Superior Vistas: Waterfalls, Roses, and Fishing Boats and Bikes

I first started biking seriously when I was 17.  A couple of years later I rode my first century (100 miles) at the Platteville, WI Dairy Days Festival.  One thing led to another and in '09 and '11 I finished the Arrowhead 135 a 135 mile race on snowmobile trails held in late January in northern Minnesota.

This is not to toot my own horn but just point out that I've done a fair amount of endurance-type stuff on a bike.

Cut back to 2010:  I had just met Jenny and floated the idea of doing the Superior Vistas Bike Tour's 40 miler.  Despite it being farther than she'd ever ridden and having not ridden in years, since life got in the way, she agreed and we had a good time taking our time and enjoying the ride.

A year or two later I floated the idea of doing the 70 miler of that same tour.  She agreed.  We rode slowly and by the time we got to the end they were out of ice cream sandwiches to give the riders.  Despite that we still had fun.

Cut to early 2017:  My birthday is close to the scheduled tour date and I told Jenny that what I really wanted was for her and I to do some rides together this spring to train for the full century at the SVBT.  I'm sure you've done the math - this was the farthest she'd ever attempted.  But she didn't say, "no" and so I kinda kept talking about it like we were committed a little more each time I brought it up.  Worked like a charm.  Mwhahaha!  (I've written blog posts about some of our rides here and here) 

Selfie at the start.  The lake behind us is Lake Superior.   

The tour begins and ends at the same place - a park in Washburn, WI.  There was some road construction on the usual route so this year we were going to be ending a kind of out and back course.  Sort of.  Let me explain: we rode out what I'll call to Point A and then straight on to Cornucopia, WI (also right on the shore with a height of land in between).  Then we rode back to point A turned here and rode for quite a ways to Delta, WI.  Then we turned around and rode the same route backwards to A and then back to Washburn the same way we started.

Since, 'round these parts, when you're on the shore of Lake Superior you're as down as you can get (barring SCUBA gear), the ride started uphill.  And into a fairly stiff headwind.  For reasons I'll get back to this made me happy.  The first checkpoint that we stopped at (about 10 miles in) was about 400' above our starting spot and was virtually all uphill and/or into a stiff headwind.

Jenny's bike is a old Trek mountain bike that she got on sale for $75 over 15 years ago.  My rig is a beast of a touring bike that I put straight bars on.  This spring we got slick tires for Jenny's bike but the vast majority of bikes were road bikes with a good chunk of those being carbon fiber racing machines that were probably well under 20 lbs.  We didn't weigh ours but they were probably well over 30 lbs.

The next rest stop was also on the shore of Lake Superior and and after a few relatively small ups and downs we began our 400' descent into Cornucopia.   Of course, this also meant a 400' climb out but let's not think about that just yet and just enjoy a few pictures of old fishing boats, roadside roses, and waterfalls.

Selfie by an old fishing boat.  There were several old boats here but we chose this one in honor of our twin nieces.

Near Corni (that's what us locals call Cornucopia) the route takes you right by Siskiwit Falls.  It's more a fairly long series of cascades than a classic waterfall but there's a good view of a little bit of it from the road.  

After our rest stop in Corni we had to climb those 400' back to Point A, turn and ride down a beautiful forest road for 20 miles to the town of Ino.

This picture kinda misrepresents this road.  It's beautiful and almost all wooded but this picture makes it look flat.  It's emphatically not flat.  No huge hills but they're pretty constant.

This stretch is about 20 miles.  About 18 of those miles were neutral elevation wise.  And by that I do NOT mean flat - I mean that at Point A where we turned onto this road elevation as 1234'  and at 18 miles in it was close to the same.  Virtually none of that was flat.  According to the all knowing internet we climbed over 600 feet in this stretch when you add up all the small hills.  The last two miles drop in Ino where the next rest stop was.

We were riding on the slow side, especially for the 100 mile route which is generally tackled by svelte guys and gals who are also quite quick.  This is all a nice way of saying we were dead last.  By a loooong way.  They were about to start taking down the rest stops.  Which was fine with us - we couldn't expect them to stay open indefinitely for two slow bikers.  So I stocked up on mini PBJ sandwiches and cookies to fuel me through to the end (we were at about mile 50).   It also started to rain at this rest stop.  It was 8.75 miles to the next rest stop and it rained the whole way (and it was pretty open and the wind got a good sweep at us - most of the time it was in our faces) and, of course, quit like clockwork as we stepped under the tent at the turn around point.  The turn around point was at the Delta Diner and the tent was theirs - there was no sign of a rest stop organized by the bike tour.  I'm not suggesting that it was never there just that we were so slow that it got taken down before we got there.

Rain on the way to Delta,

In Delta the nice employees of the Delta Diner offered to give us water.  And we ate a few cookies that we had gotten at the previous rest stop.  Now it was back to Ino.  Aside from a bit of spitting, the rain had stopped and the howling headwind that we had pushed into was now a howling tailwind.

We made it to Ino and the start of the Forest Road back to Point A.  It was virtually all uphill for the first two miles and then, well, I already explained it for the way down.  Elevation neutral but far from flat and all that.  The last few miles to Point A seemed to take a bit longer than we hoped - but we had a tailwind so it wasn't that big of a fuss.

Although the rain had stopped it was still blustery and threatening.

Finally we made it to Point A (which was mile 10 on the way out and was now mile 90).  Remember how I was happy to have a headwind and be riding uphill at the start?  There is a method to this madness.  I was hoping the the wind direction would hold (I was pretty sure that it would still be downhill and so didn't worry about that.  Wind can change pretty quick but topography usually takes a few thousand years.  Thankfully both held).  The wind didn't shift or lose power which meant the last 10 miles, which on a flat course would be the hardest, were dead easy.  They were pretty much a coast - as in we didn't pedal much or all that hard when we did.

Jenny descending the last little bit into Washburn.  Lake Superior in the background.

It was not fast.  The world record time for a century is under 3 1/2 hours.  Most mortals do it in twice that time.  (Actually scratch that, most mortals don't even try it.  ...Sorry to be a little snotty but I think we earned a little chest thumping)  I started my timer when we left, didn't stop it at rest stops or for any reason.  It took us 10 hrs and 52 minutes.  Probably about 10 hrs of that was spent pedaling a bike.  We might have been slow but, pardon me, I don't care how in shape you are, ten hours is a long time to be sitting on a bike seat.  And we were still smiling by the end - and not just the 1/500th of a second when the camera took the below picture.  We genuinely had a great time from mile 0 through the uphills, downhills, headwinds, crosswinds, tailwinds, rain, and sun all the way to to where the number of miles ridden rolled from double digits into triple digits.

When we rolled into the parking lot where we had started there was no sign of anyone else.  They had torn down hours ago - as they should have, we were hours behind anyone else.  And so we were able to share this accomplishment just between the two of us.  

Elevation profile of the course.

Father's Day Ride - Horseshoe Lake

For my Father's Day ride Jenny and I saddled up for what turned out to be a three-hour ride on the Forest Roads in the Chequmegon-Nicolet National Forest.  Although technically my bike is a 29+ it is close enough that, to me, it is a fat bike.  Jenny has a Surly Wednesday so this was a fat bike ride.

When people talk about fat bikes quite often it is about their amazing float.  You can ride them on terrain where a regular mountain bike would sink into snow/sand/mud - they can truly go where other bikes just can't.  And, yes of course, this is amazing.  But one thing about fat bikes that doesn't get much press is just how comfy they are.  Sure you can ride a regular mountain bike down a gravel road...and it'll bounce you around quite a bit.  Enter the low-pressure, high-volume tires of a fat bike and things smooth out.  The bumps get swallowed by the huge tire.  When it really comes down to it I am a lazy, comfort loving animal.  Fatbikes for me!

Tracks of a mama and fawn (and, of course, bikes)

Mama and fawn ran together down the road in front of us and around the corner.   We couldn't see exactly what happened next but they got separated - and went a little frantic trying to get back to each other.

We came around a corner and there was a bear in front of us.  The wind was at our backs going directly towards it.  It not only didn't run but sauntered first away and then turned back towards us.  It was a ways off and never acted even slightly aggressive and Jenny and I weren't nervous (we've both had enough experience around black bears to know that they're almost always weenies and/or bluffers) but I must say I was happy to see it turn off the road - like I said, it was a ways off (the picture below is as far zoomed in as my camera would go) but if it had kept coming much I would have started to get a bit antsy.  We waited a bit, mainly in case it was a mom with cubs who were trailing behind, and then continued.

I guess if I was a mama deer I'd be frantic too knowing that there are bears around to eat my fawn.   

As I was riding along I glanced down and saw a curvy green stick that was evenly tapered on one end.  As it was about a foot or two off to my right side I didn't run it over but didn't notice it until it was about even with my bottom bracket.  It couldn't see what it was but I knew immediately that it was worthy of a turn around.  They saw to embrace your inner child and it might have been a really good stick.  I'm not totally sure but I think it's a Smooth Green Snake (I'm not being smartass that really is what they're called - Google told me so so it must be right)

In the three hours of riding we covered just shy of 21 miles.  Not all that fast - but since we care more about enjoying the ride that doesn't matter.  We saw so many interesting things that we may have just either blown by or had oxygen-debt induced tunnel-vision and missed.  (I've done both of those things far too often back in my racing days)

More Than Just a Ride

The last several rides I've done have been just that - just riding my bike.  Of course if there's anything wrong with that and if there was I'd be in deep trouble as that's what the vast majority of my rides have been in my 20+ years of riding.  But I'd like to make rides into something a bit more substantial.  This one turned out to be that.

Heading north into the CNNF under blue skies.

This ATV trail heads up into the CNNF and I decided to take that instead of the gravel/sand road which I usually stick to.

Sometimes the ATV trail is a narrow two-track winding through the woods.

Catering to ATVs is big business up here.  This means that the ATV trails get torn up and washboarded from use so every couple of years they run a bulldozer over them to grade them.  The end result is a an sandy, ridiculously wide trail.

If you look closely through the trees you can see Sunken Camp Lake - a small (3 acre) lake in the middle of the CNNF.  I bet there's a good story behind it's name.  

On the way back from Sunken Camp Lake I stopped at Horseshoe Lake...

...and did a little wading.  (In case you are wondering my left ankle is recovering from some poison ivy)

It doesn't really look like it but this is a loon head down looking for lunch.

As I was sitting on the bank of Horseshoe Lake waiting for my feet to dry in the sun I heard a boom of thunder off to the south.  Although it was perfectly sunny where I was a dark cloud was rolling south of me.  When I left the lake and started riding south - the direction of home - this is what the sky looked like.

A little further down the road.  I was heading right into this and though I was pretty sure it would be gone by the time I got  to it (things were moving pretty quickly from west to east) the trees generally don't let you see much of the sky at once so it was a bit of a roll of the dice.  I did end up getting rained on a bit later but it was a warm day, it didn't rain all that hard, and it only rained for 5 or 10 minutes.

Mini sinkhole in the road.

 The day before this ride I had spent some time online looking at maps.  I love maps and Google maps cover everything - so I tend to spend longer than I need to.  Anyway, Google maps has a feature that you can get GPS coordinates for a point on their maps.  I found a little lake ("lake" might not even be the right word as it was probably less than an acre in size) away from the road.  I entered coordinates for the "lake" as well as where to park my bike.  I got the the parking spot, hid my bike in the bushes, got out the GPS receiver, and took off hiking.

Further back into the woods was somewhat more clear but right alongside the road opening it's pretty brushy.  Maybe I'll be back when these flowers have turned into blackberries.  

The bugs have only been out here for a couple of weeks and they're really not bad right around our house.  Anyway, when I left the house bug dope wasn't on my mind.  When I got here it sure was.

I counted just shy of 90 growth rings on these pine trunks - they were sprouts during the Roaring '20s.  What I have trouble wrapping my head around is that - as huge as these trees are in comparison to most modern trees - not that long ago, in the scheme of things, a 90 year old tree would have been young.  Hartwick Pines in Michigan has about 50 acres that are virgin and resemble today what much of the northern midwest looked like before the logging wave hit.  Most trees in the virgin part of the park are between 350 and 375 years old.  [just for reference my wheel (with tire) diameter is 31"] 

Back on the Corridor and nearing home

In addition to the good fun of riding my bike today my bike was also the vehicle that got me to places I could wade, birdwatch, hike, explore, ponder old growth.

Rides with Jenny

On a nice day few weeks back Jenny and I rode our bikes to Washburn (just over 15 miles away).  We had a delicious meal at North Coast Coffee (including ice cream) then rode NW out of town the County C turned on FR 236, cruised down to Ino, and headed home.  All in all in did a little more than 50 miles.

In late June there is a bike tour starting in Washburn, about 20 mins away (Superior Vistas).  Jenny and I have done the tour together several times.  There are several options for lengths but we've done the 40 mile, and 70 mile as well as one or two of the shorter distances).  Jenny has never ridden a century (but then again she had never ridden 40 miles when we did it - and then we pushed it to 70 a few years later) and I haven't ridden that far in many years.  Although I'm confident that both of us could physically ride that distance neither of us are interested in a suffer fest and so will play it by ear.  Routes of different lengths at least partially share their routes so we can adjust as needed on tour day.

So 1) to enjoy riding together and 2) to reduce teeth-gnashing on tour day we've been doing rides together.  Below are some pictures from three different rides:

Fueled up with lunch we're ready to ride!

The majority of the tour is held on smooth, mercifully low-traffic roads.

Mountains they're not (and the scale of it doesn't come through in the picture), it's not huge but it's not exactly a mole hill either.

Last summer Jenny got her hands on a fat bike and has really been enjoying the solid feel and comfort that big rubber provides (which are two reasons why I love them too).

Wondering what is taking my slow ass so long.

As Jenny rode by this tree I noticed that her jersey as the same color.

This being my 38th spring I perhaps shouldn't be surprised (but always am) by just how fast things turn GREEN - it happens just as quickly every year.  Just over a month ago I was riding through falling snow in a forest that had no leaves.  

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Tunnel of green

It's been a wet May here in northern Wisconsin.  Starting with the snain we had on Mayday we had nearly 3 times the normal precipitation in May.  Since we're pretty far north it's reasonable to change the old saying to May showers bring June flowers.  

After fall and winter grey and brown the tunnel of green is back

Yesterday I hatched a plan to load my float tube, flippers, waders, and fishing rod into my bike trailer and head to a small lake in the CNNF.  I'm not one to gripe (too much) but all told the trailer was heavy enough that I built some character on the uphills.

I have never had one of those voices that commands attention.  So when I came around a corner and saw a bear in the road I said "Hey bear," in what I thought was a loud voice, she didn't hear.  And since she didn't hear I had time to fish my camera out.  Just as I was ready for the shot she saw me and ran.  Thankfully the bear ran the other way, but out of sight around the corner - it would have been ideal if I could have seen where it went...but she was obviously terrified of me so as I rode forward I shouted, "Hey bear!" several times and didn't see her again.

My bike isn't light.  It's a steel frame with 50mm rims and 3" wide tires.  I have a frame bag too and carry around an assortment of stuff.  Most of the time that stuff is dead weight.  Occasionally it saves my ass.   I'm not gonna stop carrying a spare tube just because I hardly ever need it.

 The lake I was headed to usually takes me roughly 1:15 to get to when my bike is unladen. This time, with the weight in the trailer and a bit of a headwind it took nearly two hours. 

First I unloaded the trailer and pumped up my float tube. 

No rest for the weary - in addition to powering myself here my legs were called on to propel me when I was in the water. 

I just like water.  Lakes, rivers, springs I'm just drawn to them.  And this picture is why.  Not just because it's a cute baby turtle, the turtle is just a reminder of how life is so intertwined with water - you can see so many cool things around water, including things as simple as the reflection as the surface is rippled by wind.  This turtle's shell is about an inch wide.  I floated right by and then circled around to get a picture. 

When I was done fishing I flipped my float tube over to dry in the sun. 

I had to prepare fuel/food for the haul back home.  Dehydrated barbecue spaghetti was on the menu.  Just for fun I didn't bring any fuel for the stove as it burns wood and though I'm not necessarily averse to hauling around a bit of extra weight, well, why haul wood when you're going to the woods?

We're less than a month from the longest day of the year which, at this latitude, means that's it's pushing nine o'clock when the sun sets.  I got home around eight so I wasn't really risking riding in the dark but the shadows were getting long by the time I was getting close to home.

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