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Rustic Road to Ruins pt2

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Section 1: Southeast


I think Wisconsin is deceptive in its’ size. Or maybe I just think everything should be a closer distance to my home. I don’t know. What I do know is that getting home from my 3rd loop out to Rock County last night took me about an hour and a half to get home…….more on that later though.

I’ll start at the beginning. Loop 1


This was probably the easiest loop for me to get, as I’ve ridden so many of these roads specifically before. I was familiar with the roads, and to be honest, I’ve been on them so many times before, I kinda just wanted to get them knocked off my list. That said, I was out riding, so I was out enjoying. 

1st stop RR 43


This RR is just North of Bong State Recreational Area. I’ve camped there before, nice place. If you’re on an enduro bike, they may call the rangers on you think that you’re riding around on a dirtbike.  

2nd stop RR37


I didn’t feel like I was on a Rustic Road. Yeah it was rough & bumpy, but come on……the houses & pampered lawns had me kinda….ehh. It didn’t help that the further East you are in WI, the straighter the roads…..though there are a few exceptions.

3rd stop RR30


Go figure, both ends of this route don’t list the RR number on their sign. I assume the Wisconsin folk are drunk on cheese 

4th stop RR5


This was a nice slow road right by a little park. I stopped there for a quick Gatorade break.


5th stop RR85


This road follows a creek for a bit, had some minor elevation changes, but beyond that, not too much going on. Pretty smooth.

6th stop RR12


This road is right at the entrance to a subdivision, so a bit slow, but once past that, you’ve got some more decent riding coming up

7th stop RR11


This road kinda loops in with the next road……you could have some fun in this area, but it is only about 10 miles from the more populated Lake Geneva area

8th stop RR36


From here, I shot West on Highway 50 through downtown Lake Geneva, on to collect one last RR. I should have just skipped this one for the night. My brother had ribs & sausage on the smoker, but I figured I was there, why not get it. I got into Lake Geneva only to realize that there was some festival going on. Oodles of people. Not too big a deal, but I feel kinda bad with my dry clutch clackity clackity when sitting at a stop light. Ducati People Problems 

9th stop RR29


This is probably the windiest road of the day. Unfortunately it is right outside Lake Geneva, so kinda prime LEO area. The road winds through some $$$$$ houses\farms\etc. I wouldn’t mind a house here, but sweet word I can only imagine the taxes.

After that I ran myself over to my brothers to chat for a bit. Looking back now, I need to really start snapping some better pictures of stuff other than my bike. I’ll work on that. I get caught up in the moment of riding, and at the time, couldn’t care less about pictures, but we all need pictures 

Trip Odometer – 120 miles

Loop 2 to follow.

Andrew

Rustic Roads to Ruins

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A month or so ago I sold my Nighthawk and picked up a fancy Italian bike. I’ve never had a Ducati before, I’ve honestly never ridden a Multistrada before. The closest I had to trying a 1st gen Multistrada was sitting on a friends several years ago and thinking “Sweet Zombie Jesus this clutch is stiff……you sure that’s a hydraulic clutch?”  But what can I say. I had ridden my Nighthawk to test ride a new Ducati 848 Streetfighter as well as a 2014 Hyperstrada, and was bitten by the bug. I made some things happen, and wound up with a fancy 2004 Ducati Multistrada 1000DS. Rough around the edges yes……Raw Italian Beast through and through.The real purpose of this thread is to document my trips collecting Rustic Road Signs in Wisconsin. All 115 of them spread out around the state of Wisconsin. If you don’t know what they are, they’re basically a series of roads in Wisconsin that are…..Rustic. I’m documenting these rides in a spreadsheet on my computer, but will use this as more of posting pictures & thoughts of what is going on in my head during the rides. More than likely….nothing 

Wisconsin’s definition here:

What’s that got to do with motorcycling…..well, Wisconsin is nice enough to send you a patch if you snap a picture of yourself in front of 10 signs. Their rules are here:

Now I’m not the first, nor am I the last to take on this little challenge. I think there are even a few reports on this site of other Wisconsin locals taking on this challenge. I however can say that I’m doing these…..all based out of Illinois. Now in reality, that’s not really fair. I am in Illinois, however I’m only about 10 miles South of the IL\WI border. On top of that, I’ve got the minimum 10 Rustic Roads within a 30-45 minutes ride from my house. 

Rustic Roads in relation to my house (bottom right):

Rustic Road GPS Tracks HERE: GPS FILES

I devised a simple plan of attack for how I’m going to snag all 115 of these Rustic Roads. Wisconsin split these up into 4 main segments:

I’m close enough to most of the stuff in the Southeast area to attack them in rides after work. My wife works nights as a nurse, so if she’s working, I’m flying solo. If not, I’ll be getting her to tag along. Pictures with her will be far more appealing than of just me & my mug or just the Ducati.  I’ve got a cabin I can base out of for the Southwest portion of roads, so when I’m out there, I’ll snag those. Next spring when I do the TWAT, I’ll aim to snag those that are based around that route. In October or early November, my wife & I weather pending will be doing Cannonshot’s loop around Door County. I’ll snag any Rustic Roads there while in the area.

That’s my plan. I may (or may not) stick to it 

So the cast of characters:

My wife & I (I gotta burn that BMW Jacket):

The Silver Duck (truck is backup if I break down ):

All that said, allow me to begin. Stay tuned……

Andrew

Multiple reports update – June & July FVOR Race Results

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I’m just a wee bit behind on my updates here.  Real quick on the June race.  I’d like to not think about it too much, but if I don’t keep the past in my mind, I’ll likely repeat it.  I don’t want that.  Junes harescramble at FVOR went like this:

I got a poor start.  I was then stuck behind a good deal of slower riders in my class and got frustrated.  Not the end of the world, as I started passing people, but I unfortunately let a lot of their mistakes affect me.  I went to make a hasty pass on a rider on a downhill section.  I attempted to pass him on the outside, which was fine until he crossed over into me.  I slammed on the brakes hard, but still managed to clip his rear wheel with my front.  Front VS. Rear, Rear always wins.  I cartwheeled down the hill.  I picked up the bike, noted the bars were tweaked, as was the front fender.  Each bump I heard a loud grinding noise.  I was a bit mentally defeated at this point, and thought I was having little fun while trying to navigate some arrows & blown tape in the wooded areas.  I wasn’t having fun, end o story.  I called it quits early.  Packed up and went home.

That’s the past and I aimed to do better come next race.  This Sundays race, I kept calm.  The little B & Big B classes grouped together for 1 line were too big, so they split us into separate lines at the start.  I liked this, as I had no one on the immediate sides of me.  I wear ear plugs when I race, so dead engine starts can prove to be tricky as I have a hard time hearing the motor start.  I kept calm, and pulled the holeshot.  I was holding a decent pace, but early on tucked the front in a slick turn.  I got back up as quick as possible and kept pushing.  I noted I was getting some arm pump pretty bad early on.  I don’t normally get arm pump, so I figured it was a combo of not riding off-road enough & possibly having tossed a different set of bars on the bike (and pushing to keep up my early race pace).  I calmed myself down and dealt with it.

On the second lap I tried getting a sip of water from my camelbak.  Nothing.  I thought Ice had clogged the hose, so I kept going.  Next lap as I noted I slipped into 3rd place, I again tried getting some water from my camelbak.  Nothing.  At some point I decided when I had a decent gap from whoever might be near me, I would have to stop.  I knew while I was plenty hydrated, I’d have a hard time making 105 minutes without water.  The dust in some open sections had been coating my mouth & it was needless to say, not pleasant.

My gap (perceived or whatever) opened up enough where I felt comfortable stopping to fix the camelbak.  Bladder out, and saw the quick release hose had released itself.  A quick click back in and I was back going.  Around 30 seconds loss I’d say.  The rush of cool water was an instant boost and I felt a resurgence of energy.  Unfortunately a group of guys had passed me (4 or 5).  They were in different classes, but it meant I’d have to deal with passing them again.  Not a big deal, but each person you gotta deal with passing is precious time lost.  I managed to pass them within the lap, so that was good for me mentally.

As the race progressed I could feel I was making some costly mistakes.  I let a few riders mess me up on some hill climbs.  Both times I had selected alternate lines, only to mess up and lose my momentum.  Not the end of the world, but HUGE energy sucks.  I felt the end was nearing, and saw there were approximately 20 minutes left on the clock.  At this point I had been lapped by the AA guys.  I knew my lap times were over the 10 minute mark, so tried to push that next lap to try and maybe find the 2nd place guy.  No such luck.

Last lap, my body was feeling it.  My tweaked ankle (from a skateboard incident) was really bothering me, and I felt the blisters on my left thumb really cropping up.  On the first real downhill, I managed to tuck the front (and subsequently destroy my left footpeg).  I hadn’t noticed the footpeg, so I just tried trucking on best I could.  I pushed when I could, I kept calm and knew no one was too close behind, and felt OK with the (unofficial) 3rd. Official 2nd Place

I saw the checkers and relaxed as I crossed the finish line logs.  I was definitely sore & out of breath.  The early half of the race without being able to quench the dryness in my mouth hampered things a bit.  I can really tell I haven’t been riding off-road enough.  The past several years I’d been spending almost every weekend riding dirt.  Lately it seems I’ve only been riding at the races.  This does not help me keep my speed up.  I’m going to have to figure out how I’m going to work around that.  Having my messed up ankle (rolled it while skateboarding) didn’t help either, though this should be 100% by the next race.

So there we have it.  I’ve got an unofficial 3rd place.  Overall I’m happy with my performance given the circumstances.  I’d really like to be winning every race, but well I’m trying to be as realistic about my situation as possible.  I’m looking forward to the next one.

-Andrew

Update: Official result = 2nd in Open B.  28th Overall.

 

ps – I’ll post pics as soon as I can find any online.