went on to the south west from there. I would like to do it again but I don't make it up to that part of the state too often.

Enjoy.

[Sherpa]

You have a great route planned, I wouldn't change a thing.

[Dave S]

We made the journey and had a blast. If I would change one thing, I would have taken HWY 35 on the Wisconsin side up and back. The roads in WI are much better than most in MN.

We went up scenic 61 to Two harbors. Then up through the Silver Creek Tunnels to Illgen City and up HWY1. I have to say that was one of the best parts of the ride. My wife let me know I was having a little too much fun on the twistys

Our return trip brought us down to Tower where we headed south on HWY135 to Biwabik. I was surprised to find the roads in this area in great shape. In Biwabik, we continued onto HWY4. There was one section of HWY4 that was the absolute worst. Once we got through Colvin, it was back to a near perfect road.

Once we arrived at our hotel in Proctor, we had logged 312 miles for the day. Overall for the trip we logged 900 miles.

The end of the road at the BWCA.

And our companions who joined us for the ride.

I can't leave out the transportation that got us there and back. My '08 Concours14 on the left and Rich's '89 Venture Royale on the right.

And the ladies with the bikes.

Well, Sunday morning came around and it was time to head for home. The ladies had the car so they hit I35 and made it home to Le Sueur in just over 3 hours.

Anyhow, Rich and I jumped across the lake on the Bong Bridge and took 35 on the WI side for the southbound journey. We ended up at Lake Pepin.

We back tracked a little to cross the river into Redwing and finished our travels home.

I can't say enough about the weekend. One thing that Packerland has going for it is the quality of their roads system over MN. My azz is very greatful.