kettle moraine ride

Eric and I decided to take a short ride to Holy Hill. The trip began with a broken clutch cable on my R75. I've been having trouble with it breaking cables, so I was frustrated that it was ending our ride before we ever got started. Rather than be upset, we decided to head to the studio to see if we could fix it. Eric re-twisted the cable and I drilled out the end of the ferrule that holds the soldered wire captive. I was then able to insert the wire into the ferrule and silver solder it in place (figured it would be a little stronger than low temp solder). The cable was back on in the length of time that it took for Eric to get coffee (and spill it down his front) and we were OFF!

We took the long way to Holy Hill, along the edge of the lake and over. We encountered some decent roads on the way. Once to Holy Hill we were able to explore the grounds a bit and stretch our legs. We decided that we would check out some of the rustic roads around the area and thought that we might ride to Kettle Moraine State Forest. We ended up on Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive and thought that we would just take it until we got to the entrance of the state forest. We rode through a lot of small towns and beautiful country side and there were some incredibly scenic areas while riding through some wooded areas. The roads were perfect for an old bike like mine and I could just motor up and down the twisty sections; and keep my eyes open for loose gravel. Eric was the tour guide that kept us on route and his GS, of course, handled the trip with ease. The Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive is well marked and we had no trouble following the path.

We got to the entrance of the Kettle Moraine Forest and decided to stop and get a bite to eat and fuel up. It wasn't until we looked at the map that we discovered that the entrance sign we had just seen, marked the NORTH entrance to the park; we had just ridden almost the entire route!! We decided to head South and ride back through the way we had come, catching some of the other State Rustic Roads on the way back home. We had a great time and it was really nice to be able to get out of the city for a little while and put some miles on the R75. Eric logged our trip and it can be followed on Google Maps here. Once home we realized that the route goes farther South to Whitewater. I think we might have to take the whole trip some day in the near future. Taking it during Fall would be gorgeous.

We ended up logging 193.5 miles and rode for almost five hours. Our minimum altitude was 671 ft and max was 1,341 feet with a average speed of 40.3 mph.

Here are some maps that shows the entire route (North, Middle, South, and Holy Hill Rustic Roads) in case you're interested in doing the entire thing. We still need to do from Whitewater to Nashotah so we can say we've done the whole thing.