While I'm really from Tampa Florida, my wife and I have a summer home on Little Glen Lake at the foot of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Cycling in northern Michigan (not the Upper Peninsula) is the exact opposite as it is in Tampa. Florida is flat and Michigan is full of hills--big ones. A few gears are all that's necessary in Florida, here you may not have enough. I have been cycling on and off since the early 80's. The first good bike I owned was a Panasonic road bike. I road that bike for several years until I bought one of the first Cannondale mountain bikes. We lived in Germany at that time and they have wonderful biking/hiking trails all over the country. While there I also joined a German cycling club and rode with them twice a week during cycling weather and rode the mountain bike on the trails during the winter months. During our time in Germany I had a custom bike built by Hans Lutz's shop in Stuttgart that I used on club rides and for triathlons. I've also had two other Cannondale mountain bikes over the years. A few years ago I had to have back surgery (twice) and I had to give up riding for a while. When I got the OK to ride I decided to buy one of the comfort bikes where you sit more upright. I bought an Electra Townie Balloon 8 and have used it in Florida ever since. It's a very comfortable soft ride. It's not very good in the hills of Northern Michigan, so I bought a Motobecane hybrid, a road bike with more upright seating and mountain bike gearing. It's a great ride in the hills. We're heading back to Tampa in a couple weeks and I plan on dusting off my Hans Lutz and see how it rides.

Hello flysdown,

Welcome to Bike Forums from Texas.