Day 33, Friday, July 17, 2015, La Crosse, WI to Mauston, WI, 85 mile and 1200 feet of climbing.  The cool rainy weather moved on and it was back to clear skies, 85 degrees and a slight wind at our backsides.  After 27 miles into the ride we accessed the Elroy Sparta bike trail and were on it for the next 34 mile.  I have ridden on a few bike trails before but this is the first one that was not paved.  The trail bed is finely crushed lime stone that is quite hard and smooth.  It follows an old railroad bed and includes 3 tunnels ranging in length from 1 mile, ½ mile and ¼ mile.  The tunnels were the highlight of the day.  They are not lit, so we had to bring flashlights and we were not able to ride our bikes through them but had to walk.  The temperature inside of them was a very cool 50 degrees and they were quite damp with spring water dripping down on you as you slowly found your way through.  On the two longest ones you could not see either entrance when standing in the middle looking forward and back.  It was kind of eerie and other worldly, especially when we turned off our lights.  The rest of the trail ran through thick forest and vegetation and I was glad to be in the shade.  At times the trail had quite a bit of bike traffic and at other times it felt like you were out in the middle of nowhere all by yourself.  Another good thing about the trail was that it was virtually flat and involved no climbing.  We made up for it though with a few challenging climbs when we exited the trail and headed into Mauston.  I chalk this day up as being another wonderful one.  Life is good.

 

Preparing to leave La Crosse

 

This is Len, from Montana.  He just retired as an oil field engineer.  He loves to cook and does a lot of wood working too.  Nice guy.

 

Oh, oh, road closed what do we do now.  Mike makes a call to the ride leader and soon she is on sight negotiating with the crew chief to let us through.  Mike is from Ketucky and just retired.  The woman in background is a retired nutritionist who has lived in Manhattan most of her life.  She is not shy when it comes to evaluating our eating habits (or anything else for that matter!!)

 

Welcome to Wisconsin my Guardian Angel.  "Oh Uncle Jay I was here yesterday when you rode into Wisconsin.  Why do you think it rained??  Giggle, giggle, giggle"

 

The guy on the left in Christopher from Germany.  He is 41 years old and is probably the strongest rider in the group (though I'm sure there are a few guys that would dispute that).  It took us two weeks to convince him that it is OK to smile as he is in America, not Germany.  The other guy is David.  He just joined the ride.  He has told some people that he is a captain of a nuclear submarine but apparently there are some who question that.  All I know is that he rides a bicycle so he has to be OK.

 

This is Pam.  She is one of the 6 staff members.  She is Ms. EnthusiasmPlusPlus.  She drives me nuts in the morning :))

 

The Elroy Sparta Bike Trail

 

Entrance to one of the tunnels.

 

View from inside a tunnel.  The railroad bed and tunnels were constructed in the 1850's