I grew up in small town Michigan, and then spent several more years in Ann Arbor. If you don't like the climate in North Carolina, then you probably won't like Michigan either. Summers will be hot and humid - 90 degrees and 90% humidity - and lots of bugs - probably not dissimilar to NC. Winters will be cold and snowy - much more miserable than NC.
The terrain will be mostly flat with some small rolling hills. There will be lots of shortish trees - except on land cleared for farming.
In terms of cycling: Michigan is covered by a grid of roads. Back when the state was originally surveyed, it was divided up into 1 square mile squares. There are almost always roads at those boundaries. Sometimes the grid is divided further, and of course there are also roads that follow geographic features. This means that outside of towns, you can zig-zag around on "back" streets making whatever length cycling route you want.
I think zoom-zoom could give a more up to date details...