July 2, 2024
West Salem to Elroy via the Elroy Sparta Trail
Tunnels 'r' Us - and we get wet at the end
From La Crosse we "transferred" to the east, starting our ride in West Salem. Most of the day would be spent on the iconic Elroy Sparta trail, the first rail trail to be designated a National Recreation Trail and opened to the public way back in 1967.
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The surface was mostly double-track ruts with lots of wet and muddy spots. The tour guides provided clip-on rear fenders which greatly reduced the skunking effect.
The trail included three narrow rock tunnels with lots of dripping water and very scarred surfaces. We all know tunnels are human-made holes to let trains go through mountains vs. go around or over them. But you kind of forget tunnels mean rail tracks that go up hill at a 1-2% grade (about the maximum for long trains) until they couldn't solve the grade problem with switchbacks and had to spend a lot of money and time (and lives) blasting a tunnel. We had about 7 miles of slogging up hill until we reached the first tunnel.
Here I learned I had a problem with tunnel vision - well, a problem with vision in tunnels. I'm at that age where the progressive lenses in my glasses don't work so well in the short/mid-range so even with a bright front light I couldn't see the ground under the front wheel well enough to ride reliably in the narrow tunnels - I ended up walking the bike through all three. I can see the eye doctor's face lighting up when I ask for three different pairs of glasses for normal, reading and tunneling...
At one of the tunnels we passed a large group of Amish teens doing something but we couldn't quite figure out what. The lunch stop was at about the 25 mile mark in a small park/fair grounds (with a tractor pull area) in Norwalk. Rather than brag about the absence of glacial drift, Norwalk has declared itself to be the capital of black squirrels, which must really pull in tourists.
The last seven miles or so from Kendall to Sparta were very pleasant - slightly downhill, lots of wildlife and lush scenery. However, with 1 mile to go I felt a few drops of rain. Then few turned into several, and just as I made the final turn the drops turned into buckets - we got soaked but the van was waiting next to a covered shelter.
The soggy cyclists got in the van for a 90 minute shuttle east to Madison and our home for the next three nights- the Indigo Hotel (housed in a renovated paint factory) in Madison's Capitol district.
Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 119 miles (192 km)
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