It was on a late May day that I started thinking about how close Chris Schotz’s TTT race route was to Dave Schlawbowske’s Tour de Chequamegon. I also knew that my northern part of the IRONBULL Red Granite Grinder 144 race route made a connection to the southern portion of Chris’s TTT race route. I envisioned an opportunity to create one continuous gravel route from Wausau to Cable by connecting three existing gravel routes.
Just coming off of a two day bikepacking scouting ride for the future Crystal Bear bikepack race I was feeling the highs that come from bikepacking. I drew up a quick route on Ride With GPS and found it to be only 90 miles one way via forest gravel roads. Roads I never have been on. The route that I would scout would start at Tripoli and go to Black Lake National Forest campground and loop back to Tripoli. The route was a little over 200 miles.
I set out on June first for this adventure. I got permission from the BP gas station in Tripoli to leave my truck there for two or three days, unsure of exactly how long it would take me. A storm had just rolled through the night before leaving the gravel roads littered with green leaves making the roads look more like fall than late spring. It was a perfect day for riding.
The great thing about doing a solo adventure is I could go at my pace and stop when I want to stop, not having to check with others. Some people ask if I get bored doing long rides alone. How can a person get bored with places like this that you randomly come up on:
It was 46 miles of forest roads like those and this one
before I came to any kind of town and the first people I would see on this day. I stopped for a quick lunch at Country Cafe in Fifield. Just a short distance up the road was the last town of the day I would go through, Butternut, before heading West towards my goal of Black Lake. I came to the small Stockfarm Bridge campground, which was completely empty, with plenty of daylight left. I decided to push on further
as Black Lake was only 15 miles further but not before filling up with water from the hand pump.
I rolled in to Black Lake with plenty of time to relax after setting up camp. June days are long like that. Black Lake is the first camp stop on the Tour de Chequamegon, a place I had stayed numerous times while doing that ride. I was one of only one other person camping here that night. Not surprising being that it was a Tuesday night. The previous weekend campers left firewood at a few of the sites, a bonus for me to not have to gather my own.
I cooked a nice meal of lentil soup while enjoying my fire. I listened to the calls of loons while enjoying my evening. There aren’t too many things to me that are as symbolic as a summer evening on a lake in the northwoods as the loons call.
The next morning I was up early. I cooked some oatmeal for breakfast and headed out quickly. The entire route was new to me today. I had no idea where I would end up or when I would stop for the night. The anticipation of all the new things I would see today was exciting!
First town I came to was Winter. Tuscobia State trail brought me into this town. The trail is shared with ATV’s so it’s pretty typical to some of the other shared trails with it being difficult to ride and maintain momentum because of a loose surface. In Winter I found a little Cafe called Lakewood Cafe. They had a really good breakfast and I will go back when I’m in the area. As is typical when I stop for meals people with talk to me about my adventure. At the Lakewood a guy came out from the diner to check out my setup. I enjoy talking to people about what bikepacking is all about. Maybe they think it’s crazy or maybe they think it’s fun and interesting.
After breakfast I headed out of town on pavement for a short distance and then got onto some forest roads going South through the Sawyer County Forest. This ended up being a bust. After about six miles the road led to private lands in any path leading to the south. This was a major disappointment. The gravel was so good up to that point. I got on my RWGPS app and found an alternative way in the direction I needed to go. I turned around and went all the way back to the pavement. The road I ended up on followed along the Flambeau River which was beautiful with numerous views of the river. I ended up on County Highway W where it would be the only place to cross the Flambeau. My plan was to head north through some hiking/mountain bike trails.
After a hike a bike through ankle deep muck, insane mosquitos, and riding through water past the bottom bracket I abandoned that plan and went back to the trailhead to try the ATV trail. Three miles in and the ATV trail turned into a super soft dirt trail which was under repair and became nearly impossible to ride.
I headed out on that to get back to County W and sat at the intersection of some service road and County W eating snacks and contemplating what I’d do next. One thing I do when I’m not riding is to try to be productive at something that I would need to do at some point anyway like eating or planning some new route around an obstacle using my phone. Always multitask because over time it saves you time at the end.
My new plan was to take County W for 20 miles all the way to Phillips. Not the most ideal road to take as it’s asphalt but it’s what I had left of my choices at the time and at that location.
It was a hot day and riding those 20 miles of asphalt really took a toll on me especially after dealing with all the issues at the Flambeau trails. So when I got to Phillips I found a place to eat called the Phillips Cafe.
I had fried chicken which was delicious. Only one other customer was there.
The day was still early as it was only 4:00 when I got done eating. I only had 30 more miles to get back to the truck in Tripoli so I decided to book it out of there and finish the ride out.
The last few miles I saved a turtle on one of the roads.
A photo of the Extraterrestrial tire with the extraterrestrial turtle.
The ride for the day ended up being 120 miles which was nice to crank out given how many problems I faced midway through. The long asphalt section definitely helped.
This was a memorable ride and best of all it pieced together three other routes to make one giant gravel bikepacking route from Wausau to the Cable area and back to Wausau using three well established and well known routes.
All the routes combined
Shane Hitz Biking Adventures 