Scenic Tour of Milwaukee
In the last two days I’ve gone from Galena IL to Milwaukee. In typical fashion, it has taken me 225 miles of riding to make 197 miles of progress.
Not all of the additional miles are due to my poor ability to discern or follow direction (although I did ride 13 miles in downtown Mikwaukee trying to find the Lake Express Ferry); some of the extra riding was in an effort to find the parts necessary to fix my first major mechanical issue of the trip.
Riding out of Galena was beautiful. On the advice of John Oldenburg, I chose to follow the Stagecoach trail highway (rather than the larger and more direct route of HWY 11). The trail/highway winds and rolls its way through the impossibly green hills of Northern Illinois and is one continuous photo opportunity. There was basically no traffic and the few cars that did pass by didn’t seem to mind my slow plodding presence at all. I enjoyed the Stagecoach trail so much that I decided to link together some county and section roads to stay in the quiet countryside as long as possible.
Not long after exiting Stagecoach I had a flat tire while crossing some railroad tracks. It was while changing the tire that I noticed the small cracks that have developed in my rear rim (the square edges of the rough concrete roads of Iowa still seem to be exacting a toll on me even a week and a half after I finished riding them!). The cracks don’t make the rim immediately unrideable, so I finished my ride and called my buddy Travis (at this point I’ll be doing favors for him for the next 10 years in order to get back to even) who used to race for Waterford Cycles (a bike company located in WI) so he could help me try to locate the parts necessary to fix the damaged wheel. Athough the guys at Waterford were very helpful in suggesting a shop that might be able to help, it didn’t lead to solving my problem (I’m running a relatively rare spoke count in my wheels, so it is a difficult problem to solve), but it did lead me to the cool little town of Whitewater and ultimately through the town of Waterford itself (I wouldn’t have seen either place if it weren’t for the wheel issue). In the end, I ordered what I needed to fix the problem and had it sent to my friend Jim’s house just north of Detroit (about 160 riding miles away from Milwaukee after a ferry ride across the lake). So, until I reach Jim’s I’ll be weaving around bumps like a drunk cyclist and trying to “think light” in order to nurse the wheel home….
This afternoon I boarded the Lake Express Ferry for the 3 hour trip across Lake Michigan. I’d never been on a ferry until the week before the start of my trip and since then I’ve had 3 ferry rides…I never would’ve imagined that riding your bike across the country could lead to so many boat trips! On my way to the ferry I got incredibly lost (despite very good, very simple directions). Being lost allowed me to see a lot of downtown Milwaukee which I thought was pretty cool in a sort of neighborhoody, industrial, revitalized sort of way. Boarding the ferry was interesting; it seems they don’t get a lot of trailer-pulling cyclists… they ended up charging me the regular fare plus two bike fees (strangely, the ferry ride in Seattle was free because I was on a bike); regardless of the cost, I was glad to be able to get on the boat and head for Michigan. I’ve truly enjoyed riding in Wisconsin; the people here, even in the city, have been some of the most cycling-friendly I’ve encountered on the entire trip.
Right now, the ferry is landing in Muskegon, MI where I’ll spend the night before departing tomorrow morning for the two day ride to the Detroit area. I’m looking forward to the next two days of riding; it will be the first time in 2500 miles that I have been on a bike-specific route and, better yet, it is a route that my friend Jim has ridden so I’ll have pretty good information about the trip. It’s difficult to explain how much time and effort it takes to “discover” everything you need every day. Prior to starting the trip, I never realized how much I took for granted the fact that in my regular life I know where to find the coffee every morning! Not that having to re-learn everything each day isn’t an exciting challenge (it is) but it is also the most time consuming part of the trip, so riding the next couple of days will be like being on another vacation!
I’m excited about the ride across Michigan, it will take me through still more territory that I’ve never seen before. I’m continuosly surprised by how much of the country I’ve missed even with all of the traveling I’ve done in the past for work.
Ride on!
Scott