August 4th Ride Report – Picnic at The Lake 2018
“RR (Ride Review): short version; "I had a pretty good time, thanx for inviting me."
RR....long version....read at your own risk...might be worth covering one eye so as to still have a good one if the first burns out?” -- Fran K.
Some background.
My parents built our summer home on Whitewater Lake in 1962. My birthday is August 7th. From 1963 until sometime in the late 80’s, my birthday was celebrated at “the lake”. Whitewater Lake is a spring-fed lake and that spring is located in a park which we always called “The Springs”, but which Walworth County calls “Natureland Park”. Many, many hours were spent exploring the park’s 100+ acres, climbing trees, catching frogs, hiking, playing and, when we got thirsty, hand pumping up spring water to drink.
Some more, and slightly more current, background.
I’ve been fortunate enough over the last few years to organize and lead motorcycle rides into Wisconsin, often near The Lake, on a weekend day close to my birthday. Scott and Linda, Fran, Cheryl, Kelly, Matt, Glen and Laura, Mike and various other friends have joined me on at least one of these meandering rides. I appreciate their companionship and their tolerance of my tendency to plot crazy routes, often on roads on which I have never ridden myself.
Some background on this year’s ride (plus).
Since Whitewater Lake and the surrounding area has all manner of outdoor activity available, I thought that I would encourage my friends, riders or not, to venture up there on the morning of August 4th to do whatever they want (bike, drive, hike, kayak, shop, whatever). Afterward, we would gather at Natureland Park for lunch. Of course, my outdoor activity would be motorcycling and Cheryl, Scott, Linda, and Fran all RSVP’d that they would once again endure the stop signs, U-turns, small towns, and the going east to go west that typically makes up a ride with me in the front of the line.
Fran agreed to ride sweep, although he refers to this as “riding drag”. For the uninitiated, the Sweep rides at the back of the line and makes sure no one ahead of him gets lost or stranded. So, whether it’s “sweep” or “drag”, it makes me feel comfortable to have a person with Fran’s riding skill watching our backs.
Fran, in addition to be being one of the best and most well-traveled motorcyclists I know, also likes to write up a ‘ride report’ after a longer ride. I, too, like to report back to people who express interest, real or feigned, in my two-wheeled exploits. I have neither his motorcycle nor writing skill, but my late father once told me that if I wanted to get better at a thing, I should copy someone who is already better at that thing. Since Fran already sent me a fine ride report (RR) for my “birthday ride”, I thought I’d employ a slightly modified version of my dad’s advice -- repeat Fran’s report verbatim and simply add my comments in response to his. His report is in a smaller font and italicized for clarity’s sake.
“Well...I left my house just before 8am as I am an early riser hating to be burning daylight...especially in the summer. Temp was over 70F already and the day was predicted to be summery hot and humid enough. Arrived at Butterfield's to buy a coffee to sip outside at a shady table. It was already too hot to sit in the morning sun. Matt and Cheryl showed and ordered coffee to await Linda and Scott who rode past in order to fuel. Very nice to meet Linda and Scott. I asked Linda how she came to motorcycling as collecting such stories is always fun to me. I didn't ask Scott for his story as I had heard a lot of guy's tales and never get enough gal's stories on topic. I didn't note our start time as it was supposed to be a leisurely trip and Matt would cut out miles as he needed to keep us on his desired schedule. The riders' meeting was pretty lax and I got to ride drag. Scott had a fuel leak that didn't seem too bad and didn't bother him. I wondered to myself if he would have a fuel soaked boot for the day?”
BMWs 3 – Hondas 2 Butterfield’s Pancake House & Restaurant in Northbrook turns out to be a pretty good motorcycle meet-up spot – ample parking, some outside seating, close to the tollway.
The rider’s meeting was not lax. It was short. I have ridden with all of these people enough to know that they know my signals, the 2 second following distance guideline, the “ride your own ride” mantra, etc. Not only that, but in my last email to the riding group, I included some instructions along with links to the routes I had planned.
Linda’s story of how she got into riding was indeed interesting; I wish that I had asked that question myself of her years ago. Scott’s fuel leak was a little concerning to me, but less so knowing that both Scott and Fran know their way around a motorcycle and neither seemed to think it was a ride-ending issue.
“I detest Saturday traffic so much as to make me rarely ride on the day but it wasn't bad for our transit out of town. Couldn't tell myself why the usual nasty traffic was being so reasonable? Matt did a nice route as we got away. At one point I realized that we would ride right past the Old School Forest Preserve (OSFP). Amazingly, I got a place to pass the group and signal Matt to follow. Delightfully, the group followed. We had mostly quiet bikes and riders smart enough to ride sedately as conditions indicate. We made a nice loop and enjoyed the little turns and shade w/o incident with other users of the preserve. The place can be full of dogs, wide arrange of bicyclists, hikers, leaf peepers, joggers using the pavement as well as the trails that intersect. Cagers coming out of the parking lots can be a caution. When I lead a group there, I usually prep them to go slow and keep their wits about them due to the all the people possible to surprise. Posted at 20mph with Preserve cops to cite the dangerous, most of the turns can be enjoyed at 25 plus a little, after one learns what to expect. When I visit the place, I usually make a very slow "sighting lap" to see how busy the preserve is. Then I make a 2nd lap at whatever speed I think might be enjoyable after my evaluation of conditions. The tar snakes are always a problem for me. Too hot makes them slick. Too cold is better, but can still be iffy. Wet is just not much fun. I never take loud bikes there nor crazy riders out of fear that the place will attract too much police protection and/or be closed to bikes. In the distant past, this would be part of a romantic 2up ride. Especially in the Fall and warm Spring moments. Just south of this Preserve is Old School Road on the west side of the street. Deer can be seen often in both places in the Fall. Consider yourselves to be honored to know two of my secret places and share only with riders whom you suspect likely not to screw it up for us all. Coming out of the OSFP, a woman riding shotgun in a cage noted my "Clowns and Jokers" and told me how much she enjoyed that at the next traffic light. It's been on the bike for 2 seasons and has gotten more fun interactions than anything I ever had back there...lifetime.”
I detest Saturday traffic, but it’s usually not an issue because I’m out of the Saturday traffic zone and into the country well before traffic has increased to the detestable point. Even our post-9am departure time was early enough to get us out of the northern suburbs with very little trouble. I was enjoying our relatively comfortable ride up St. Mary’s road when some guy on a GS passed me and signaled me to follow along with the “Jokers” as indicated on the back of his side case. It took me the better part of Fran’s entire circuit around Old School Forest Preserve before I realized that he did not pull in front of us because of some trouble he noticed with one of our bikes or because I made some big mistake as the “point” rider. Once realized, though, it was certainly a worthwhile detour. Incidentally, while I was unaware of the OSFP road or that it was one of Fran’s ‘secret places’, I often ride Old School Road to its south and share his desire for readers to keep these places on a “need to know” basis. Fran’s “Clowns” (to the left) and “Jokers” (to the right) side cases are locally famous. I even saw a Facebook post recently by a non-motorcyclist who snapped a pic of Fran riding down Arlington Heights Road. It’s an inspired accent to his BMW even more so than the Triumph badges that have replaced the BMW roundels on his bike.
I chose to avoid the interstate on this trip, even though part of my route plan was to follow roughly my father’s route at least part of the way to The Lake: I-94 to IL-132 to Hunt Club Road to US-45 to WI-142, and so on, zigzagging our way to the house. I just wasn’t in the mood for 8 lanes, 5 bikes, high speed, and the heat of an August morning. Avoiding the interstate didn’t slow us down much, but a few other things did.
“Scott's fuel leak turned out to be horrendous for my drag riding. I had a choice of riding close enough to be in his hip pocket to avoid the fumes (not a good idea to my way of thinking). Or riding 5-6 seconds back to stay out of the worst of it. I opted for a more remote position. Made me wonder if I was far back enough not to stink up my gear? Or me? My eyes didn't sting and my lungs seemed to be getting enough air at that distance that I decided to motor onward.”
I had no idea until later in the morning that Scott’s fuel leak was why Fran was so far behind. Kudos and thanks to him for riding it out. I assumed his distance more a function of how slow we were riding. It turns out that the Saturday traffic we avoided earlier somehow managed to appear in southern Wisconsin in the form of bicycle races. The bicycles weren’t too bad, but their support vehicles, most of which were unofficial support vehicles, traveling 55mph roads at 20mph proved more than a little annoying for this rider. Beyond the annoyance, the slow pace served to make my route choice a huge boondoggle by exposing my riders to intense heat with very little chance for the cooling that comes with a little more pace.
“Everyone seemed to ride well enough for me. Scott did a very nice job of sticking out a foot, a la road race track signal, to indicate road debris. Linda's hi-viz green/yellow jacket was a delight to keep track of. Cheryl's drab gear, dark helmet, and dark bike seemed to disappear in shadows. And her taillight was not very bright in direct sunlight. Matt was similarly dark except for his white helmet which made it easy to keep track of him. Scott and good enough taillights and was close enough that I rarely missed him. Everyone's turn signals looked pretty good to me. Everyone rode closely until we got out to some rural 2-lane where we could relax and spread out a little bit. Somewhere along here, I got stung on the wrist by a very small wasp collected in my cuff. I usually get stung a cuppla times a year. So as memorable as it is, it is not a big issue with me.”
I usually ride in a red, white, and black “Honda Racing” jacket which I think is pretty conspicuous as well as ironic. There’s a long, boring story about the zippers on it breaking and their replacements being less than ideal, but I’ll just say that my Olympia mesh jacket, which is gray and black, was my only choice in protective moto-gear and that it and Cheryl’s black with white reflective accented jacket are no more drab than Fran’s own blue Aerostich suit …and at least we wear our helmets. Since Cheryl is planning on keeping her Honda CTX for the foreseeable future, we will look into brightening up her taillight. It has bothered me since she got the bike. Conspicuity is important (and yes, it’s a real word).
“I leave it to Matt to tell us where we went and how many miles were involved. It would be good to have that routing sheet for a color ride. My memory (pitiful as it is) tells me that we rode about 3hrs and 90 miles to the first fuel stop. 3hrs is quite a stretch with zero pit stops, and no "2min stretches", no photo ops, no hydration breaks, etc. I commend the group for staying in the saddle for so long on such a hot day. Although I did see a leg stretch one time from one rider. But nobody stood on the pegs for a leg stretch and butt breeze. I saw no wildlife on the day. There were plenty of rods and antique cages out and about. I waved to as many as possible. I didn't see much waving out of our group. But sometimes lots of waves escape my notice. A rider can do a lot with a wave besides have fun. Manage a lot of traffic is one of many advantages of learning to wave. Linda got caught out at an up-hill, left turn stop sign. I thought that she might go over and was getting myself set to get off and help. There was no following traffic and I had my 4-ways on. But she recovered nicely before I could get my side stand deployed. Happens to all of us and usually when there is an audience for the fun. At least, that is when I am most likely to do it.”
Except for a memorable “I’m hungry!” yell from my friend Laura on our ride in West Virginia, I don’t think I’ve been told that I ride too long between breaks. I confess to being more cognizant of miles than of time and, on a hot days, I should pay better attention to the latter. For the record, though, we left Northbrook at about 9:25 and arrived filled up at Shaver’s General Store at 11:17, so that’s less than two hours and 81 miles. Cheryl and I both wave at all motorcycles, even scooters. I sometimes wave at Jeeps, too, out of habit. Neither of us are particularly demonstrative in our greeting waves so it’s not surprising if Fran didn’t see them.
Hunt Club Road.
Most of this early portion of ride was pleasant enough. I was anxious to get to a particular road, County Trunk AH in Bristol, which has a few nice curves on it and has recently been completely resurfaced. I picked this road to be the beginning of the curvy sections for the day. We encountered our first bicycle race on this road and once it became apparent that their route overlaid my intended route, I turned off on what should have been a nice ride along the Fox River for 3-5 miles were it not for an SUV travelling ahead of us at approximately half of the posted 45mph speed limit. That parade ended at WI-50 where we had to turn left onto a 4 lane without the benefit of a stoplight – my original route would have taken us on a sparsely traveled road that ends at a controlled intersection to cross 50. Of course, the SUV had to turn left before us and the waiting for him/her to be sure it was safe to cross only irritated me slightly because I knew we’d be clear of his snail pace in just a few more minutes. It seemed to me that I could not catch a break from cars moving at less than the posted speeds. When you plan on riding roads with 35mph speed limits, a vehicle going 30 is more of an irritant than
I took our group on or near a couple of Wisconsin’s “Rustic Roads”. These roads usually take you through some beautiful sections of the Dairy State. Woods, farms, historic buildings, lakes and streams can often be spied from these roads. Check out
https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/travel/ro...fault.aspx for interactive maps and you can order a booklet that contains these maps. This was the best part of the entire ride although, even there, we ran up on a large group of riders whose “sweep” lingered a little too long in our intersection which undoubtedly contributed to Linda’s stumble on the hill.
“Matt cut off some mileage to get us to lunch at a more reasonable time. I was much amused to see the "turn around sign" as we got re-routed. There was a photo op at the water's edge where the road bisecting the lake used to be. My bike nearly tipped over by rolling off the side stand. I caught it but it was a near thing that nearly got away from me. We rolled into lunch and I was very pleased to See Linda and Scott on site. I was told that some rest, some hydration, and some food worked well to bring her back up to speed.
Our stop at Shaver’s was necessarily lengthened due to Linda’s heat issues. 86 miles in 90 minutes was not going to happen so it was either be late for lunch or shorten my route. Since I my family and possibly Scott and Linda (who had never met my family) would be waiting for us, shortening the route was the only real choice. I did manage to find a couple of new-to-me paths north into the Kettle Moraine. They aren’t fast roads, but they’re very pretty and have a few curves. Deciding on a new route to a specific spot on the fly is not my strong suit. I’m pretty good, I think, on mapping things out in advance and I certainly don’t mind ‘bushwhacking’ it a bit when I don’t really care where we end up, but trying to freelance a route to get to a specific spot at a specific time is problematic for me. In this case, my fallback was to get to Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive. I’m as familiar as nearly anyone with the various sections of roads that make up KMSD and it would take us back to Whitewater Lake in a timely and scenic fashion. I got turned around trying to get to Palmyra to pick up KMSD, but a quick U-turn after a not-as-quick map check got us to Kettle Moraine Drive. It’s a beautiful route, perfect for motorcyclists and, as I found out, bicyclists. The MS ride followed a the section of KMSD that I was using to take me to our destination. and, as luck would have it, our destination, Natureland Park, was also the last rest stop for the race.
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While Linda was walking in on the guy in the restroom, I spotted this beauty at the pumps.
“Superb lunch. I enjoyed a brat and some pulled pork. Would have had some brisket but was pretty full in the heat. A cold diet coke solved my hydration needs. I am still kicking myself that I forgot to pack the water that I had put in my fridge the nite before in anticipation of the day. Ed told some of his favorite surfing stories at my prompting. I would have luv'd to stay and listen to his stories until the shadows grew long and the heat slack off a bit. As it was, I felt lucky to get 2 surf film titles that I hadn't seen. Me being me, I had to make two trips to the parking lot before I could leave as I had to return to get my hat and sunglasses. Grrrr-sigh.”
The RSVP list was a bit shorter than I had hoped, but all of my siblings, their significant others, and my riding buds, Scott, Linda, Fran and Cheryl signed on. I pre-cooked some brats and my sisters carted them up with related fixins. Bridget and Dave also supplied pulled pork and brisket. Martha supplied some side dishes, Ed grilled the brats to perfection, and the feast was on. Bridget even brought up birthday cupcakes for dessert. “Superb” is the perfect descriptor. My eldest sister Adrienne was MIA until near the end of the festivities. I found out later that she tried to text us for directions, but cell service was all but non-existent at the park so we did not know until much later that she was in the vicinity.
There’s a lot to be said about Natureland/The Springs, but not much of it has to do with motorcycling. It is beautiful there for everyone and nostalgic for me and, I assume, my family. We had an amazing lunch, all thanks to my brother and sisters. We shared stories of our youth with Fran, Scott and Linda. I did not know that Fran was a surfing fan and it was great that he and Ed were able to converse on the topic. Even Scott and Linda joined in on that chat.
At one point, my sister-in-law Karen called me over to a foot bridge from which point we could look out to the lake. Along the shore there were dozens of egrets flocked together. Some were perched in the trees. Some were flying about. Some were in the water. More egrets than I have ever seen in one spot, I think. I took a few pictures, but they were too far away to show anything other than providing a general idea of the numbers of them, although there were many more that flew in after this picture was taken.
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Egrets from a long distance. (Apologies for the blurred picture)
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This little pond was mostly a marsh 40 years ago. Now you could float a kayak in from the main lake. My sister spotted a Northern Pike along the bank just to the right of this photo. Too bad I didn’t bring my gear.
“My trip home went well. Imagine my surprise when the 'fuel burps' started up and lasted for 50 miles? My on-bike thermometer read 100F at my garage and my garage thermometer which is in the shade read 97F at 4pm. 240 miles on the day for me. And I will fuel at the Moon in the morning to see what mpg I got. I am hoping that it might be a cuppla miles over 50mpg for a new best record. ymmv.
I had a pretty good time, thanx for inviting me,
fran “
We took a route home that was as direct as possible, mainly due to the heat, but also due fatigue that sets in upon consuming a large and delicious meal. Scott and Linda joined us until Cheryl and I turned off of US-45 onto IL -137. We rode a route that essentially followed a path my dad would take 50 years ago – P to A to ES to 12. We continued on ES to Bowers Road so I could take the group past the farm that straddles both sides of it. I didn’t check the thermometer outside when we arrived home. It was 74 degrees inside and that was all that mattered to me. Ice cold martinis were mixed and both Cheryl and I fell asleep at about 8:30 while watching “Dr. No” on-demand.
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A slightly blurred picture of Cheryl riding past the barn on Bowers Road.
It is my hope that I can turn this picnic idea into an annual event. Everyone would be welcome, but it would be set up to be a convenient stopping point for motorcyclists. I could see serving brats, chips, and beverages to individuals and groups riding through the area. Maybe they’d toss a few bucks in a jar for a designated charity. Maybe it could be a checkpoint for folks on a quest for an Iron Butt certification. I don’t know exactly what it will evolve to, if anything, but I do know that I will be setting up the ride and lunch event next year.
Mark your calendars for August 10, 2019. It’ll be a pretty good time, you’ll be glad you were invited.
Matt
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