We set out from Minneapolis and arrived in Prescott, WI to meet up with the rest of the group. We were nine bikes and 10 people in total.
After getting gas, Paul’s bike wouldn’t start. The battery terminal was broken off!
With a bit of wire, he managed to fit it enough to get moving again.
During the ride a few people commented my pusher tire was moving around. At the first gas stop, I checked it out. The wheel was really messed up. Lots of spoke problems. I swapped it with the spare and twenty minutes later was ready to go again.
We separated from the group after that first stop since it was very hard for the Ural to keep up with the motorcycles on pavement.
We followed the “Great River Road” south in Wisconsin. We’d done part of the route before last year, but road construction prevented us from finishing it. We finished it this time.
Giant Fish in Onalaska, WI
View of the Mississippi River
Our lunch stop on the Mississippi in Ferryville, WI.
We spotted this tank, and I made a fast u-turn. I had to get a picture with it and the Ural. I can’t let Bobskoot have all the tank photos!
This was the building being renovated behind the tank. It’s in LaCrosse, WI. I’m not sure what the end purpose will be.
Some of the great river road in action
A Wisconsin farm pic for Gary:
Some very steep roads!
With some confusing navigation:
This is the group at the start of the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail.
We stopped in Dickeyville, WI to visit “The Grotto” A guy built it from 1925-1930. Pretty impressive.
Pic from the road:
The group:
More pics from the road:
Not enough gravel!
The very rare photo of some bikes actually behind us. Most of the time we were playing catch up which was very exhausting.
Saturday afternoon one of the riders caught a nail with his knobbies. Luckily, it didn’t puncture his tube.
On Sunday, more spoke issues caused us to abandon the rest of the ride. We went home and picked up the SV and continued on a different ride to Bayfield, WI. See the next post for more photos.
The trip was great, and I enjoyed it. There was too much pavement on Saturday for my liking. If I could do it over, I would have gone slower to preserve my rig. (I have two wheels to fix now ugh!) I would have also purchased a more robust GPS. I bought a GPS III a few days before the trip, and it didn’t have enough memory for all the waypoints.
The group started with ten people, but only five finished the route on Monday. We finished the Ural part of the trip with just over 750 miles in 2.5 days. We will try it again, and finish it next time!
Related Posts:
Looks like a great route to ride....too bad re the spoke issues on the Ural.
ReplyDeleteYea, I learned my lesson on that one. The route is nearly all dirt Sunday/Monday (last 300 miles).
ReplyDeleteWell, that's awesome you rode that on the Ural, with your WR it would of just been too easy!
ReplyDeleteTrying to catch up on all my blogs before I head out to Idaho... :)