The Kettle Scuttle
Earlier this month I went on a trip to Kettle Moraine for some mountain biking, and it was a beautiful experience.
In this post I’ll explain what I did, and how I think I could pull something like this off again with far less stress.
A day full of fun#
The general logistics for the day were: My buddy Matt and his wife Vanessa were going to drive up together, while my other buddy (Brandon) and I were going to stuff two trail bikes in one of our hatchbacks. My other buddy Teagan was going to drive separately. The idea of going here was all Brandon’s, and it was a really good idea.
Note: No real clue what the whole focus on “Kettles” was, I should look that up later. We did this route if you’re interested!
The first tricky part happened when Brandon pulled up to my house and we had to decide how to fit two bikes in his car or my car. In the end, we went with his car (A short Mazda 3 hatchback) which was pretty problematic. We had to do the following things to get our bikes to fit:
- Put the seats down (Obviously). If you don’t do this, you’ll have a hell of a time!
- Lay the bikes one on top of another. To do this, we used two moving blankets I had bought just for this. The first moving blanket goes down to protect the base of the car. Then the first bike. Then the second moving blanket, and then the second bike.
- IMPORTANT! There’s a trick to laying down the bikes. The first bike must be laid down on its left side, with the front facing the front of the car. This ended up being my bike after a game of rock paper scissors. My bike is a Trek Superfly, so I had to remove the front wheel to make it fit.
- Once the first bike is laid down, the second bike is laid down, again on its left side. However, this one is laid down with the front facing the rear of the car. This is so the handlebars are compatible and don’t get bulked up. Brandon’s bike is a Surly Karate Monkey for reference, and this one had some crazy wide bars.
- The wheels were laid down on top of the bikes with some padding in between, so we kept that paint looking fresh.
- Place the axles within the forks so you don’t lose them.
- We’re ready to go! This took ~15 minutes, not bad, but I wager we could get it down to 5 with practice.
The skill gap#
We pulled into this parking lot with high ambition. Brandon had explained on the drive in that these would be super flowy trails with gorgeous views and thick, pine-y forests. I was really looking forward to this!
When I saw the trailhead, yeah, I was sold. We re-assembled our bikes, checked the fork air pressure, and rode around the parking lot waiting for our other friends. I decided to hit the little skills area right beside the trailhead. There was a surprising amount of skinnies on offer, which I am absolutely scared of. Brandon tried one and immediately bailed! No wonder he wears a full-face helmet. I however, faced my fear and conquered that skinny, so there’s that. However, this did mean that while we would probably all ride together, we probably would not do all the features.
After a few minutes of waiting, the rest of the gang made it and we got rolling.
The fitness gap#
We started riding off on the southbound orange trail towards the “Emma” section of the trail. Immediately, it was evident that some of us would go faster than the rest, as we started to lose Matt and Brandon on the flats. Brandon kindly and somewhat sarcastically reminded us that he was here to ride his bike and not overexert himself too much, and we heeded to that. It was a super nice day! Honestly, it was probably good to pace ourselves since the whole route would cover nearly 40 miles.
Where we really let loose was on the downhills. The flowy section of Roller Coaster was easily my most favorite part of the whole trail. Not too technical but still demanded your attention and looking where you want to go. I’d strongly recommend riding the shorter loop that cuts back to get some laps in.
The north side - over Bluff road#
This is where the real pine-y sections came to life. Once you cross Bluff road, you enter switchbacks in between some of the most beautiful forestland I’ve ever seen. It was extremely green and lush.
That was also where I encountered a switchback with some rocks on it that I wasn’t expecting and shifted my weight a weird way - and took a tumble! Fortunately I just fell on my side onto some open grass but it was a little embarrasing. Brandon rode over it just fine too!
All in all - a great day#
This is a great trail system with so much variety and beauty that this brief blog post can’t get into it. If you’re able, make plans with friends to ride this trail. You don’t need much. I rode on a hard tail XC bike which was easily enough for this trail. A full suspension bike might help for the rocky bits but other than that you are all set.
I hope the bike car-packing advice helps you! Let me know if you had any thoughts about this trail or are planning to go soon. I’d love to run into you!