Driftless Area Riding Tour (DART 2023)

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

It's a stretch to call this a ride tale, but I still wanted to share a few pics and details about the 2023 Driftless Area Riding Tour (DART).  

 

But first:

 

 

Believe it or not, this is a real movie, although it doesn’t look like it’s any good.  Maybe if they had actually filmed it in the Driftless Area instead of Canada – and maybe if they also added motorcycles somehow – I might consider watching it. 

 

Anyway, on to the ride tale.

My trip started last Wednesday with my usual schtick: ride to Muskegon, take the Lake Express ferry to Milwaukee, then ride to my hotel in Madison.  The next day I took the long way to Prairie du Chien.  When I ride solo in the Driftless, I like to take my rest stops in the middle of nowhere, like this:

 

 

Quiet, isolated, just me & nature, you know?  Except this stop caught me by surprise.  Look a little closer:

 

 

I swear, I parked and got off the bike before I even noticed this guy off next to the trees:

 

 

No houses anywhere near here that I could see, no idea why this was there.  Damndest thing.

 

Showed up at @Mike's place mid-afternoon, followed shortly by Dave (@Dave_in_TX) and Alan (@9Mary7).  Dinner with the gang Thursday night was at Hom-a-Gins, a dive bar in Mount Hope that serves massive quantities of top-notch french fries and good burgers.  If it helps you get a feel for the tone of the place, here's the kind of decor they have on the walls:

 

 

Friday's ride took us south to Dubuque for lunch.  Here's (left to right) Mike, Dave, and Alan at a morning rest stop:

 

 

Lunch at Copper Kettle in Dubuque was pretty good, although we had to cruise through a bit of a run-down neighborhood to get there, and we were slightly concerned about the structural integrity of the gigantic brick building across the street;  it seemed like there was maybe a 50-50 chance it might come down and take out our bikes parked on the street, and maybe even the restaurant we were sitting in. 

 

After lunch, Mike and Dave took a fairly direct route back to PDC, and Alan and I slalomed upriver on the Iowa side.  Believe it or not, the river road on the Iowa side has some really nice riding, a lot of long sweepers with great sight lines and grand views into and across the river valley.  Good fun, will look forward to riding that road again one of these days.

 

Across the river from Cassville, Alan and I headed to the edge of the Missississississippi River (did I spell that right?) to catch the Cassville ferry, seen in the background here behind Alan:

 

 

This ferry is a weird contraption.  The part you drive/ride onto doesn't have propulsion built into it - it's basically just a barge, and it's connected through a pivot pin to the tugboat that actually provides all the get-up-and-go.  Once it backs away from the landing, the tug does a 180 on the pivot pin and then propels the whole rig forward kind of from the side, sort of like when you push your dead bike across the road.  Here's the pivot action happening (not my video):

 

 

 

Friday was a light traffic day for the ferry.  Not even any cars, just a handful of bikes:

 

 

 

Eric (@Brodiepunker18) showed up at Mike's house on Friday afternoon, and we all enjoyed a fantastic dinner at Jones' Black Angus in PDC.  Even if you don't like the roads in the Driftless, you should come just for this restaurant.  No matter how much you might like your fish or ribeye, you'll have trouble finishing it because the salad bar and bread are exceptionally good as well, and you will eat far more of everything than any sane physician would recommend.

 

Saturday morning on the way to Borah Borah, I managed to hit a big damn rock in the middle of the road.  Don't know if I wasn't paying attention or was maybe confused into thinking it was just a funny-colored bit of pavement, but I didn't realize it was a fist-sized rock until it was too late too dodge.  And so yes, I managed to bend my front rim:

 

 

It's not bad, but it's definitely bent. 

 

 

After getting to Mike's house I was worried about the integrity of the tire after a hit like that.  I started calling around to see if I could get it replaced, but then Alan, Dave, and Eric inspected the "damage" and talked me down.  Thanks guys, you saved me a pile of cash and also a perfectly good riding day that I would have wasted getting a perfectly good tire changed.  

 

And so it was that Alan, Eric and I headed out for lunch at Richland Center, a 95-mile ride away.  A bit of a warm ride, but we were able to find a shady outdoor spot at RC Tacos for lunch:

 

 

You know it's gonna be top-notch Mexican food when the entire staff and all of the customers (except for the three punks on BMW bikes) are Latino.  

 

After a 100-mile ride back to PDC, Mike and Victoria treated us to a fantastic catered lasagna dinner from Ma's Bakery in nearby Bloomington.  Alan and I, "World's Toughest Riders," stayed until well after dark to give the rain a chance to end before we headed off to our hotel rooms.   

 

My ride back to Madison on Sunday was fun.  Mike texted this right around the time I hit the road:

 

Quote

Mitch, thought of you when I saw this.  You are the route planner extraordinaire.

 

 

 

 

The cager/biker comparison made me laugh.  Here's the direct route from PDC to Madison, 102 miles:

 

 

And here's the route I took instead, 328 miles:

 

 

What can I say, I like to ride.   

 

Early in the morning, about 2/3 of the way up the river to Onalaska, I sprinted up to Old Settler's Overlook for a bird's-eye view of the Big Muddy.  It's a short and steep ride up to the top, but you do get a good view:

 

 

 

The river is almost 2.5 miles wide at that point.  A nice view, especially with the sun behind me lighting up the far side.

 

 

Breakfast was "Green Eggs and Ham" at Blue Moon in Onalaska.  Basically eggs Benedict, but with the addition of spinach and also some tomato-basil pesto in the hollandaise.  Highly recommended if you're in the area.

 

When the riding is good, I like the flow so much that it can be hard to stop unless I need a break.  Over the years I've found that I often regret the pictures that I didn't stop to take, and I rarely regret the pics I did stop to take.  Somewhere near Sparta I whizzed by a house that had some really funny motorcycle/motorcyclist sculptures in the yard.  Dammit, I shoulda stopped!!  Anyway, from then on, I made it a point to stop for pics here and there.  Here's one:

 

 

Here's another roadside stop in the middle of nowhere (no grinch this time):

 

 

A roller-coaster road waiting to be attacked:

 

 

In Richland Center, I stopped for gas and noticed that one of my highway pegs was loose:

 

 

Opening the peg, I saw that one of the screws had escaped, and the other three were on their way out:

 

 

Yikes.  I snugged up the three screws that were left.  Still gotta replace the escapee.

 

Here's Elephant Trunk Rock:

 

 

Not a roadside stop here, just a nice stretch of road.  There's a bunch of these in the Driftless, where the road runs up one side of a valley and then does a big S-turn to cross and run up the other side of the valley:

 

 

By mid-afternoon I made it to Madison.  The Hampton downtown really knows how to make a guy feel special:

 

 

Spent a few hours walking around downtown, taking in the sights.  Here's the main UW administrative building, Bascom Hall, on top of Bascom hill:

 

 

You've probably seen a postcard somewhere showing a bazillion plastic flamingos on the lawn in front of Bascom Hall, something like this (not my pic):

 

 

It's an annual thing now, but it was first done by the UW student government back in 1979, with over a 1000 birds being installed.  Nuts.

 

The Wisconsin Capitol building, modeled after the US national Capitol building, but just a smidge shorter:

 

 

A brat and beer (yes, Spotted Cow) at the Memorial Union Terrace:

 

 

It looked better in person; I guess you had to be there.

 

There's a 49-MB attachment limit for BMWST posts, and I'm bumping up against it with this one - so I'm gonna post this and then finish up in a second post.  Stay tuned...

 

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Got more popcorn?  Good.  Here's part 2:

 

What with Wisconsin being the dairy state, Madison used to have a bunch of cow statues placed around town painted in a variety of colorful schemes, like this one (not my pic):

 

 

Those cows went away a while back - not sure when - and on this trip, I saw in their stead several full-sized statues of Bucky Badger.  In 2018 there were a whopping 85 of these Bucky statues spread across Dane County, with 15 on the UW campus.  I managed to encounter five of them on Sunday afternoon and early Monday morning:

 

    

 

 

By late Monday morning, it was time to head for the Lake Express ferry back to Michigan.  While I detoured for gas in Milwaukee, I found some pink elephants:

 

 

Didn't have to wait long at the ferry terminal for the boat to show up:

 

 

By coincidence, another fellow on a hexhead RT boarded with me and we were parked next to each other on the vehicle deck:

 

 

 

It was a pretty breezy day, but the waves weren't that high, so it was a fairly mellow crossing.  It was a bit hazy as we left Milwaukee:

 

 

But it got foggier and foggier as we approached Muskegon:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even though the ferry is equipped with radar, at some point it was so foggy that the skipper started sounding the horn at regular intervals. 

 

Usually when we approach Muskegon, the skipper chops the throttles about a 1/4-mile from the breakwater, and then we cruise on through the gap into the harbor at a comfortable no-wake speed.  But it was so foggy this time that he stopped much farther out - maybe a mile - and then approached really slowly with spotters stationed on the foredeck, watching for the lighthouses at the harbor entrance.  The ship has GPS, but I guess they don't really want to trust it?  Here's the spotter on the starboard foredeck, and you can barely make out the lighthouse in front of him in the distance:

 

 

before long, it came clearly into view, as did the one on the left:

 

 

 

 

Once we were through the gap, we sailed the last couple of miles to port without incident.  The final couple of hours getting home were a mix of rain and dry conditions, and near the end, a car crash had blocked all the lanes of the highway and caused a major delay as traffic was routed onto the shoulder to get around it.  I got off the highway before the jam, but ended up riding on about three miles of unpaved roads.  It wasn't rough gravel, it was greasy, rain-slicked clay; it might have been fun on a light dualsport bike with knobbies, but on a loaded touring bike with street tires, it was a handful.  Made a mess, too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter, I made it home safe, and the RT will get a bath one of these days.  

 

Dave, Alan, Eric, thanks for making the trip to DART - and a big thanks to Mike and Victoria for hosting a bunch of greasy bikers at Borah Borah!  I'll be looking forward to next year's event.  

[DakarTimm]

Thanks for taking the time to post . We live just east of Madison ,about 15 miles . The Lake Express likely slowed down and had lookouts posted to warn others leaving the harbor .

Many times recreational boaters have little knowledge or respect for maritime rules . We spend a lot of time on Lake Michigan and have witnessed a great amount of "dubious behavior " 

There still cows around . Many of them have been adopted by surrounding towns and cities .

The rim can be fixed for considerably less than the cost of replacement .

I bent the rear rim of my 2002 R1150R with only 500 miles on it . Cost for replacement was a tad over $900.00 !

This was in 2002 . Most rim specialist will run about $175 plus shipping both ways .

[Mike]

Most excellent, Mitch. I guess I was too busy having a good time, and only have one photo. But, I thought it might be interesting for those who haven’t ridden here to see the new Butler Motorcycle Map for Wisconsin, which highlights the great riding roads in this area of the world.
 

[Dave_in_TX]

6 hours ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

 

Dave, Alan, Eric, thanks for making the trip to DART - and a big thanks to Mike and Victoria for hosting a bunch of greasy bikers at Borah Borah!  I'll be looking forward to next year's event.  

Mitch, thanks for being our ride leader.

[mnTwin]

5 hours ago, Mike said:

Most excellent, Mitch. I guess I was too busy having a good time, and only have one photo. But, I thought it might be interesting for those who haven’t ridden here to see the new Butler Motorcycle Map for Wisconsin, which highlights the great riding roads in this area of the world.
 

I pre-ordered one of those when I heard they were doing WI. I've got most of their maps for the Western States, and they were well worth it. As Mike's pic shows, the density of good roads in SW WI is just amazing. Here's a link:

https://butlermaps.com/motorcycle-road-maps/wisconsin-and-michigans-upper-peninsula-g1-map/

[9Mary7]

14 hours ago, Dave_in_TX said:

Mitch, thanks for being our ride leader.

I concur! Great event guys.....

[Matts_12GS]

I need to try and make this one year. I've got some family in Madison I need to see as well.