In the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, I strap on a helmet and start a lengthy bike ride that will take me across the hills and valleys of Monroe County. The ride is surprisingly easy-going—curving through countryside and farmland, the path traverses a millennia-old landscape of topography that narrowly missed being flattened by Ice Age glaciers. As I cycle, I lift my hand to wave to the Amish family rolling by in their horse-drawn carriage. Then, I sneak my hand back into my pack to grab a salty boost from one of my favorite ride snacks: cheese curds.
After all, this is Wisconsin—home to a bike race called the Cheese Wheel Classic, where the winners get a wheel of cheese, and cycling routes that link multiple cheese destinations. Think creameries, pizza farms, and cheese-focused cafés. A slow ride through America’s Dairyland, the nation’s top cheese producer, is my idea of peak wellness.
Mary Derks and her husband, Scott, organize the Swiss Cheese and Spotted Cow bike tour, an annual five-day cycling trip (starting at $1,360 per person) covering up to 60 miles across Wisconsin. Recommended for intermediate riders, the tour is capped at 50 participants, who cycle to hotels and multiple cheese-focused stops along the way. Scott’s favorites are the stops in Monroe and New Glarus that offer Limburger sandwiches, made with rye bread, raw onions, and pungent, intensely savory Limburger cheese. The tour stops at breweries, cheese-making facilities, and dairy farms, including Truttmann Dairy, a farm where past riders even witnessed a calf being born.
Pedal Across Wisconsin and Wilderness Voyageurs are a couple other operators who offer cheese cycling tours in Wisconsin. Across the board, longer bike rides seem to be increasingly popular. Otehlia Cassidy, owner of Madison Eats Food Tours, runs a cheese-focused e-bike tour around Wisconsin’s state capital. She attributes the rise to more travelers seeking communal wellness experiences that also visit private and family-owned businesses. “People are feeling the need to connect and support local economies,” she says, “[especially] in this economy.”
Mary agrees. “It’s not so much riding from point A to point B, but instead, what do I get to see and do along the way?” she says. That, plus “having other like-minded riders to ride with—it’s really about a shared experience and being able to experience a different part of the state or the country.”
Ultimately, bicycling to creameries and cheese makers is as tied into Wisconsin as the state’s history itself. “Wisconsin is so beautiful when you get out of the city, because the roads are old dairy roads,” Cassidy says. Back when milk was delivered in glass bottles, wheelmen (bike riders) joined forces with the dairy industry to lobby for better roads for both improved biking and to prevent the glass bottles from shattering.
The rides are also gentler than other long-distance cycling trips—so you don’t have to be an experienced cyclist to join in. Which is probably ideal for someone who likes to snack on curds while riding.
