What are some of your favorites in the area?
Hitting up the root river trail end of next month, hoping to get one/two more in by end of year. For now doing the paved with road bikes, mountain bikes might come next year which opens up other trails options.
Cuyuna is #1 in my book. If you’ve never been to the Crosby/Ironton area, you need to check it out.
DT
Central lakes trail that runs through Alex to Fergus and also Alex – East provides good scenery… and fishing opportunities from shore. Tough to beat it in October when the leaves are changing.
The Beaver Island trails along the Mississippi River in St Cloud were my mountain bike stomping grounds for almost 5 years in college. They are pretty good. Some are very steep and borderline dangerous too.
I’ve heard good things about the Cannon Valley Trail by RW/Cannon Falls. Also in the Park Rapids/Walker area there is the Paul Bunyan Trail and Heartland Trail, and more lakes than you could fish in a lifetime.
Nice area in northern WI. https://mwbiketrail.org/
Decent BBQ at Lazy Ace Saloon at HWY 47 and 51. I recommend the smoked wings and I don’t normally go for turkey sandwiches at a BBQ joint but the Firebird with jalapeno ranch is really good.
The paved paths are nice but the mountain bike trails are more entertaining. I started biking again with my son last year and there is nothing like the feeling of catching some air for the first time in decades. He would always get bored with the flat paths. I was very surprised on how many trails are out there. Google maps pulls up a bunch of trails. Main thing is to get out there and try one. Good or bad you are still off a tablet. Lebanon Hills is my favorite in the area.
Spirit mtn or come up to Crosby we have a crazy network of trails.
The trails in Vilas County are great. You can make a circle from St. Germain, Manatawish Waters, Boulder Junction, etc. All paved with bathrooms, repair stations, bridges, restaurants, etc. beautiful area.
These are great thank you.
Check out the Trailbot app. It list most of the local mountain bike trails including trail conditions.
The Beaver Island trails along the Mississippi River in St Cloud were my mountain bike stomping grounds for almost 5 years in college. They are pretty good. Some are very steep and borderline dangerous too.
I grew up by there and we rode there before it was paved and fenced off. There were some nice side trails that ran along the river and if it was a dry year we walked across the river to sportsman’s island. I haven’t been on them in 20yrs even though my parents still live close it it.
The Bearskin trail is a nice ride it an old railroad and starts in downtown Minocqua Wi. There’s also the Razorback trail that’s in the Sayner area and paring is by an ice cream shop.
Root river trail was phenomenal. Great shape of paths, canopied half the time which is good for hot days, and most every spot we stopped caught trout.
We started in Preston and went to Peterson, most the easy fishing was from Preston to the confluence by lansborough
West Central WI-
Eau Claire-Chippewa River Trail
Chippewa Falls-Old Abe Trail
Dunn-Red Cedar River Trail
I have done all three. All are paved blacktop.
I have also biked the Elroy/Sparta trail which is packed crushed limestone and features 3 railroad tunnel you can bike through. Very cool!
Dueces:
Some great mentions above already. As a skinny tire/original mtn. bike guy, many good ones mentioned and some missed. As a Wisconsin cyclist I’m more familiar with our state and living in the Northwoods the mentions by picklerick and Michael Saal can’t be missed treasures!!! And Kirk Charipar’s mentions are exception places to bikes as well!!!
The largest non-trail opportunities exist on the paved county road systems of southern MN/WI that haven’t been talked about above. Originally from the Madison area, I used to ride to a local community approximately 20 miles away and look over county road routes to do, then ride there and return to my home of Cambridge. Generally not a lot of traffic and paved, the only issues were resurfacing of the roads that occasionally took place using pea gravel. The changes in rides were variable every trip!!!
Lastly my next door neighbor and Birkie and Fat Tire Festival friend Phil Van Valkenberg wrote 7 books on places to ride in WI and I highly recommend any of them for ideas:
https://books.google.com/books?id=JZ-lSQAACAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks
Good Luck, reach out to me if ya want; and my wife and I are getting back into this summer.
Mark
Manitowish looks to be on the list next. Lady doesn’t have a road bike yet so keeping our daily mileage w the hybrids 40ish miles a day. Boulder junction looks like a perfect jumping off point
Thanks for the info 
Manitowish looks to be on the list next. Lady doesn’t have a road bike yet so keeping our daily mileage w the hybrids 40ish miles a day. Boulder junction looks like a perfect jumping off point
Thanks for the info
Boulder Junction is a nice little town. Stop at Gooches for a cold one. Sayner Pub is a nice spot also. Corner Store for ice cream.
My older boys and I have been out biking as much as we can. Lots of black top trails. Wobegon and Soo line mostly in central MN. Today we headed down to Elk Creek Park in Champlin. There’s 13 miles of dirt. We rode it all and some twice. A good balance of downhill, gravity, some uphill, jumps, berms, and obstacles. Lots of woods with some open prairie type. Lots of fun. Good to do it on a Monday when it wasn’t busy at all.
We’re warming up to hit Cuyuna this coming Saturday if the weather is good. 
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Trail map.
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That’s awesome, nice pics
I just upgraded to a gravel bike that I’m looking forward to hitting the pavement and some dirt with. Love the more open rides, but becoming more curious on the single track stuff.
Rode around pepin last weekend, super cool. Luce line was great, although didn’t get too far out of town. Mesabi is later this summer and cuyuna very well might be my first bike camp I setup for first week of July.
And from my original statement in this thread, I’ve joined the spandex biking community 
I do enjoy a good pavement ride. Especially though some cool rural land. But the feeling of zipping through the woods is second to none. I’ve got a camping trip at Gooseberry State Park in July for a week. There’s 26 miles of the Gitchi Gami paved trail and then planning on hitting some of the Split Rock gravel/rock trails and maybe even the Jackpot trail from Tofte to Lutsen.
Been a big difference maker having boys big enough to do this stuff with. Makes me want to out do them and stay competitive. 
I can’t join the spandex club yet. I took a step towards skinnier riding jogger pants. That’s a big leap already. 
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Hesitant to share this one since it’s already booked almost every weekend but there’s a couple bike in yurts at Glendalough state park. They call them boat in since they’re on the lake but they’re also right on the new paved trail that goes around the lakes in the park and into Battle Lake. Not a ton of paved miles, maybe 10 total, but very cool spot to camp and you can wade out and catch fish right from camp. Yurts are like a two mile ride from the trailhead. We make a point to spend a night or two there every year and our kids still think it’s their own little secret hideout.
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Made it up to Cuyuna today. About a 1.5 hour drive for us. Got there at 8:30, met up with our friends and started peddling. That place is surreal! Trails are numerous and awesome. You can ride them as hard or easy as you like. Lots of great flowing downhill with large berms to attack. Plenty of uphill, rocks, views, and of course the red dirt. We rode just over 23 miles before a bad blown tire that couldn’t get repaired on site. With rain just down the road we packed up and went into Crosby for some eats. We had pizza at Rafferty’s and it was fantastic. Can’t wait to go back up and hit the rest of the trails there.
Rumor was one of the farthest north trails had some trees down from the resent storm but we never got out to that spot. There were lots of bikers out and several large classes and yet there was plenty of room to ride.
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I’m not a biker, but there’s an awesome one by Mont Du Lac Resort called Mission Creek Mountain Bike trails. It’s just outside of Jay Cooke State Park. I’d think you’d like, as well as other trails within Jay Cooke
It has awesome scenery with tons of switch backs and views of the St. Louis River.
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Both those added to the short list, awesome, thanks for sharing
Got the new bike setup w tubeless, got my second set of wheels for fatter rubber so I can hit some of those mtn bike trails as well. Can’t get enough of the scenery in this state, if a guy has to work a lil bit for it all the better
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