Great Lakes - Looking for roadies to ride with in Milwaukee

I just moved here to Milwaukee a week ago from Portland, OR. I've never been here before and I'm not familiar with the area at all. I'm just starting back up again after having injured my knee a few months ago, so I'm a little out of shape. I started racing in Portland this year and upgraded to Cat 3 at the end of the road season, but I'm definitely not at that level right now. So, I guess I'm looking for people that are training for the road season and know some good rides in the area.

-Brandon

Welcome! What part of town do you live in? Planning on racing this season?

I'm a 3 and I live on the east side.
From here pretty much the only route is straight out lake drive with whatever loop you want when you get out of town.

I live in Riverwest right off of Humbolt. I'm pretty sure I'll be racing. I haven't done any base yet, so I'll need to put the miles in before I can start pushing it too hard, but I've never been too good at taking it easy. I'm gonna head up Lake Drive today and go west. Any suggestions on loops? Are there any hills?

I think Milwaukee's great. I actually chose to move here from Chicago.

Best riding in my opinion is richfield, holy hill, hartland area. I'm biased in that I live in Hartland, but the terrain, and the lack of cars is great. I haven't done all of the group rides throughout the area, but I really enjoy the Doc on Saturday in Dousman (ride from Transition cycle), and the Tuesday ride from Centennial park in Hartland.

I really think that info on where in town you are would be helpful. Group rides are obviously location based, but some teams tend to have more guys downtown, north, lake country, etc.

Burns

I'm heading out with the wife to Portland in July (without a bike). Any recommendations on nice hotels, hikes, or other general stuff?

thanks!

It's pretty much flat everywhere, unless you get toward the Holy Hill area which is 80ish miles from RiverWest. I live in the RiverView dorm so I'm off Humboldt and North.

Welcome. Some information for you.

The racing schedule (http://www.wicycling.org/WisconsinCup/roadSchedule.htm).

Should be an interesting year. We have the longest running multi-day event in America, Superweek (http://www.iccsuperweek.com/). New this year is the Midwest Cycling Series (http://www.midwestcyclingseries.com/). Plus all the regular weekend races.

As for group rides, if you're a racer you want to check out the rides out of the Bike Doctor (http://www.bikedr.com/ridesslides.html) for sure (Wednesday night and Saturday morning). There's probably rides from the east side as well (maybe out of Crank Daddy's on Farwell?), but I'm just not that familiar with those.

As the others have said, for hills you really gotta go up around the Holy Hill area. Even better for hilly rides is to head out past Madison into southwestern Wisconsin. Speaking of which, we have a fairly nice relationship here on on BikeForums with our friends to the south of the Cheddar Curtain (IL). Since they are from the flatlands, they put together some nice rides out to the southwest so they can get in hills. This (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=502686) is the first one of the year -- not a bad way to meet some of the regulars around here. Keep an eye on the boards here for more details on similar rides.

It's flat on the east side where everyone seems to live, but just go west into Waukesha County ... there's plenty of vertical there. Never did understand why most cyclists lived where the riding is the most restricted. :D

You could just follow 32 and Lake Front Drive and the various names the route changes into north out of town all the way to Port Washington and back, there are quite a few local racers who head up this way on their training rides. Still a little cold and icy in places though. ;)

Wisconsin is like Oregon, except colder, and no mountains, and a fresh water ocean instead of a salty one, and the Milwaukee river flows a little slower than the Columbia, and some other stuff that's different too, but still they're kind of the same in some ways. :rolleyes:

And instead of Tillamook cheese we have Roundy's. :rolleyes:

I grew up out west. :thumb: Welcome to the mid-west.