October Part 2- Adventures in Dairyland

For some time now, a fellow Bikeforums member and I have been trying to work out a weekend meeting in Dodgeville, WI, about an hour west of Madison. It's about a six hour drive from my home in Omaha. Dodgeville is a pretty small town and is the corporate home of the Land's End clothing company. It hosts several significant regional cycling events each year including the well-known Dairyland Dare. 

Michael lives in Chicago and has ridden in the Dodgeville area several times. We have several common cycling interests and expected to be reasonably well-matched for ability. (This turned out to be mostly correct, though in truth he is a little stronger.)

Our plan finally came together in late October. I arrived on Saturday the 20th in time for a short ride through the Governor Dodge State Park. After Michael's arrival, we had dinner in the great little artsy town of Mineral Point, WI and then crashed in the marginal and just okay, but cheap, Pine Ridge Motel in Dodgeville.

Sunday dawned cool, crisp, and sunny with little wind... a nearly perfect day to ride. Michael had mapped the area ahead of time and I just put myself in his hands and followed along through what would turn out to be some of the nicest rural roads a rider could ever want. Riding in the Dodgeville area was all I expected and more!

As you can see, the terrain in this area is not exactly flat. The climbs tend to be short and relatively steep and they do add up as the miles go by. The roads are smooth and very lightly traveled and drivers in the area are used to seeing cyclists on the roads.

There were good places to stop for coffee and snacks along the way and we returned to this little place for lunch after finishing our ride. It was pretty busy in the afternoon with a Packers game on the TV. Here are a few more landscape and action shots of our ride.

 Graveyard at a country church

We ended up with about 46 miles ridden and 3000 feet of climbing for the day. Not far from the end, we climbed Roberts Road, reputed to be the hardest hill in Wisconsin. Michael had never ridden up it before, but we both made it and it was hard for sure.

 Below: friendly native

The last seven or eight miles of the ride were done on a crushed limestone rail-trail that took us back into Dodgeville in time to have lunch and drive home, arriving at a reasonable hour.

This was one of my most enjoyable cycling days ever, and I expect to return to Dodgeville once or twice a year from now on. And I enjoyed Michael's company a lot too. Thanks, Mike!

Lunchtime rehydration