Trans-Wisconsin Tour Report

[ArisaemaDracontium]

I just completed a 639 mile, 8.5 day tour along the Trans-Wisconsin route following back-roads and trails from south to north through the state.  I wrote up a blog along the way if you want to check it out:

http://frankonabike.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-1-yellowstone-lake-sp-to-nelson.html

Note that this a bit of an "anti-bikepacking" ride since I carried absolutely nothing on my back, all the weight was on my bike, and it worked pretty darn well.

[fotooutdoors]

Thanks for the write-up.  I have been looking at this route since seeing the website for V1 of the race.  Just finished building up a fargo (my other steed can't take wide tires), so now I just need to sort out getting to/from the trail (I'm in Madison).  I haven't found much other info on the web about this route (mainly looking at the northern/wilder section), so if you know of any other blogs, etc on the route, I would love to read them as well.

FYI, the link you posted is broken (the text for the link is correct, but the actual link skips the ":" after "http".

[ArisaemaDracontium]

Thanks, fixed it.

If you're looking for some route advice, let me know.  I think this has some great potential to be a great route, just needs a little fine-tuning.

[fotooutdoors]

I would love some advice.  I'm looking at a short tour (3-4 days) in early September.  Maybe start around Cable, bump around on some singletrack (the portion parallel to the Berkie route), head to Lake Superior, then loop back-something in the 200 mile range.

I'm not looking at quite as high of mileage, and I would probably need to start and end at the same place.  My current (rough) route is based on a mix of 2010 TransWI route (boarder-to-lake) 2011 TransWI route (the loop back south), maybe tossing a bit more of CAMBA trails into the mix, and now your route. 

I would be interested in seeing your final route (gpx, mapmyride, list of roads or whatever other form you might have it in), or any info you might want to give (what roads were unrideable sand, etc).  Your blog posts are informative, as I can get a general idea of what areas/roads you were describing (i.e. what areas might cause some issues). 

Honestly, I've done some road touring, but never trail/dirt road, so I don't exactly know what I need to know.  Info & advice is appreciated.  Feel free to PM me, and I can drop you my email address.  Oh, and what is that cap on the bottle that is on your downtube?  I have the same bottle, and love it besides the tendency to collect dirt/road grime.

[ArisaemaDracontium]

It sounds like you are on the right track putting together a route.  Hayward would be a good location to start from and return to if you want to work it that way.  I attempted to follow the 2010 route to a T north from there, but as I mention in my blog I wasn't feeling well and short-cutted it.  To be honest, it would be a full day's ride on the trails up to Drummond or Delta from Hayward if you stay on the route.  I don't know the area up there too well, but it did look like the route was more round-about then it needed to be.  I know its meant to send you on some good singletrack, but it seems like route to Drummond could have been more direct (while still hitting plenty of good trail).

North of Delta there are no services and no sources of water until you reach Lake Superior (though there are a couple houses in the last 5 miles).  Its surprisingly wild country out there.  Between US-2 and Hwy 13, about 30 miles of riding, I saw just 2 bear hunters and 4 ATV riders).  I would fill up your belly and bottles at the Delta Diner before proceeding, and figure on a full day from there!

[jhl99]

Looks like a good trip.  I was up there in northern WI about 5 years ago--ticks where everywhere.

A question/comment on the Anything Cage:

How did you get fork with triple braze ons?
Regarding the failure, it looks like a design issue to me, the slots that make the straps captive remove material where the stresses are highest, kind of the opposite of what is needed. 

[ArisaemaDracontium]

You know, very few ticks on this trip, I think I picked two off of me the whole time, and I was doing a lot of bushwacking.

The fork was custom made by a friend of mine.  He was in the middle of building it when the Everything Cages were released, so I just asked him to add a couple more holes.  As it is set up, I can use it with my low-rider rack, or the Everything Cages, or just mount 2 water bottles, so its pretty versatile.

Yeah, I don't see any reason why the strap slot need to be at the mounting points, in fact, I don't know if you need them at all; once things are strapped down tightly I can't imagine they would slip.  There are effectively twelve 3-3.5mm strips of aluminum that hold the mounting plate to the rest of the cage.  If those strap slots did not exist, we'd be looking at six 30mm strips taking that same load.

The odd thing is that the Everything Cage that broke had my 1lbs sleeping bag mounted in it, but the other cage had a 2lbs hammock and did not break.  The cages are rated at a 4 lbs capacity.

[mgindle]

I Really like the photo in the tunnel. Great looking trip it seems!

[sfuller]

This brings back memories of my attempt at this route on my Fargo in 2010. I learned a lot in the 4 days I rode, including what I didn't know. I hope I can give it the South to North route a shot again soon.