Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
14
What if . . . ?
Thursday, September 15, Baraboo, Wisconsin
C
yclists revere bike trails. We don't get too many signs from the world that we have a
place in it, and bike trails, those routes on which you can get from one place to another
without the interference of motorized traffic, well, they tell us we belong on the great
transportation grid that caters to the natural restlessness of humankind.
They're growing in number—bike trails, that is, and bike lanes—but even so there
aren't enough of them for the growing number of cyclists who don't just re-create but
who travel by bike. This is how it must have been for cross-country motorists before
the creation of the interstate highway system. The efficient pathways aren't necessarily
where you wish they were; you have to arrange your trip just to get to them.
The last couple of weeks, that's what I've been doing, seeking out bike trails and let-
ting them determine my course. From Itasca State Park to here, in central Wisconsin,
maybe two hundred and fifty miles of the last five hundred have been off-road. I circum-
navigated (more or less) Minneapolis, a city that prides itself on being America's most
bike-friendly, which it may be, though Portland, Oregon, stakes the same claim, and it's
probably a toss-up.
After the unpleasant day that ended in Red Wing, urged on by a number of readers,
I aimed for the trails of Wisconsin. This meant riding sixty miles along the Mississippi
on the Minnesota side, following the southern branch of Highway 61 to the pleasant
city of Winona, and avoiding what several of my correspondents warned me would be
a rigorous journey along the Wisconsin bluffs that overlook the river. Highway 61 is a
major thoroughfare, some of it a divided four-lane road, but it wasn't too bad. The traffic
was bearable, the shoulder wide, and the vantage point frequently high enough to yield
