MikeEckhaus

Quickly browsed this section. Didn’t see much on road biking in lower Michigan besides rail trails and similar. Is there a decent road biking scene in SE Michigan, or is it more gravel/mountain?

Troul 

where specifically are you looking to road ride? Most SE roads are under construction & have closed sidewalks as well. If you happen to be on a road that "detours" drivers, chances are it'll dump you on to a road that is less cyclists friendly & not have an alternate route (sidewalk) to dogleg it to another road with less risks.

Hit Factor

We ride from New Hudson to Milford and back, just under 30 miles on paved trails. Found some trails along Outer Drive, but I don't know how far they go. MTB at Lakeshore Park (Walled Lake), Maybury State Park, DTE Foundation (Chelsea). There is a paved road bike trail going right by the DTE Foundation. Quite frankly, riding in traffic in the Metro area scares us. Even though we grew up there.

I live in SW Mi and it's so much easier to ride on our roads. We also consider N. Indiana as local and they pave their roads better than MI. We is my wife and I.

MikeEckhaus

Thanks for the responses. I wouldn’t be riding anywhere really close to metro Detroit, but maybe out in the Milford to Brighton area or south or west of Ann Arbor. Just looking to see if there is any decent road biking in the area. If not, then I will happily consider gravel or mountain biking.

friday1970

I live in the Brighton area, and road bike almost exclusively. I'd say there is a quite a decent road biking scene. A lot of guys taking off from Hometown cycles on Grand River. See Shawn there for biking tips.

The easy places would be Kensington Metropark and Island Lake Recreation Area. About 9 miles of roads in KMP, and about 6.5 in ILRA. Each parks also has its own paved trail system. I also like to ride the perimeter of the GM Proving grounds, and take Hyne to Hunter road, and then Flint rd into Brighton. The areas southwest of the proving grounds are decent, like Spencer/Buno/Culver roads.
From Brighton to Ann Arbor, I combine the trail along Feldcrest, then Feldcrest itself to Whitmore Lake road via E Shore Drive, across the 6 mile bridge, and then down Whitmore Lake to Ann Arbor.
More towards Milford, Hickory Ridge is a nice road with a decent shoulder. I think it meets with a path on the North side of M59 too.
From Milford to Wixom, there is no real good route. But the gravel section of Garden Road, through Proud Lake to Wixom road isn't bad, with Charms road taking you off Wixom to avoid traffic.

We also have great rail trails in our area. You take the trail systems from Pontiac to South Lyon. If you take 9 mile, which has just enough shoulder for the traffic, all the way past US23, you can then rejoin the rail trail there. Paved to Pinckney, and gravel all the way to nearly Jackson (stops about 4 miles short, Take 106 to get to Jackson and then to the falling waters trail).
If you want go East of Pontiac, you can follow the Clinton River trail connector through Pontiac, and then the unpaved Clinton river trail to the paved McComb Orchard Trail. Stony Creek Metropark is close by with a short connector as well.

If you get into a car and go to Webberville, south of that city are a ton a great paved roads and farmlands, and hardly any traffic. I go there often in the summer.

The places I don't ride are most of the roads between Brighton and Pinkney (no shoulder, rough roads, and 60mph traffic), Old US23 from Brigton to Hartland (past Hartland, it's awesome!), Tuttle Hill rd, and MIlford road from I96. There's more. But I wish these roads were better.

You also mentioned South and West of Ann Arbor. While I am not too familiar with that area, I have road loops from Ann Arbor to Manchester, Clinton, Saline via Scio Church Rd and Austin roads. Also from Ann Arbor, there is a HUGE biking scene along the Huron River Drive to Dexter, and from Dexter to Chelsea along the Dexter Chelsea Road. Lots of cyclists stopping at Zou Zou's cafe.

So in short, Yes, plenty of road biking opportunities. Any questions, feel free to ask me.

mrv 

As much as possible, I am staying off the paved roads in the area. I used to pave-road ride frequently on Plymouth/AA Rd to Ann Arbor. On toward Chelsea & back. The volume of cars just kept going up. And since 2019, somebody set the dial to eleven.
I think friday1970 covered most of the stuff in the Bright / Ann Arbor.

I'm sticking with dirt (as much as possible). I find my cross bike goes just fine on pavement, but the road bike I used to have on dirt roads was brutal. The dirt roads (say like Plymouth to Chelsea & back) are more interesting, require more skill & finesse (not as much as single track riding), and really cut down on the volume of traffic.

chas58

Personally, I find cars (mostly trucks actually) very aggressive around here. The exceptions are Ann Arbor and Detroit proper (within city limits). Detroit suburbs are a nightmare.

you can certainly go on strava and find the heat maps - those are a great start. That said, a weekly club ride (or race) can distort things a bit - there are things I do in a weekly group ride that I would not do solo on a busy day.

Tons of gravel around - and that has really gotten popular lately.