Bike 2 Brew 2012

What do rolling hills, pudgie pie makers and a grumpy troll all have it common?

Bike 2 Brew 2012.

This past weekend myself and nine others participated in the inaugural Bike 2 Brew multi-day bike tour through South Central Wisconsin. We traversed 120 miles over rolling hills, through quaint little towns and State Parks, as well as stopping at a few breweries along the way.

We did manage to start the tour with the previously established departure time of 9:00am from the State Capital, which led to an enjoyable 31 miles to New Glarus. With only two tough back-to-back climbs of about 170 feet each, we all managed to sail into "Little Switzerland."

Arriving hungry and parched, we immediately met up with our SAG wagon (Support and Gear vehicle driven by my outstanding sister Trisha) to change out of our cycling shoes and head to the historic New Glarus Hotel Restaurant. Built back in 1853, this authentic swiss restaurant supplied heaping plates of Roesti and succulent portions of Jagerschnitzel. Served with pitchers of beer, our appetites were satisfied... until we found the Maple Leaf Cheese and Chocolate Haus just a few steps away.

On the Badger State Trail headed to New Glarus

From left to right: Jessica, Jamie, Justin, Mike, Laura, Raechel, Zach,  Ryan

The rest of our day consisted of a free trolley ride to the New Glarus Brewery (they're now a regional brewery instead of a microbrew because of their volume) where we toured the facility and enjoyed sampling their tasty brews on the terrace overlooking the city. We also found ourselves at the Primrose Winery store, partaking in a sample of 14 wines from rhubarb to watermelon. Of course, we then headed to Puempel's Olde Tavern for our free beer (from a coupon we received at the brewery).

We set up camp at New Glarus Woods State Park, which was perfect for our exhausted bodies after a long day. Dinner consisted of pizza pudgie pies with cherry and nutella pies for dessert (Justin's creation).

Pizza pudgie pie

Cherry nutella pudgie pie - Justin's creation

Breakfast turned our exceptionally well, with Laur's cage-free eggs (thanks Eleanor!), turkey bacon, three pints of blueberries, cherries, carrots, lemon ginger zucchini oat bread, carrot zucchini muffins and Whole Foods Three Bean coffee.

Trisha and Zach cookin' up some eggs

Day two was a little difficult. I never paid much attention to the elevation profile that MapMyFitness provided, which turned out to be a bit more challenging that I had thought it would be. As you can see with the below elevation profile, the majority of our 3,400 feet of gain is in day two, which is 60 of the 120 miles. Tough day is an understatement.

Fortunately we made it to Mineral Point and devoured salmon burgers and deep-fried pizza sticks to refuel for the remainder of the ride.

A late start from camp led to a late arrival at Blue Mound State Park, which meant no swimming... Instead of being upset about missing a refreshing dip in the pool, we found the free showers provided by the campground and cleaned up a bit. With our 7+ hour day out cycling, we were also craving ice cream and decided to indulge BEFORE dinner. Raechel put it best: "I love being an adult because that means I get to decide when I want dessert." Well it just so happened that we had a second dessert too, after our spinach and asiago chicken sausage, fire-roasted veggies (organic zucchini from my garden, carrots, red, gold and russet potatoes, and a bell pepper). Due to a very ambitious raccoon, we were without marshmallows for the evening (sucks I know) though we did end up smothering some very ripe bananas in peanut butter, nutella, garnished with crumbled reese's peanut butter cups.

Day three started off with a powerful bowl of oatmeal (rolled oats, dried blueberries, dried cranberries, walnuts and honey) along with more of the delicious chicken sausage, bing cherries and more coffee.

With 26.5 miles on our last day, we took it fairly easy and made the light trek to Mount Horeb (6 miles downhill) to check out the Grumpy Troll Brewery. They offered a 12-beer sample platter for only $15! Of course we took advantage of this deal and sampled most of their delicious beers. The Cheddar Curd Burger was a bit hit amongst our group, along with beer-cheese soup and the sweet potato tots. Highly recommended from the official B2B tour.

From a 1970s Schwinn Varsity to a 2011 Bianchi, our group consisted of all walks of bikes... as well as riders. From Half-Ironman Triathletes to casual commuters, our group possessed a potpourri of personalities. With that being said, everyone had such an outstanding optimistic attitude I couldn't have asked for a better group of individuals.