80 miles on the "Freedom Train"

Our local Bike Touring Club is nice enough to post some of their cue sheets online (http://bombaybicycle.org/maps/), and this past weekend, we finally decided to try them out.  After the successful 55-miler, Ali was hankering for a non-metric century.  Since I was not pumped about doubling our distance, we settled on a tweaked version of the Freedom Train route that went up to Devil's Lake State Park, along the state highways to Sauk City (and Prairie du Sac - where Hoofers do their "whitewater" training), then back on the route to Madison.

The first half of the ride was spectacular; we had the first shorts-and-t-shirt weather of the year, and we may have had a bit of a tailwind pushing us along.  Traffic was really, really sparse, but the blue skies, birds, and farmers were out in force.  As usual, we were biking past a ton of dairies (Eau de Emory-in-the-Spring), and all the adjacent fields were being tilled/plowed in preparation for planting.  The first half of the ride took us along the Pheasant Branch Conservatory and past both Crystal Lake and Lake Wisconsin.  Of course, you can't go past Lake Wisconsin without taking the ferry across.

Obligate Merrimac Ferry Shot

We took our first Cheez-it break on the far side of the Lake, and there was a second break as soon as we finished the climb into Devil's Lake.  The Bombay Club's directions took us on the best backroad up to the park we've tried yet.  In the past, we've either taken some really hilly, crumbling roads or the busy state/county highways.  This time, we had a bit of climbing, but nothing was too steep or in too bad shape.  Also, the backroad met the main highway about 300m from the park entrance.

Devil's Lake State Park

Devil's Lake was a popular spot on Saturday; it looked like 80% of the visitors were picnicking grad students.  The wind seemed to pick up while we were in Devil's Lake, and as soon as we had climbed back out of the park, the wind socks and flags were providing ample discouragement.  The 10 miles into Sauk City were straight into the headwind, and unfortunately, the combination of wind + hill led to Ali's first clipless-pedal tumble.  She was relatively unscathed, but it was nice having a lunch stop in Sauk City.

From there, we had ~30 more miles into Madison with a few twists and turns getting out of Sauk City (the wrong way at first) and up out of the Wisconsin River basin.  The wind was still active and had blown in some clouds, but once we were into some hilly terrain, we were much more sheltered from any headwinds.  The ride between mile 60-70 was mentally tough; I was rather enjoying the rolling backroads, but the earlier spill and wind sapped a lot of energy.  There was little enough traffic, so we struck up a nice, distracting conversation and were feeling refreshed in no time (no thanks to a Green Bay Packers fan in a bright blue pickup).

Anyhow, we cruised into Madison pretty shortly after that stupid jerk decided to share his opinions about cyclists, and we rewarded ourselves with ice cream and surprisingly delicious vegan tacos.  We may start slowing down on our mileage increases, but hopefully, we'll get some more adventure in this weekend.