My friend, Berry, and I rode Wisconsin's Sparta - Elroy bike trail over the weekend. I wanted to see this, the oldest (created in 1967) rails-to-trails project in the U.S., famous for its three tunnels, one so long you can't see either entrance from the middle (spooky!). It has always been a bit of a legend in my mind; my folks used to ride it in the 70's, and I can still see them in their tube socks, running shorts, Ray Bans and terrycloth headbands, toasting the camera with Olympia beers, younger then than I am now.
It was a great trip and a lovely trail in almost every way, but there were a couple of disappointments. For one thing, there was hardly anyone there. We were certainly the only cyclists I saw with camping gear; other riders seemed to be local families out for a short jaunt down a small section of the 34 mile crushed gravel path. This on a beautiful weekend in July in a place that bills itself as "The Bicycling Capital of the World." The villages along the way didn't help; they were pretty near ghost towns. None of them had an open grocery store; Tunnel Tom, the sweetest and most gregarious entrepreneur ever (pictured here), told us that they all lost out to Walmart. We spent half an hour searching for the walk-in campground in Elroy, which while beautiful, was devoid of both campers and management. That's nice if you want privacy, not so nice if you want security and firewood.
Another thing that made me a little sad was the very thing that
created the trail in the first place: the demise of trains, especially passenger rail, in America.
Tunnel Tom regaled us with stories of the vaunted Twin Cities 400 line, which
luxuriously traveled this route, some of the most beautiful country on
earth, every day in 400 minutes between Chicago and Minneapolis. Man, I would have loved to ride that train!