Two 16-year old kids riding bikes on a poorly planned trip across Wisconsin: What could possibly go wrong? Luckily for us, nothing bad happened (at least, not this time….).
I grew up in the 60’s and enjoyed all of the permissiveness and freedom given to kids at that time. As the youngest child (and only boy) in a family with two working parents I had even more unsupervised time than most of my peers.
I learned to ride a bicycle when I was 5 or 6 years old (on one of my older sister’s bikes that was way too big for me to ride safely, but that’s how things were back then) and fell in love with the mobility and freedom that a bicycle offered.
My friends and I frequently rode 9 miles through the suburban Chicago Forest Preserves to the Brookfield Zoo while we were still in grade school. If my parents knew about trips like this it was only after the fact.
My mother worked at a shopping center a few blocks from our house. Through her I got to know the man responsible for maintenance and repairs. People occasionally abandoned bicycles there, and he and I formed a partnership: I would perform necessary repairs on the abandoned bikes, then we would sell them and share the proceeds. That eventually led me to a part time job at Hartley’s Cycle and Hobby Shop.
I worked with a variety of other bicycle enthusiasts, and one of them sold me my dream bicycle: A Raleigh International. Built in 1969, it was purchase new (List price: $350 – roughly $3,000 in 2025 dollars) by work-mate Chris, who sold it to me in 1971 for $200.
Dan Waterloo (a longtime classmate and fellow bike mechanic) had an identical bike. At some point in the summer of 1971 we decided that it would be fun to ride the Wisconsin Bikeway, a 300 – 330 mile signed bikeway running from La Crosse to Kenosha. I don’t recall doing a lot of investigation or planning (as will become evident), nor do I remember asking my mother(my father had passed away by then) for permission.
Monday August 23, 1971
We took the local train (with our bikes and gear) from Hinsdale to Union Station in downtown Chicago, where we caught the Minneapolis-bound train that would take us to La Crosse.
When we arrived we rode 27 miles to Sparta, which is where the trail began. We must have done at least some research because we knew there was a campground there where we planned to spend the night. I had agreed to bring a tent, and Dan had agreed to bring some blankets.
Only Dan forgot to bring the blankets, so our first (and last) night of camping was a bit on the cool side.
Tuesday August 24, 1971
The next morning we set out to ride to Elroy on the 32 mile portion of the trip (view the trail map) that was build on the old Chicago & Northwestern railroad right of way. The trail was nice: smooth riding and no hills. There were, however, three rather long and very dark unlit tunnels. This would not have presented any difficulty if either of our bikes had been equipped with lights (they weren’t) of if we had had the foresight to bring a flashlight or two (we didn’t). We tried riding in the the dark but that did nor work very well so we ended up dismounting and walking through each of the tunnels we encountered.
Having survived our case of “tunnel vision”, we reached Elroy and then peddled on another 50 miles to Reedsburg. It was on this leg of the trip that we met the Millers, two parents and their two young children who were also experiencing the joy of riding their bikes in beautiful Wisconsin. Only their idea of joy was to drive around in their car with their bicycles on the roof until they came across an especially scenic bit of road, where they unloaded the bikes, rode around for awhile, and then drove off in search of someplace even more interesting.
We encountered them on the side of the road, obviously trying to deal with some kind of problem with one of their bikes. I don’t remember exactly what the problem was but we were able to fix it for them and we all were soon back on the road.
Somewhat surprisingly we all ended up at the same hotel in Reedsburg, and they invited us to join them at their table for dinner that evening. We accepted, a decision we soon came to regret because their son was hyper-active and in constant motion throughout the meal. Dan and I were both relieved when the meal ended and we parted ways.
Wednesday August 25, 1971
The next morning we rode off towards New Glaris, 77 miles down the road. I had suggested that we ride 5 – 10 miles to the next town before stopping for breakfast, so we picked a suitable town on the map and rode into the sunrise with visions of bacon and eggs in our minds. However, when we reached the spot where there should have been a town (and a restaurant), we found nothing. There was no doubt we were at the correct spot (the road made a distinct right angle turn where the town should have been), but there was no building in sight. We decided that we had probably encountered a non-existent “ghost town” that map makers insert on their maps to detect copyright infringements.
The area around New Glaris is known as “Little Switzerland”, and we began to encounter some pretty long and steep hills. It was hard work going up, and more than a little scary going downhill because we really built up some speed. It was this point in the trip that Dan revealed that his attempt to ride this route the previous year had ended when he encountered a farm dog at high speed that resulted in his being in a coma for several days. Just one more thing that did not come up in our pre-trip discussions.
We did encounter a number of dogs during the course of our trip. Something about moving bicycles seems to make dogs very angry. We found that just stopping and dismounting would usually cause them to stop, wag their tails and pant a lot.
Arriving in New Glaris we were dismayed to spot the Miller-mobile parked outside our hotel (they obviously took a different route). We did briefly encounter them again but managed to enjoy our dinner without the pleasure of their company.
Thursday August 26, 1971
Another day, another 80 miles to Lake Geneva, or so we thought… Once we left Elroy the route was just ordinary roads marked with “Wisconsin Bikeway” signs. We picked some alternate routes and had to do a lot of map reading to get to where we wanted to go. On this day we navigated poorly and ended up doing a 20 mile loop back to a place we had already been.
We planned to spend the night with my Aunt (really more like a grandmother to me – she raised my mother when her mother died giving birth: see Aunt Kate, Uncle Mike and Aunt Mary) in Lake Geneva. I knew her address but, lacking a detailed map of the city we added a few more miles looking for the street before finally arriving after a very long day. If you have ever wondered how we managed without cellular phones and GPS, the answer is “not very well”.
Friday August 27, 1971
We set out on another magnificent fall day (we had fantastic weather for the entire trip, which was a good thing because neither one of us had packed any rain gear) and headed back into Illinois. After the wide open roads of Wisconsin we found the heavy traffic and aggressive drivers to be challenging, and had several very near misses as cars passed us with very little room to spare.
77 miles after leaving Lake Geneva we safely reached the quiet streets of Hinsdale, capping a trip of nearly 350 miles.
Remarkably, we had experienced no mechanical problems on the way, not even a flat tire.
Read more about riding on the Wisconsin bikeway in this August 15, 1971 article from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Epilog – 2025
I am happy to say that I still have the bike I rode on the trip. After many years of storage in my garage it has been fully restored and I am once again experiencing the joy of riding a hand-crafted, high quality bicycle.
I was curious and checked around online to see what this bike would sell for today in the condition it is in… the consensus was that is was probably worth about $800 – $900 (but it is definitely NOT for sale!).
