Key West not the only great motorcycle ride in Florida

Great motorcycle roads always (hopefully) lead to sunset at a fun restaurant.

A great motorcycle road in Florida? Hard to believe. Our roads tend to be flat, straight and boring. But there are some great rides — sometimes through small towns to a dead end at the ocean.

There is a whole website devoted to such towns in Florida: Florida Backroads Travel. It has a helpful list and map of the 17 end-of-the-road towns it considers worthwhile, NOT including the most obvious one: Key West.

Of course, everyone know about U.S. 1 through the Florida Keys all the way to Key West.

Key West "is the quintessential end-of-the-road town, not just in Florida but maybe in the entire United States," the website notes.

I thought I'd discovered another great dead-end ride when I came across a reference to the "Ozello Trail" the other day.

I asked my wife Bonnie to Google it. No need.

"We've been there," she replied.

"I don't think so," I said. "This is supposedly a twisty road through islands along the coast, with a great place to eat at the end, called Peck's."

"Yeah," she said. "We've driven it. We ate there."

We did?

The blog MotorcycleRoads.com gives the Ozello Trail a four-star rating.

"Probably the one road that the state of Florida got right," one rider commented. And everyone seems to like the food at Peck's Old Port Cove restaurant at the end of the road.

Surely I should remember it!

Moral of this story: when your wife suggests someplace for dinner, pay attention to the road to the restaurant.

Although the Ozello Trail is only nine miles long, it turns out there are many great, longer rides in my state. Check out MotorcycleRoads.com to find great rides in your state.