• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

OldSchooling on the "Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail"

......................Wisconsin's Hollows.........................

401301211_f883K-XL.jpg



ÔÇ£Cassville to Bagley BluffsÔÇØ​


401439411_66pMT-XL.jpg
 
.....................Great River Road..........

345664309_puyP6-XL.jpg



From Dugway Road you follow Squirrel Hollow,Sandy Hollow, Dry Hollow, Markley Hollow to Cty C, where you will view this beautiful commemorative bridge built by the state of Wisconsin to honor The Great River Road.

From this bridge, take a few mile side trip to Wyalusing State Park
 
................................Wyalusing State Park..........

401441016_hbSJW-XL.jpg



Wyalusing State Park
One of Wisconsin's great parks is at the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. Joliet and Marquette first entered the Mississippi in 1673 at this location​



401345588_o4oVi-XL.jpg



Campsite overlook at Wyalusing State Park​
401444188_9gvsW-XL.jpg


Wyalusing State Park Passenger Pigeon Memorial​
401444786_RfyAf-XL.jpg
 
..............................................Farm Land........

345663783_BYf6u-XL.jpg

Not only is stripcropping good for soil and water, but is pleasing on the eye. These two crop photos were taken at the same location on the TW*T. :thumb
401331520_GqNWy-XL.jpg
 
....................................Meandering Rivers.........

401430293_wXba3-XL.jpg


Meandering Rivers

Riding past meandering rivers, I have wondered why the river will not travel in a straight line, but I never asked why.:scratch Winter-Google, bingo now I know.

The natural tendency of a river flowing across flat country is to to grow more and more curvy, forming meanders or loops as it erodes the outer side of a bend and deposits sediment on the inner side.


The Trans Wisconsin meanders past many meandering rivers.

 
......................................Packer Time..........

345665577_KQmVY-XL.jpg

My favorite aspect of the Packer phenomenon is the absence of vehicles on the road during Packer game time.:dance
 
your photography is fantastic. Take a bow :clap

Thanks franze, to a guy who has done some excellent ride reports of photo and stories featuring the Pyrenees and Eastern Europe.
Great stuff! Who knew?

Beemer01, the start of the trail is close to your home.​




401377557_Qvgag-XL.jpg



Took a wrong turn on this road along the Grant River. The road looked very interesting so I keep riding till the road dead ended into a farmers yard. I talked to the farmer for a while and I noted the cool barn/shed. He told me he was to tear the building down as it is taxes are valuated more than it's practical worth. Well that's progress.​




345665009_83kXX-XL.jpg


Historical Dutch Ridge School
nearest major town (population 423)
is Eastman, Crawford County, WI​



345666043_oZCQy-XL.jpg


Near Soldiers Grove Wisconsin​

345666403_Eq4KD-XL.jpg
 
TWT/Riding the Deals Gap of the Midwest/Wisconsin's Wildcat Mountain State Park

249801897_2Kgzx-XL.jpg


249801178_RM2Q4-XL.jpg


From Soldiers Grove the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail puts you on arguably Wisconsin's best 5 miles of well maintained tarmac, namely Wildcat Mountain State Park and the small town of Ontario Wisconsin. This post is taken from my "Pictorial of The 30th State" thread as I already had nice photos of the ride and hey, why not take advantage of the Supermoto section of the trail and not think about using the camera.:thumb

:gerg For the non-motorcyclist visitors to this site, Supermoto, or Supermotard is a cross-over of motocross and road racing. Races are commonly held on road racing or medium sized go-kart tracks with an off-road section in the infield. The motorcycles used are combinations of off-road motorcycles and road-racing rims/tires, known as 'supermotard' bikes. Unlike the TW*T which is 80% dirt 20% tarmac, most supermoto race tracks are typically configured with approximately 70% tarmac and 30% dirt.






If you have a small monitor like I have, Hit F11 on your keyboard for a full Screen view. Remember to hit F11 to get you normal browser back.
205904628_XSBRQ-XL-1.jpg



249802023_deUaE-XL.jpg





439411067_UmyKd-XL-1.gif
 
Last edited:
...................................S&S Motor Company..........

323202746_KKUTJ-XL.jpg



S&S Cycle.... just add salt... Salt Flats Record Holder/276.51 MPH


The Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail goes thru Viola Wisconsin, which is home to S&S Motor Company. It is best to call S&S first to make a Museum appointment.

I took this photo a few weeks before the TW*T ride and grabbed it from my Ride Report Part 3, 2008 Photo Tour of Dual Sport & Rallies.
 
Great report...as usual. Your pictures and details are always an inspiration!

Keep 'em coming!
 
I think we should abandon "Picture of the Week" and simple have "Beerteam's Photos". :bow
 
..........................................The Sand Farm..........

345172279_tTir8-XL.jpg



I think we should abandon "Picture of the Week" and simple have "Beerteam's Photos". :bow

Thanks Knary, I enjoy your work also. When I am having fun, the photos flow. The above snap shot of the sand, not so much fun...



Have to say that your ride reports are some of the best ever. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Thanks SIBUD.

Great report...as usual. Your pictures and details are always an inspiration!

Keep 'em coming!

Thanks Steve, Unlike you riders from Texas, we have world class snow going on right now (which gives me some time to think about riding and detailing out a RR. I enjoyed your ride you did yesterday titled "Foggy Texas day" and it made me envious. More and more of my friends are enjoying Texas.

Speaking of snow, I am looking at this sandy two track and remembering that I was plenty sweaty riding my R100GS thru the powdery sand. I just poured the power on in first gear, using my front wheel like a ski and not going too fast as I could hurt myself.

North of Wildcat State Park and south of Sparta is the "Sand Farm". As I am traveling dirt, I often think of the conditions millions of years ago that created the earth in front of my front wheel. This area is miles of sand, how far I have no idea (maybe 5 miles). From Sparta south, this section would be the only part of the TW*T you would need knobby tires. You can tell by the photo, I was getting tired.


Mad Jack said:
...must try to explain the fun this trail was for myself and four other :D brushpopper :D club members. In two 1/2 days of smiling we manage to conquer the TWT, enjoying some of what has to be the best trails and roads Wisconsin has to offer.

Riding three Husky 610s, a XT600, and my ride a Suzuki gs750 with Dunlop 404s (metric cruiser tire), Renthal bars,& a Kerker header. Yes that is correct a 1980 Suzuki street bike, my sanity is always in question.:evil But with solid B enduro skills and a lot of experience with all types of bikes and terrain ... we set out from Milledgeville, Illinois on Friday at 8 am. Through the early light fog our hopes of an epic ride were very high. :clap

With the first day in southern Wisconsin things were easy cruising blacktops and mostly maintained gravel or "b" roads making our way to Wildcat State Park to camp before dark. Be careful of soft blacktop across from Tiny's bar though, :banghead one Husky leaning on the 'ol XT after a quick one.:dunno The ratcoons were very aggressive at the park....

On with day two, the horse and buggie religion is thick in this area but all waved, just watch out for those "ROAD APPLES"... A light over night sprinkle kept the dust down in the morning. As the day wore on, dust was an obstacle to deal with as was more trails with sugar sand and rocky areas, along with our second closed road and ATV riders... By the end of the day I had taken terra firma samples twice with the big Suzuki :eek but still made Clam Lake campground, darn no showers.

Sunday showed us a cool sunshiny day perfect for riding except for the dust, but now being used to it and adapting to a wide spacing with waiting one rider at a time stopping to mark corners for the next rider in line all went smooth. We all hit our top speed of the trip on one very consistent surfaced long straight gravel road that begged you to twist it to the stops if you dare. At noon we were being splashed by waves of the big lake enjoying Zone bars and trail mix. Good Fun!:clap

Our adventure continued to rustic roads down the west side of the state into Minnesota. & Iowa but that's another story. My verdict FUNFUNFUN:clap :clap :clap Do I recommend any one else to ride this with street tires? no the soft sand in a few areas was incredibly challenging as was the fist plus size rocks even if is only maybe 10% of the ride. Any fear of flattening down pipes or very soft sand should be used as deciding factor for any adventure like this. Well I'm late for supper... www.geocities.com/brushpoppers till next time; Mad Jack
 
Photo of "Ben Bikin" on his old time cycle

345173238_UF2Zb-X3.jpg


:)"Ben Bikin'" is the name given to this 32-foot-tall sculpture of a cyclist atop an old high wheel Victorian-era bicycles. It was built by hometown fiberglass gurus F.A.S.T. Corp. to mark Sparta's claim as Bicycling Capital of America.

The Trans Wisconsin Trail goes past "Ben Bikin" in Sparta Wisconsin.


:)
 
....................The Route /Sparta to Hwy 10 Neilsvile........

439669030_hqR6n-XL-2.gif

**********
439668708_etH8r-XL-2.gif
**********The Route /Sparta to Hwy 10 Neilsvile



This section was gravel and hard pack on routes with names like Hunter Haven Road. One area had some loose sand.​


345167753_7KBnv-XL.jpg



Above: The Hatfield Canal
Below: Black River of Black River Falls fame

345168975_veKN4-XL.jpg
 
............TW*T/What others are saying.....

different bikes or do you change gas tanks like purses? :)

(love your trip reports)

Same bike, I change accessories and socks when needed.
The bike is a 1988 R100GS like this one: Here




What others are saying about the Trans Adventure Trail :ear

rokklym said:
Trans Wisconsin Adventure trail

Wednesday 5-14-2008, 9:28pm:
The sounds of coyotes howling their praise over a recent kill is the only sound that breaks the silence at our campsite at Perch Lake in the Chequamegon - Nicolet national forest in Northern Wisconsin. Dave and I listen to them howl as we sit and enjoy our basic meal of Spam and Ramen noodles cooked over single burner camp stoves.

We arrived at the campground at dusk after logging in a 320 mile day of exploring a route I mapped out that crosses the entire state of Wisconsin, mainly off pavement.

Our route for the day started at my house in south central Wisconsin and our hopes were to see if this route I mapped out was worth a hoot. I know all the roads on my route that are south of my house, and most of the ones within 100 miles north, so we had the get some miles in and see what was out there.

A 30 mile pavement blast started out our day to get to more interesting riding. Logging is a big industry in some of these areas and with the late spring, lots of rain and logging traffic, some of the "roads" were in rough shape.

We both rode 650 thumpers and they proved to be great machines for this route, very capable off road and not too bad on the highways. Dave's KLR has a sweet set of Husky forks on it and Happy trails bags and my DR650 has Ortlieb bags over Happy trails racks.

After riding a big chunk of ATV trails, we hopped on some fun, fast, straight gravel roads and kept pushing North.​
296011493_KM9gt-XL.jpg




WJL75 said:
A friend and I set out a couple of weeks ago to hit the trail from Millston north. We changed some of the route to speed up the trip. Now we know that we are not fast enough to do the whole trail in just a three day weekend.

It was a very good weekend of riding. 1000 miles in two and a half days of road, dirt and gravel. Lots of nice people and great views of Wisconsin from a perspective few get to see.

Somewhere along the route an the eagle has landed...and got a rabbit.​
IMGP1711.jpg





rcniss said:


The fall colors where just getting started

You can read the full ride report here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rcniss/TWATRide908#

This is such a great way to see all of what Wisconsin has to offer. From the winding hills of the south west to the big woods of the north and everything in between. Thanks Chad for the efforts - I had a ball!

I'm working on a return track from Cornucopia back down to hwy 70 just east of Lorreta/Drapper. I know the area well and I thought it might be cool if some riders want a little more fun on there way back south. I need to ride it one more time to make sure all the bugs are out but hope to have it ready in spring.

Cheers, Randy​



kleinergti1 said:
... we just returned from the trail yesterday. We left Thursday afternoon. In all according to the GPS we traveled 1400 some miles from Dubuque. Great ride and also my first ever bike ride of more then a couple hundred miles.​

[/quote]

ajayhawkfan said:
The sand at the ATV trails around Black River Falls were only a warm up for the sand. There is more sand in Bayfield County then all the beaches of the West Coast! The last 30 miles of sand was the toughest for me and my pig (1200GS) however we made it!

Thanks for putting together such a great route!

It was 560 miles and took 2.5 days.​
 
Back
Top