As has become my annual Labor Day custom, I along with our group enjoyed another fine motorcycle gathering in Westby, Wisconsin. My 16th year of attendance, it just doesn't seem possible that we've gone through so many end of summer weekends.
I left right away Thursday morning with the new Hawk 250 on the back of the truck, bound for the County Park just outside of Westby. Arriving early afternoon, I unloaded the bike and later headed out for a ride without bothering to set up the pop-up shelter. Speaking of the Hawk and my first-time-used receiver hitch carrier, the combination was a huge success. I was able to load/unload the bike all by myself and the bike made the trip solidly carried.
Over 4 days of riding in perfect late August weather the new 250 never missed a beat. I couldn't be happier with how it ran and how it ran where I wanted to go. 680ish miles for the weekend which puts the odometer just a few miles short of one thousand.
Mostly setup, a quiet yet very powerful Royal Enfield Himalayan 411 entered the campground. After looping through, it was almost upon me when I finally realized who it was. Roger had texted me at home about expecting to go look at a used 2021 model. Not only did he make the trip to look, he bought it and as luck would have it, on his way home on his new-to-him machine, he pulled through the campground, wondering if I might be there.
I think Roger's traded-for bike is a great one and certainly hope that he has as much fun on his as I'm still having on mine. He lives close enough to Westby allowing him to join us in the campground and for some riding on his new bike. We were Himalayan-rich for the weekend.
I was getting hungry for a late lunch, had Ontario on my mind so that's where I ended up.
So Thursday's ride had a NE bent. I was curious about a couple of the small towns along the Sparta-Elroy bicycle trail which I plan to ride on yet this fall with the e bike.
In and around Wilton, Kendal and Norwalk...
Stopped for some cheddar at Old Country Cheese on County D, one of my favorite roads anywhere.
Back to camp for an afternoon coffee....
Quiet evening in camp....
Confirming someone's Registration....
Friday morning coffee...
Roger mentioned a new coffee shop in town so I stopped in for breakfast.
Friday's ride...
You may already know that Labor Day weekend Friday's MUST begin with a stop at Sunrise Bakery...on Pa's Road.
It wasn't just me....I had help taking care of these.
After the bakery it was time for fuel, both petrol and coffee. Coon Valley a convenient stop for both at Main Street Mercantile.
This brought back so many memories.....when and whom I played with.
Not my usual style of Routing, I thought I'd do it the 'Steve Way' for the weekend. Instead of my way which follows roads with the purple line, the other way draws a vector directly from location to destination....over hill and dale, through trees, rocks and rivers. In the image below, the direct vector is off the screen below. I'm stopped in Romance, Wisconsin, heading north at the #56 intersection. The smaller dashes that make up the line to the SSW is the shortest way, the perpendicular way, back to the direct vector. The larger dashes that make up the line to the SE is the current direct vector to my destination, namely the Great River Roadhouse near DeSoto, Wisconsin.
This style of Routing doesn't care which roads I take or how indirectly I move towards my destination. The Routing would continue to work if I went via Kansas City. It allows flexibility along the way and with both dashed lines, it provides a relative reference, the included angle between the two does as well. The 8.9 miles would not be accurate if Kansas City was a stop along the way. A different way to go and I'd normally prefer the purple line to follow actual roads....Destination To and Time To are very accurate and the path completely my responsibility.
Historical monument commemorating the path the soldiers and Natives followed towards the Mississippi.
Friday evening a bunch of us met in Coon Valley for their fish fry, a table that kept growing, finally 9-10 of us?
Saturday morning breakfast at Borgen's in Westby.
Then up to the north end of town for our Rider's Meeting.
Winner of the Smallest Bike trophy....
Saturday's ride.....
This a good time to mention that I was asked numerous times over the weekend, "where you going?" My response each and every time was, "solo wandering". I began contemplating that answer while on the move and decided that my answer wasn't exactly technically accurate, at least by my definition of "wander".
I hope you're ready for more GPS discussion....because I am.
Here's a screen shot of my GPS while out riding, actually moving or otherwise.
My quick "wandering" explanation to me would infer that I get to an intersection, 3 way or 4 and make a random choice. That is not at all what I do, or at least did last weekend. With the resolution of my new(er) Zumo XT, I can zoom out far enough to include this view.....I'm going to guess 10 miles x 20 miles? What it boils down to is that I choose "squiggles" while on the fly just as I would have sitting at home on my PC doing exactly the same. You can see the topography shadows indicating hilltops and valleys. The roads follow those changes and for all intents and purposes, Squiggles = Fun.
In the view above, going from lower right to upper left allows many choices with a "hard to go wrong" outcome. But if you look closely there are some better not wrongs than others. Plus, just remember that I know many of these roads well enough that I can often decide to take the ones unknown, very often my unofficial goal.
Now as long as I've possibly still got you in GPS mode, here are a couple of charts from the same GPS output. Doesn't really matter which day, each day would have been essentially the same.
Elevation changes over the day's ride .....
Speed changes as well....you don't have to be a P Value or Statistics master to pretty well know my average speeds. They might be statistical significance between both charts but it would be fuzzy.
We've stopped here before...
What I like to see....downhill and tight.
Another campfire Saturday night and then early Sunday morning a coffee fire.
Sunday morning
Adam, our fearless leader...
Sunday's ride. It started north, then veered east with the intended direction to the west. But working west I remembered something that I'd told myself I'd go back and see/photograph. It was at about the western-most point that I remembered, put one of the Go To Vector Routes in and headed SE. I'd remembered almost exactly where the point was that I wanted to return to but to be safe I gave myself some leeway by starting early. It wasn't all that difficult....all weekend I was allowing the GPS to keep a Track (breadcrumbs) of each day's ride which is what these images are based on.
So I followed the very straight purple line, veering right and left until intercepting the previous ride's location on Hwy 27 near Rising Sun.
Tobacco....once a very prevalent crop in Vernon County. The photo is not doing the brilliant color justice.
Some other stops...
Getting ready for the banquet.....
Labor Day, Monday morning.....once again the Labor Day Produce Auction that I attend every year.
I tried my very best to be respectful of their No Photos policy, avoiding people and faces. Great people watching though, a language being spoken that I don't know and some enticing products and produce. Always for me a wonderful way to wrap up the rally.
There's talk of changes for next year's gathering....some of us will be in the same location regardless of official structure. The new Hawk and I sure had fun.....wandering.
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