July 3, 2024
Madison to Mt. Horeb: Navigating Floods and Downed Trees to Reach the Trolls
Badger State and Military Ridge State Trails
Today's ride would take us from downtown Madison out to Fitchburg and Verona on very well maintained paved paths and the Badger State Trail. Then we'd be on the Military Ridge Trail climbing up to Mt. Horeb, which claims to be the troll capital of the world. (Backstory: back in the 1980s a highway bypass decimated traffic through the town and they came up with the troll motif to attract tourists. That seemed to work, along with visiting cyclists.)
The good news was a planned detour around a flooded underpass was no longer needed. The bad news would come later...
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About 12 miles in we met the van for a lunch break near the Quarry Ridge recreation area, just before the potentially flooded/detour-causing underpass. We didn't realize we were about to enter "The Confusion Zone." Parry acted as a scout, left first and called back reporting the underpass was full of water but ride-able. However, riders coming towards us were giving conflicting reports of "knee high" and "18 inches of water."
That started to cause dissension in the troops. Carole and I ended up riding through it (with a brief stop in the middle...) while some others convinced Terri to guide them on the detour around the flooded underpass. Then came Confusion Part II: The Sequel Strikes Back.
A passing cyclist said "A downed tree has blocked the trail ahead, take Paulson to J to detour around it." (Wisconsin road signs often just use the first letter of the road name - I think this was really Jade St.) The main group of riders that had splashed through the underpass were about 100 yards ahead of us, the water-avoiding detour takers and Terri as sweep were somewhere behind us, not in sight.
I could see up ahead the main group reached a road and turned left, but when we got there I could see it was not Paulson. I called Terri to let her know we were going straight until Paulson. Parry caught up to us and said PD also got to J but the way we went had less traffic and less climbing and I knew would get us to the trailhead were the van was waiting. Well, was supposed to be waiting...
Turns out the GPS "pin" for that stop didn't work and Scott couldn't find it and the van would just meet us at the end. The end required about a 7 mile uphill slog on a crumbling trail surface but we were greeted by a friendly troll cyclist when we got there.
Once we were all back together, we had a great lunch at the Grumpy Troll restaurant and strolled the town. Not as cute as Cedarburg but trolls were everywhere.
Another van ride back to the hotel and everyone scattered for dinner on their own or in smaller groups.
Today's ride: 31 miles (50 km)
Total: 150 miles (241 km)
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