Lots of sand, I've heard.   

This might hold some possibilities:  http://www.gldsmc.org/GLDSEXmi.html

My last trip through, I noticed large stretches of the North Country Trail were open to bicycles. That could be fun. 

I'm not 100% familiar with this particular route, but I'd guess it's probably way less than 25% pavement.  And of that, a significant portion is fun, low traffic pavement.  Bryan goes to great lengths to avoid using highway connectors. 

Most of the route is dirt roads and two tracks. I'd say his pictures represent the route well.  Anything that gets remotely technical has a go around for big bikes.  I think the biggest challenge might be sand on the eastern portion.  but then, there's go arounds for a lot of that. "Technical" is kind of a relative term, but as for bike- I'm thinking of running a cyclocross bike for the western portion. The sand on the eastern portion may need something bigger in the tire dept. 

Also, I'd suggest skipping the motorcycle singletrack.  Motorcycle singletrack is nothing like good mountain bike singletrack. Besides, the UP has a lot of great bicycle singletrack along the route: http://www.keweenawtrails.com/.  I'm hoping to integrate some on my trip next summer. 

   

In addition to the bicycle dork thing, I also get into the motorcycle dork thing. I'd been talking about putting together a dirt bike/bicycle route for a while, but hadn't had the time to pull everything together. 

Well, shortly after completing a dirt bike ride of the Great Divide (http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603076), my buddy Bryan wasn't quite done yet and decided to put together his own 1300 mile loop around Michigan's Upper Peninsula:  http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=14477275

(Be sure to check out his photo-essay. He pays close attention to a lot of the local history, takes amazing photos, and visited during what is probably the most scenic time of year.) 

I'm totally looking forward to riding this by bicycle next summer. The route is ideal- essentially a figure 8 based out of Gwinn. You could park your car in long term parking at Sawyer International Airport and choose either the western or eastern loops.  I know the western loop crosses or comes very, very close to some really nice single track if you need a fix.  I suspect there's some on the eastern loop as well. 

I've ridden much of the western portion already on a bicycle and done a fair amount of the eastern portion with Bryan on a dirt bike.  This is really some of the best the UP has to offer and Bryan does an excellent job of putting together the GPS files for navigation. 

Anybody done any?

I'm looking to do some fatbike/ski touring trips this winter. 

Sometimes the skiing part will be minimal- i.e. bike to within striking distance of a good ski hill, get some turns in and bike out.   

Sometimes, it might be more extenisve- bike until I run out of snowmobile trails and then start skiing.   

Options I'm considering- rig up some kind of system to carry skis on the bike. This should work OK when minimal skiing is involved. However, I'd hate to ditch my bike near a snowmobile trail for extended periods of time and it also limits me to out and back trips.   

So I've been thinking- anybody ever drag a sled behind a bike?  Makes it really easy to carry my ski gear, and then I can just load the bike in the sled for the ski portions. 

Seems like it might work, but this whole fat bike thing will be new too me and I don't know how the setup will fair on downhills or under hard braking.   

Zip ties! 



Leave 'em unclipped and if you happen to be riding through an old copper mine, they provide a great early warning system before something substantial hits the roof of the mine.   

Those KLR guys are way too extravagant for my tastes... Fairings? Water cooling? Pure extraneous extravagance! 

The TTR in "CannonTrekking" setup:


See how much stuff you can find that I reuse in my bikepacking kit. 

I actually like using geocaches as sort of a tourist guide when exploring a new area. I have no real interest in finding the cache itself, but just getting to the general area usually leads to some interesting places worth checking out. 

Da UP is da often forgotten Upper Peninsula of Michigan, eh.  Although sometimes people think we're part of Wisconsin. Or just not there at all. Visit the UPGAP.

On the back is just an old north face sleeping bag and a slumberjack bivvy in that maroon stuff sack with the sleeping pad attached to that. 

In the front stuff sack, I have rain gear, some "normal" clothes for socializing after the race I was heading to, various tools and spares, and a light (the race went through a mine for 1/4 mile). 

On my back I had a large camelback type backpack, mostly empty on that trip. Usually all I have in it is a ~64oz water bladder and whatever food I think I might need on the trail. 

Around here, it's pretty hard to get yourself much more than 20 miles from a hot cup of coffee and whatever else, so I usually don't carry much for food.

Like I mentioned though- that bivy has to go. Too much condensation build up and the bugs can get really annoying.  Probably going to get a tent like the one jhl99 listed above. 

On longer trips the spare set of clothes might get swapped out for a warmer set of bike gear depending on what kind of weather I might be heading into. 

Also, I'm looking at getting a small rack to attach to the V brake studs on the fork.  Lashing the stuff sack to the handlebars just messes with cable routing a little too much, plus I wouldn't mind getting the weight a little bit lower. 

Depends on the weight and the quality of the rack. 

With just a sleeping bag, bivvy, and sleeping pad- no problem.   I don't use a compression stuff sack, so the bungie cords I use have something to compress and hold in place.

I've had problems with denser loads shifting around while riding and loading up the rack with too much weight. (OK, next time just a regular sixer instead of a sixer of tall boys. )

Yeah, definitely a fan of the rear rack here.  It's a nice and easy spot to strap a sleeping bag and a bivy.  I've tried various configurations of stuff sacks attached to the seatpost and never found one that didn't bother me in some way, shape or form. 

Only real drawback is most good mountain bikes aren't really setup to take racks- or at least the cheap $25 varieties.  Got lucky with the Hoss there, but even now- the rack sits at a weird angle.     

You can get the original TWAT GPS files from Cad on his web page:  http://www.lonewolfexpeditions.com/twat.html

I think I've spent even less.   



Gotta get a new tent though.  The bivy sack I'm using just doesn't cut it in the bug infested northwoods.  How well does that Wenzel tent hold up in the wet? 

Part of the beauty of ultra racing, I guess.  Way too many variables to try and account for to just say X+Y+Z=finish time. 

I know what I can do for 2-3 days in a row, which won't be enough to complete the route in that time frame. I'm interested to see how long I can keep my pace up going ultralite.   

Which I guess is why I'm doing an event in WI instead of say, the Tour Divide.  The promise of several six packs of New Glarus Brewing's finest would probably be enough to get somebody to come down and rescue my ass when I get in over my head. 

If the TransWisconsin route looks fun, you might want to check out the work of another WI motorcycle rider known as "Cannonshot". You can find lots of his GPS routes here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=39   

While not for bicycles specifically, I can say that having ridden his 1200 mile UP based "CannonTrek", a lot of the route would be a hell of a lot of fun on bicycles.  Except maybe the sand. Oh, the sand. Ride report: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=473391

Another n00b checking in.  I've been a lifelong backpacker.  Decided to give bicycle touring a try when my malamute/backpacking buddy died.  Traditional, loaded touring was fun but wasn't quite what I wanted. Stumbled across bikepacking and decided to give it a try last fall.  Maybe shouldn't have picked my most technical race of the year as the destination, but it was fun anyway:  http://www.bialas.org/blog/2009/09/fat-tire-festival--anything-worth-doing-is-worth-overdoing.html

Snow's melting quick up here and I'm looking to do some more this year.  Lots of long weekends in mind and I'm really hoping to do the Trans Wisconsin if the Chequamegon 100 and Almanzo 100 in May don't kill me.