A Mighty Mighty Wind

One thing Wisconsin seems to have no shortage of is wind. Forget the "frozen tundra of Lambeau Field". On a road bike it seems to be more "the windswept plains of rural America". Thursday, October 23 was no exception. There was a howling wind out of the east blowing at a constant 20 mph.

Calumet County Wisconsin is a client for the IT Consulting company I work for, so I was in Chilton for a 1:00 PM meeting. I brought my bike, and after my meeting changed clothes and headed off south of Chilton for a ride. My original intention was to do the route below, a 42 miler.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/216493

But the wind coupled with the fact that I hadn't had lunch was too much. I turned arund on County Road GG near Hickory Road and just went back to Chilton.

This is good country to ride in. Its all rural with lots of farms with big red barns. As you get further south you also get a few rolling hills, which are nice to change things up. I know further west there is a road called Seven Hills Road that lives up to its name. Chilton is a neat little town too with some interesting buildings. Here's a picture of a bank downtown, built when banks projected an image of strength, stability and security.


The wind was tough today. But this time of year, you take the days you can get. It didn't feel like 52 degrees (which was the temp) due to the wind, but I got 24 miles in, so nothing wrong with that.

Appleton East 40 Miler

I did a route today that is one of my favorites today, a 40 mile loop east of Appleton. You can see the route at the following link at Bikely.com

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/214473

I did this route or a close variation quite a bit in the summer months when there was more daylight in the evening. Its nice because its a good amount of miles for a weeknight and its very low traffic. Also, those who live in Appleton know the wind generally blows out of the west, so this route would have a tailwind on the way home.

The route is generally flat. On Manley Road south of Highway 15, you will have a couple of rollers but nothing too serious. The scenery is pretty much small farms. There is an old Lutheran church to see on County Road O right after the "Y" from the Quarry. Its neat to look at from the bike, but nothing I've ever felt the need to get off the bike for. Once you get down onto Island Road and Shady Lane, you do have some more trees. I snapped this picture today along Island Road.

We had a couple storms come through Appleton this last week with some wind and rain. So the trees have lost a lot of their leaves from the previous weekend. There are still some fall colors out there, just not as many. I've always liked the area down by Shady Lane. Being a little more wooded, its a little more interesting than just farm after farm.

There are a number of variations one could do on this route. You could follow County Road MM into Hortonville to add a couple miles or if you need a store stop. At the "Y" intersection at the Quarry, you could go left instead of right and cut off a few miles if you want a shorter ride. You don't have to come in Shady Lane either. It all depends on what one is in the mood for.

The temperature today in Appleton was mid 50's. There was some wind out of the south, but it eased as the ride went on. I moved to Wisconsin from Virginia, where I would ride year round. Yes, January and February were cool, but you would usually get some days in the mid 40's or even 50+. I was concerned coming to Wisconsin about how much the weather would cut into the riding season. Clearly, there is going to be snow on the ground here in January and February, so those months will be for cross country skiing. But how soon would that snow and cold get here? Would I be done riding November 1? October 15?

I have to say I've been very pleased so far. I like riding when the temp is around 50 degrees. I like riding in arm warmers. I like to not have to wear the leg warmers, but something about 50 degrees to me seems like the perfect temperature. Maybe because its warm enough that you aren't worried about staying warm, but cool enough that you aren't worried about overheating like on a summer day. I wore a long sleeve base layer and a long sleeve wool jersey today and felt great. Clearly it will get colder, but I also have more gear I can wear, so my cycling season isn't done yet.

An Autumn Evening

I was able to get out of the office today a little before 5:00 PM and get a quick ride in. Sunset in Appleton is about 6:15 these days, so a 20 or so miler was in order. Not the longest or most epic ride, just a ride after work. Weather was perfect. Temperature in the low 50's, no wind.

I ride a lot of miles, usually about 6000 a year. This year I'm just over 5000, so I don't know if I'll make it to 6000. But any way you look at it, I spend a lot of time on the bike. When you ride that much, you have times when you get a little burned out. I know this year, I didn't ride as many miles as I could have in August and September. Part of this was life was a little hectic. Part of it was probably that I was a little burned out. It happens.

My route tonight took me north of Appleton and back for a total of 22.9 miles. Nothing special, just flat farmland and country roads. Even the trees that surround the farmhouses have mostly lost their leaves. No moments when I had to get out with my camera phone and snap some pictures. But I really enjoyed the ride tonight, even though it was nothing special. I think part of it is the realization that the daylight is getting shorter and the temperatures getting crisper. In a matter of weeks, there will probably be snow covering these roads. So you appreciate that you can get out and do a ride now, because that opportunity probably won't be there in a few weeks.

This will not be my last ride of the year, but you start realizing that the year is winding down, so for me at least, I try to appreciate each one just a little more.

High Cliff State Park in Fall

I hate to say, but I’ve lost some fitness over the last month. After doing 54 miles yesterday, my legs were not up for doing another 50 miles Sunday. I must also say though, neither was my schedule, because it seems that weekends are so busy now. Still, with 80 degrees in October, I wasn’t going to pass up a ride entirely. With the wind blowing out of the south, I decided to do an out and back from my house in Appleton to High Cliff State Park. Total distance turned out to be 29 miles.

My route took me over the Lawe Street bridge since the College Avenue bridge is closed pending reconstruction. The Lawe Street Bridge is not my favorite with its metal surface, but you can ride over it, just don’t stop. Of course, with the sharp down and then sharp up, you get a little bit of a work out. I worked my way over to John Street, down to Calumet Avenue and then south on Lake Park drive. John Street is sufficiently wide that traffic is not an issue. You are only on Calumet for about 0.1 miles, and Lake Park quickly becomes rural. I tend to take a left on Manitowoc road and then a right on State Park Road to get down to High Cliff.

One of the things which has always attracted me to cycling is that you may see something you haven’t seen before. On a bike, you are going slowly enough to really have a view of the terrain as you go by so that you actually see what you are going past. Today was one of those days. The foliage in High Cliff was terrific as you can see below.


One of the other things I found today in the Park that I never knew existed was an observation tower. I’m guessing it was about 5 or 6 stories in height. From the top, you had terrific views of the fall colors and Lake Winnebago. Walking to the top in cycling shoes wasn’t the greatest, but the views were outstanding.

So there you have it. A 29 mile ride, that I have done before, but colors and scenery like I haven’t seen on the ride before. That’s what for me keeps cycling interesting and why I keep riding year after year.

Pay to Play

While in De Pere yesterday and riding along their bike trail, I kept riding past these kiosks that something like "Pay Here". I didn't really know what this meant being new to the area, and I didn't really want to stop and interrupt my ride to find out. When got home last night, I Googgled "De Pere Bike Path" which took me to this page explaining what the signs were all about.

http://www.foxrivertrail.com/hours-fees-uses.htm

So it seems that as a bicyclist you need to pay a $3 daily fee or purchase an annual pass for a fairly nominal fee of $20.

My first reaction to this was not positive. I think like a lot of folks my first thought is "why is one more fee being imposed" as well as the feeling of who is going to get off of their bike, interrupt their ride and pay at one of these kiosks. Plus, how do you enforce something like this? Are we going to have an officer stop everyone riding their bike and ask them for their trail pass? And finally, there is part of me that says why are we imposing a fee on bicyclists? won't this discourage folks from a healthy activity like cycling? If we have a better community by people riding their bikes more (if you are reading this, you know all the arguments--more bikes equals less car traffic, less pollution, healthier citizens, etc), why do we effectively want to tax that activity and put another barrier in place to people participating in that activity?

I thought about this more last night though, and I'm starting to come to the viewpoint that charging a nominal fee is not just reasonable, but perhaps even a positive. I'm a big believer in that the person who gets the utility out of government service should be the person that pays for that service to be provided. If you use more water in your house than me, the City of Appleton will charge you more in your water bill. The amount of the service you use (in this case water) directly correlates with what you pay. In other words, if you are efficient, single or for whatever reason don't use much water, you pay less. The person who is wasteful or has a big yard to water or whatever else who uses a lot of water pays more. This is the way it should work.

When I first moved to Appleton a couple months ago, there was talk about building a convention center downtown (there probably still is--I just haven't heard about it for a while). This convention center was going to cost something like $30 million dollars which would of course be paid for through a tax increase. So lets analyze this. The plan is to build a convention center that the citizens of Appleton (and maybe surrounding communities) will pay for. The primary users of this convention center will be individuals from out of town--that is the point of having a convention center, to draw in conventions from out of town. The other main beneficiary of the convention center will be travel type businesses--hotels, restaurants, rental car companies, etc. How does this make sense? Most of the people that would be paying for the convention center (the taxpayers in Appleton) will probably never set foot inside of the convention center. So how are they deriving benefit from having a convention center here. Yes, I know there is an economic argument, more conventions would create more jobs. Mind you, mostly minimum wage jobs like hotel staff and restaurant staff, so once again, I'm not sure Appleton as a whole really benefits. This is the classic example of where one group reaps the reward of some activity and gets someone else to pay for it. Good deal if you can find it, but not the model of fairness.

So how does this relate to bike paths and fees. Well, as a cyclist, I derive the benefit of having a bike path there. I get utility out of having a bike path there, and judging by the number of people out yesterday, so do a lot of cyclist. So therefore, to me, it is only fair that I and other cyclists help to pay for the cost of having that amenity (the bike path) there. Building a bike path and maintaining it is not free. It seems to me appropriate to ask the people who use it to help to pay to maintain it.

This model isn't perfect for all services government provides. Certainly no one wants to say that you need to pay for Police or Fire services. And I think in general, we don't' want every city park to charge an admission fee. Otherwise, we risk becoming an elitist society where we have amenities available only to those who can afford to pay and not for other income brackets. Certainly one of the goals of things like City Parks and Bike Paths and the like is to have a place where the community can come together for recreation. If we charge a fee for everything or a fee that is too high, it takes the community out of that sentence. Turning parks and bike paths into a private country club is in no ones interest.

So in summary, I think asking folks to purchase an annual pass at a nominal fee is reasonable. Those dollars can help to maintain a clean and safe bike path, and maybe even go into making more such amenities available, like more bike paths or better facilities along the paths that already exist. But we should make sure the fees do not become a discouragement to people cycling or make it to where certain income groups are locked out from using the trail. That would be a shame, and do more harm to a community than a fee could hope to do good.

I'm interested in hearing others thoughts on this.

Appleton - De Pere Loop

I took advantage of the almost summer weather today to get a 50+ mile ride in. A number of times since I had been here I have rode east to Wrightstown, but just about every time I turned around there and headed back. Not really sure why I hadn't went further, but today I decided too.

I've mapped my route out at Bikely (http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Appleton-De-Pere-Loop)

Just east of Appleton, there is a bike lane on Wisconsin avenue for 3 miles into Little Chute. It would be nice if more roads had bike lanes like this, but that is a different post for a different time. I just follow the main drag through Little Chute until I get to Kaukauna and cross the Fox River there. One of the bridges is a metal structure, which doesn't seem to bother you as long as you don't slow down. Swing left past a baseball field and then at the Y intersection of County Z and County ZZ, continue on County ZZ so you hug the river.

This is where the good part of the ride starts. The road hugs the river so you get a lot of nice views. Also, to the left of County ZZ is not really farmed, so on an October day like today, you have quite a few trees in fall colors. County ZZ passes through Wrightstown at about the 15 mile mark, and then its more of the same as you go towards De Pere.

I meant to take a left onto Old Military Road, but missed the turn and wound up taking Highway 32 North into De Pere. It wasn't bad. There was not too much traffic and there was a sufficiently wide shoulder to ride in. Once into De Pere, the should disappears, but its two lanes each direction, so traffic was not a problem.

Getting to downtown De Pere, I decided to look around a bit instead of just crossing the bridge and coming back. The downtown area seemed very clean and pedestrian friendly. There is also a paved bike/walking path along the river I rode a couple miles on. Overall, it looks like they have done a nice job with the area. Lots of people out walking and biking.

I crossed the bridge back to the North side of the Fox River (and I should metion there is both a pedestrian and bike line on the bridge) to start to head back. Lost Dauphin Road becomes County Road D. Fo a while you have more good views of the river and of some very impressive homes built along the river, but around Little Rapids, the views start to disappear. This same road eventually takes you back into Wrightstown.

From here, I stay on Wisconsin 96 until I can pick up County JJ. There doesn't seem to be much traffic on WI 96 in this area, and its easier just to get to JJ because then you can get directly to Appleton without winding around (I've would around these roads before, but today I wanted a more direct route). Once on County JJ, its just riding past farms until you get to where you want to turn off--French Road, Ballard, Meade. And then its back into Appleton.

There are stores to refuel in De Pere and both times you go through Wrightstown (stores North and South of the river). Terrain is pretty flat, which is typical for Appleton. Today winds were out of the southeast, so headwind out, tailwind back. Traffic is very low on the rural roads, but of course there is traffic going through Little Chute, Kaukauna, Wrightstown and De Pere. No where is really dangerous, but there is a roundabout by the bridge in De Pere, so that is a good place to be careful. Bikely shows the ride as 50 miles even. I ended up with 52.9 due to my little bike trail foray.

Overall, this is a great ride. Very scenic, low traffic and some good miles.