Memoirous

Day 7 Milwaukee to Chicago via Oak Leaf, WE Energies, MRK, and Robert McCroy, North Shore Channel paths 87 miles It was all downhill from here. Mostly. I was riding toward home. After 10 hours of riding I pulled in out back to park my bike in the basement. It was a hard trip on the days it was hard and a great ride on the days where I could be on bike trails and not ride into the wind. Doesn’t this about sum up any trip? good bye Milwaukee

Day 6 Poutine! In Milwaukee Lake Mills to Milwaukee 61 miles The rain started at 4 a.m. and went until 7. The road was a bit slurry as the cinders congealed into a stew to slow me down. Again I had low energy and had to ride 17 miles until I made it to a Mobil where I bought an apple fritter and a Gatorade. After powering up the miles just flew. In Douseman there is trailside a HUGE and expert bike shop. I know, I wasn’t expecting that either. A bar, yeah, even the smallest 1 corner place had a bar, but something as hip as a bike shop—I knew I was getting close to civilization. The bike doctors gave me a plug for my bar ends that fell out the very first day—probably when I threw the bike down in absolute exhaustion. The guys checked my brakes, said they were okay and printed off a map to help me connect to the New Berlin trail once in Waukesha. THANKS so much guys. Now I was on asphalt and the miles ticked off quickly. In Waukesha I got on the Internet for lik...

Day 5 Devil’s Lake to Lake Mills, self-register DNR campground 71 miles Once again the hills out in the a.m. were not as formidable as the hot afternoon before. I got to the Merrimac Ferry and was across “Lake Wisconsin” in 5 minutes. There was no big ascending hill up to Lodi where I finally came across a franchise. I had a flatbread pizza at Subway and that substained me all the way into Madison, where I arrived around 12 noon and ate once again at Subway, saving the second half of my foot long for later that night. farmland outside of Madison Lake Mendota I accessed the Glacial Drumlin trail in Cottage Grove by a combo of city streets and some paths getting out of Madison, not a problem. The GD is 52 miles straight across to Waukesha outside of Milwaukee. This trail can also get a bit monotonous—but it was flat and shady—what I needed that afternoon. In Lake Mills there is about a mile off the trail a DNR, Self-Register bike campground, Sand...

Day 4 Elroy – Devil’s Lake 44 miles Oh boy! Was this a hard day—I encountered the Baraboo Hills. First I had breakfast at the Bender Family Restaurant in downtown Elroy. Two eggs and tst came to $239—a GREAT value! I finished off the series of trails, the 400 (22 miles) and left Reedsburg around noon to start self-navigation road cycling. I was not ready for the intense sun, heat, humidity, and hills after the bike paths. I got a Gatorade and egg rolls at Kwik Trip in Reedbsburg but had physically and emotionally blown through them by the time I got to Baraboo. I arrived at the Circus Museum around 2 p.m. There was a gardner outfront who asked about my trip. He really seemed like he knew what he was talking about. There would be hills he said. If I could get to Rt DL I would have worked through them, but he really recommended me staying at Devil’s Lake. I hardly listened to him as I wanted to go well beyond Devil’s Lake and knew I had plenty of time to get to Lod...

Day 3 Perrot State Park to Elroy via several bike trails/paths 74 miles Each morning I’m packing up wet from the intense dew. After a Kwik Trip stop for egg rolls I finished the GRT (18 more miles) and picked up the LaCrosse River Trail (22 miles). I really had low energy and had to power through. I thought if the Elroy-Sparta is as boring as this it will be a long day. Got to Sparta and ate a picnic lunch at the depot. The Elroy-Sparta is 32 miles and the earliest rail-to-trail conversion having been built in 1967. Since I was a teenager I’ve dreamed of rising the Elroy-Sparta. After leaving Elroy I noticed a slight uphill. It was interesting terrain, a slow, steady climb. I was getting excited. At the top I saw a sign for ice cream. A guy was selling ice cream sandwiches out of his locker freezer. We sat and chatted and he said he’d always lived next to the tunnel. ?? He said the tunnel was nearly a mile long. I was sooo excited.  ...

Day 2 Hagar City to Perrot State Park 76 miles I was up and packed early. I ate only crackers before leaving, but made sure I had 2 water bottles handy. I wanted to attack the impending hill early before the heat got too bad. I probably started ascending around 7 a.m. and it WAS NOT as bad as what I encountered the day before. So rest, hydration, and beating the heat were key to the rest of the trip. There were wayside rests and historical markers. And, most importantly, the hills disappeared. Most of the smallish towns are about 7 miles apart. Even though there are bakeries in Maiden Rock and Stockholm, I was too early. I was able to find breakfast in Pepin at the Homemade Restaurant . Because my stomach was still not up to much I order 2 eggs and tst. The bill came to $5.89. I know eggs are getting pricey but I didn’t think it should be so much. A few days later I ordered the exact same breakfast and it came to $2.39. In both Maiden Rock and Stockholm there ap...

7 Days Riding from Minneapolis to Chicago via mostly bike paths Day 1 Minneapolis to Hagar City 54.2 miles After leaving my friend’s house around 9 a.m. I hit the road, a series of self-navigational turns to escape the Twin cities. I had all kinds of plans to do 70 or more miles—not to be. There were navigational errors (lost??) as well as sun and high humidity to deal with. By 2 p.m. I reached Prescott, inside the WI border. There is a visitor center there where I cooled off and ate lunch. Little did I realize this was too little too late. I was probably already dehydrated. The woman at the center did warn me: it’s not flat. I wanted to live in denial—or maybe the sun had already rattled my brain—so I started out with my measly bottle of water and high hopes. The temps were in the 90s and there was very little to no cloud cover. The hot asphalt radiated up as the sun poured down.  1st view of the Mississippi The hills killed me. For the next 19 or so mi...

A portrait from the 1890s at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Susan B. Anthony said cycling did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. Credit National Museum of American History In the late 1800s the bicycle transformed from the penny farthing, those impossibly high highwheelers, to something not too different from what we ride today—except it didn’t cost over $5,000. Just imagine all you needed to go beyond your village was to put air in your tires. In one day you could go further than you could simply walking. And, you didn’t need a companion. It could be done solo without the help of a conductor or driver. It didn’t matter what color you were, class status (even today I see a lot of homeless on bikes), or gender. Suddenly women could become mobile. Bicycles freed the woman. “Myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world...