Wisconsin biking backroads

The Wisconsin 2016 journey started off from Deerfield, Wisconsin.
Located in the south-central part of the state, Deerfield is surrounded by and for the most part Wisconsin also has many farm-to-market roads or"town roads," These roads are, "heaven for cyclists." They are mostly low-traffic roads that wind through the countryside of rural Wisconsin.

At the start in Deerfield.

The plan is to spend 3 weeks biking the backroads and visiting friends along the way to and bike out and back to the vacation friendly Door County, Wisconsin.

Door County has been called the "Cape Cod of the Midwest." Known for it's cherry orchards, arts and craft shops and farm stands it's a destination for people from as far away as Chicago. In the summer the population swells with happy people eating in restaurants and staying in beach side motels. Cherry's are picked fresh from the trees, piled onto ice cream and mixed in with jams for the most delicious tasting cherry jams.

We couldn't wait to taste some for ourselves.

That's too heavy!!
When we decided to do fully-loaded or self-contained biking we knew we were in for some pain. We spend the past few months acquiring equipment to make our experience as pleasant as possible. Unfortunately our eyes were bigger than the bags we were taking and we forgot that equipment has weight and it all adds up real fast!
To start out, we bought panniers that were too big. We should have gotten smaller panniers to help rein in our packing ziel.

No Eric, you can't take take the camper.

The appointed day finally arrived. We checked our list twice and everything is all packed and hopped on our bikes. As soon as we pushed our first pedal stroke, Kathy says, "I'm not going to make it."

I also felt like I was pulling a trailer. We suddenly were at our first big decision; cancel the trip or downsize. We decided to downsize a lot of equipment. We had to part with our fold-up chair, tons of extra clothing, extra shoes and other bits and bobs.

So we started out the next day, to see how we did. Decided that we are feeling better about the whole weight thing but decided to head back home for one more downsize. We had to ask ourselves were we really going to enjoy this object enough to lug it over lots hills. OK now we are ready.

Finally we are on our way.