Is actually pretty nice, as long as it doesn’t mean it was raining. Today we had one of those days: overcast all day, but no rain after a soaking we had overnight.
We started the day with breakfast at The Original Pancake House in Madison, where we had a nice chat with a couple from the area. They suggested we could have made this a tour of OPHs, which wouldn’t be a bad idea!
After breakfast, I enjoyed about 15 miles of Madison’s fine bicycle trails before heading out into the Wisconsin countryside.
For any of you who ride through Madison (or any Wisconsin bicycle trail) note that passes are required to ride on trails. I learned this by being stopped about 100 feet before I left the trail, where I had to pay the $5 weekly pass. Actually, I was happy to pay, as the trails were so well maintained!
There was a noticeable change in the landscape between yesterday and today. Yesterday, we were clearly in rural farm country. Today, though I was still riding through lesser populated areas, the landscape was ex-urban rather than rural. There were plenty of farms, but they were cheek by jowl with suburban housing, best exemplified by this picture, showing a farm directly across the street from a suburban-type development.
We also followed a river much of today. The Sugar River in southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois is smaller and less dramatic than some of the rivers we followed out west, but has its own quiet charm.
Later in the day, we crossed into Illinois with no fanfare. I wouldn’t have even noticed, but the road we were on (Rock County Highway K) suddenly became Winnebago County 21.
In Illinois, we continued our exploration of wineries (we’ve hit one in every state except South Dakota, which we missed because we didn’t have time to stop at the one we passed) and I continued my education in North American varietals. For you non-wine geeks, most wine is made from Vitis Vinifera, which has a Euro-Asian origin. Vitis Vinifera doesn’t grow well in cold climates, so wineries in the upper mid-west tend to rely on native North American varieties. After tasting wine from North American varieties in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois over the last several days, I’m sticking with Vinifera wines!
The barn motif of the winery captured a fairly stark change from Wisconsin to Illinois. The barns in Wisconsin, right up to the border, tended to be old style barns; as soon as we crossed into Illinois, the barns tended to be modern barns with aluminum siding. Many were not even barns — they were barn inspired structure used for other purposes, such as wine tasting rooms! You can see the shift in the pictures below.
Brooklyn, Wisconsin
Oregon, Wisconsin
Albany, Wisconsin
Avon, Wisconsin
Avon, Wisconsin
Newark, Wisconsin
Rockton, Illinois
The technical stuff:
Madison, Wisconsin to Rockford, Illinois
91.4 miles
2,740 feet of climbing (pay no attention to what is on the map below; my legs will tell you it is clearly wrong)
Average speed 14.6 miles per hour
Weather: Overcast all day, but no rain. Temperature in the 60s all day. Winds light from the north.
You can see the entire route to date here.