Kettle Moraine Road

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Whitewater

   Planning note

   Whitewater is where the day begins. Next is La Grange.

2. 2. La Grange

   La Grange sits in a landscape that was made by ice, and the clearest way to read it is to look at the shape of the land. The Kettle Moraine, a long band of hills and hollows running through eastern Wisconsin, was built by the edge of the last ice sheet, which dropped its load of gravel, sand and boulders as it melted. Kettles are the round hollows left when buried blocks of ice melted, and kames and eskers are the mounds and ridges of gravel that the meltwater left behind. Together they give the countryside a rolling, tumbled feel, with no straight lines anywhere.

   Read the complete La Grange write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   La Grange comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eagle.

3. 3. Eagle

   Eagle is a small Wisconsin village with a better claim to history than its size suggests, because just outside it, in the Kettle Moraine State Forest, lies Old World Wisconsin, an open-air museum where historic farm buildings from across the state have been moved and rebuilt. German, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish and other immigrant farmsteads stand among the fields, each with its own style of house and barn, and costumed staff work the land in the manner of the nineteenth century. It is an unusual and absorbing place, and a reminder of how many different peoples settled this part of the Midwest.

   Read the complete Eagle write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 43 km into the recorded legs you reach Eagle. Next is Dousman.

4. 4. Dousman

   Dousman sits on the rolling edge of the Kettle Moraine, in the lake country west of Milwaukee, and it is a quiet place that has seen a lot of people pass through. The village grew along the railway in the nineteenth century, serving the farms around it, and it is still a farming community in spirit, with grain elevators, old brick storefronts and a main street that is not in a hurry. Today it is also a commuter village, with new houses on the edges, but the centre has kept its character.

   Read the complete Dousman write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Dousman, late in the day. Next is Hartford.

5. 5. Hartford

   Planning note

   Finish at Hartford. That is the ride.