Seg #32 Gandy Dancer Trail; Drury, WI -
St. Croix Falls WI 10/13/13
Start
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Danbury, WI
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46.00861-92.36715
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NS miles 42.3
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End
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St. Croix Falls WI
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45.40039-92.6288
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Trl lgth 48.7
Ridemi51.2
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RideTm hr 5:56
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AVS 8.5
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MXS mph 18.2
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DST 51.2
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Temp 46-54
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Kcal 4123
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The
fourth and final ride for this trip was to drive from Milaca, MN, where I
“crashed and burned" the night before, to St. Croix Falls, WI. While loading the
car at the motel, I observed the windshield clouded with rain. Whoops! This water would not wipe off. It was it was a
layer of ice! I wish I had been running the car and heater while getting
organized and loading the car. It took twenty minutes to defrost the windows before
I could head off to St. Croix Falls. Even though it was still thirty degrees at 7
a.m., it had stopped raining and the sun was exposing a cloud-free eastern sky---makings
of a nice day. It took a little over an hour to get to St. Croix Falls.
Before
I headed from home to the North Country, I attempted to arrange a cab to take
me to the end of Gandy Dancer Trail. There was no way I was going to ride more
than fifty miles after already riding 130 miles the previous two days. Either I
would need to get lucky and find a cab or I was heading home, short of my goal.
I called a cab that I had been turned down a few days before and as luck would
have it, they changed their mind and hauled me Danbury. The driver was a hefty,
tobacco chewing babe and her side-kick, an even heftier swashbuckler. I wasn’t in conversational mode but I did my
best to chime in to concept of how much better it would be if Mr. Hefty ran the
football program at a local high school. As we lumbered along, I wondered if
the van might lift off the road due to a hot air equivalent of ten behemoth balloons.
A
good thing about the cab ride was I was getting a fifty mile ride that allowed
me to complete my goal. I didn’t have the time or energy to ride fifty miles
out and another fifty back so the cab ride was a must. Another advantage of the
cab ride was spotting a majestic bird along the road. Just twenty miles up the
highway, about forty feet off the road, I was lucky to get a mental photograph
of a huge bald eagle foraging with a flock of turkey buzzards. Turkey buzzards
are big birds, but up against an eagle, especially this eagle; these buzzards
looked like sparrows competing with wild turkeys at my backyard bird feeder. If
only I had seen the eagle soon enough to snap a picture---what an awesome
picture that would have been. The cab
got me to Danbury around 10:30.
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At Danbury,WI ready to head down the Gandy Dancer
Trial to my car after a cab ride from St. Croix Falls |
I pulled my bike out of the SUV and jumped
aboard in search of the trailhead. It was a bit nippy with temps in the mid forties.
But, with "more often than not" sunshine, I had enough apparel to be comfortable
and work-up a slight sweat.
There
was a slight headwind that wasn’t an issue by virtue of the dense tree stands
that lined the trail. This was the only crushed limestone trail of the four
trails I rode on this outing. With fallen leaves up to a foot deep, there was
more resistance to freewheeling than paved leafless trails I rode previous two
days. The rustling sound radiating from the tires rolling through the leaves
was welcome mesmerizing hum that nicely replaced an I-pod I often listen to
while riding. Because it had rained most of the day before and more was
predicted, I decided not to tote my I-pod along---and you know---I didn’t miss
it! The trails’ name “Gandy Dancer” is derived from workmen of the former
owner, the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad. In the 1880’s,
crews building and maintaining the corridor, used tools manufactured by the
Gandy Tool Company. As the workers used their tools they often chanted applying
a unified mechanical and vocal cadence that mimicked a well rehearsed dance.
Starting
in Danbury resulted in my riding south on the south half of the trail. The
north half of the Gandy Dancer runs from Danbury to Duluth, Minnesota. Like most early rail lines, towns are located along
the tracks roughly every seven or eight miles. Back in the day, steam engines
needed to reload coal and take on water every six to eight miles. It was well
past lunch time when I reached the town of Siren some sixteen miles south of Danbury. I rode down Main Street
hoping to find a place to get a soda and hamburger. A bar and grill with
smokers hanging outside looked promising. So, I parked my bike and went inside.
Wow! The place was packed with Packer fans, screaming and hollering
to stadium decibel levels. My former Coralville neighbor, Joe Philbin; who was a line
coach for the Iowa Hawkeyes and Packers and now is head coach of the Miami
Dolphins; told me there is no way a “could care less” non-fan would be embraced
in a Packer Bar on Sunday afternoon. After failing to find a waitress or place
to sit, I decided Joe's wisdom pervailed. I was going to lose a lot of time
hanging around Siren. So out the door I went, jumped on the Trek and headed on down the trail longing for a burger. However, I did get a soda from a streetside vendening machine.
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| The village of Siren, WI on a Sunday afternoon |
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Some of the mossy areas on the Gandy Dancer
Never have seen this much. Careful its slippery |
Because
the leaves had a braking effect and parts of the trail were covered with a
thick slippery moss, I didn’t make very good time due to these conditions. So as the sun was setting, I
began to wonder if I would make it to the car in St. Croix Falls before dark. To
compound the situation, I had left my helmet light in the car. When it got
dark, I could only guess where the center of the trail was located. Just before
I was going to leap off the bike and start walking, I broke through the
darkness I found US Highway 8 giving me adequate light to negotiate the last
three miles to the car. I hope I don’t pull another bone-head head lightless ride
again. And just to add insult to injury, I somehow lost the spare electronic
car key in the dark. Oh well, what’s a
couple hundred dollars to replace car key? Damn! I did learn however that I didn’t need
a fancy two hundred key. For sixty bucks I got all I needed to unlock the car and start the engine in case I lost the fancy key.
Since
it was such a jaunt to get to the Tunnel Hill Trail, I decided I would start riding at the
tunnel itself while the weather was clear and it was getting late in the afternoon. In addition, rain was forecast
for the second riding day so pictures on the trail were best taken the first day. There is a little
town named Tunnel Hill, IL with a nice trail head near the tunnel. This is where I first began my Tunnel
Hill Trail travels for 2013. Trail literature and guide books advise bike riders to tote a
flashlight when going through the tunnel. Although I had a headlight, it was
not needed since the tunnel was only 543 feet long. I did however follow the advice
of not peddling through the tunnel. One can become disorientated with the tunnel
walls whizzing past and end-up in a skinned-up heap. At times I have become a
little dizzy riding past trestle fencing on a long bridge but nothing as treacherous as
driving at night through a construction site lined with reflectorized safety barrels.
The strobe-effect
of safety barrels causes me big time wooziness, especially with a huge truck aiming
bright lights at my tail feathers. 
