Best Midwest Gravel Biking: The Badger State Trail in Wisconsin

A year ago, Dom and I spent my golden birthday (27 on a 27th!) in Madison, Wisconsin and did some biking – one ride was around the city, and another was on part of the Badger State Trail – a mostly gravel trail south of Madison. Since then, we’ve talked about going up to bike the entirety of the trail, and we finally made it happen last month. We had an amazing day and I would recommend the trail to anyone looking for a calm, gravel ride in the midwest. It’s about 50 miles from the Illinois/Wisconsin state line to Madison, so it’s a great century ride (100 miles) or a good weekend trip – there are a few towns along the way that have hotels or Airbnbs, and it would be easy to stop in Madison for the night.

This post recaps our trip and covers some general planning tips. It was our first gravel day trip, but we’re already looking forward to more – if you have any favorites (especially in the midwest!) let me know in the comments here or send me a message on Instagram.

Table of Contents

About The Badger State Trail

Logistics & Fees

The Badger State Trail is a Rail Trails: it was once railroad that was decommissioned/abandoned and later converted into a gravel trail. There are hundreds of Rail Trails around the US and the longest in the country is Missouri’s Katy Trail – Dom did it last summer over three days. The Badger State Trail runs from the Illinois/Wisconsin border to the southwest end of Madison. It connects to several other trails, so there are a variety of trail combinations that can make the trip shorter or longer:

At the state line of Wisconsin and Illinois, the trail continues into Illinois as the Jane Addams trail. It runs for another 17 miles south, to Freeport, Illinois. The Jane Addams trail then connects to the Pecatonica Prairie Trail, which runs from Freeport to Rockford, Illinois – another 30 miles. We didn’t do this so I don’t know what the trail conditions are like, but I will mention that overall the part of the Jane Addams trail we did seemed less maintained than the Badger State Trail on the Wisconsin side.
At the end on the southwest side of Madison, the Badger State Trail ends at the (aptly named) Southwest Commuter Path. It also intersects with the Cannonball Path. You can take either of these into Madison, depending on where you’re heading. We took the Southwest Commuter Path and it led us into the heart of Madison near the UW-Madison Campus; from where we started near the state line in Orangeville, Illinois, it was about 48 miles.
Part of the Badger State Trail is also the Ice Age Trail. This was a little confusing when I was on different maps, but on the actual trail it was pretty clear – the sign indicated that it was both the Ice Age Trail and the Badger State Trail once we got to that point.
The trail splits in Monticello, WI and instead of continuing on the Badger State Trail, you can take an almost parallel trail to New Glarus, WI – known as America’s Little Switzerland. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard it’s a really cute town.

There is a fee to use the trail – it’s part of the Wisconsin State Park System, so there are fee stations along the trail where you can pay the $5 / person use fee. Alternatively, you can buy your pass online:
https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/parks/admission/trailpass

Trail Terrain and Conditions

The trail itself was mostly crushed gravel. There were a few spots in the more rural areas where the gravel is overgrown a bit in the center of the path, but in those parts there were still two gravel “lanes” for bikers – so it looks a bit like a road that cars drive on. There was one sketchier spot with loose gravel down a short decline and then immediately up an incline (also loose gravel). I believe this was between Monroe, WI and Monticello, WI.

There’s a tunnel that has been out for a few years and is still out, so there’s a detour that takes bikers on Tunnel Rd – it’s between Monticello, WI and Belleville, WI. The tunnel should reopen in the next year or two; it’s currently marked for completion in 2025. This detour was by far the hardest part of the whole trail – there’s a huge climb and a huge descent on Tunnel Rd, so you hit a climb whether you’re going north or south. Other than that detour, the entire trail is really flat since it used to be a railroad – the incline on most rail-trails is hardly noticeable because of that.

Tunnel Rd – detour due to tunnel closure

Unfortunately, there were a lot of big storms on the days leading up to our trip, which led to:

Around 7 trees down on the trail – one was four miles into our trip and was massive, but someone had thankfully chopped it up by the time we were headed back to the car
A few really muddy spots near Belleville – I felt my bike fishtail a bit in some and walked around (in the grass) maybe two of them. They weren’t very long – maybe 6-10 feet each
One flooded 20′ or so section on the way to Madison, but it was dry on our way back
The sidewalk from the parking lot in Orangeville, IL to the Jane Addams trail was very flooded when we got there in the morning, but had also dried up by the time we returned to the car (12 mostly sunny hours later)

My gravel tires are 32mm wide and Dom’s are 38mm; we both use Specialized Pathfinders. I might have felt a little more secure on 38’s in the muddy sections, but the 32’s were fine. I wouldn’t do anything narrower than 32’s. We’ve had great experiences with these tires; we’ve both put hundreds of miles on them and never had a tube pop.

A few miles north of Belleville, the Badger State Trail is completely paved all the way to the southwest part of Madison. There, it connects to the paved Southwest commuter path. The paved sections were noticeably busier than the gravel sections; there were a lot of road bikers that were only using those paved sections closest to Madison..

Planning

Packing

My biking day trip checklist is below; the three things I would emphasize for the Badger State Trail specifically would be bug spray (it got pretty buggy when we stopped for water and snacks), plenty of water since there aren’t a ton of stops off the trail, and plenty of snacks for the same reason. Feel free to save this to your phone or print it for reference, and let me know if there are any other essentials you think I should add.

Timing

We biked slower than we expected to on the Badger State Trail – we were expecting closer to 13mph but ended up at 11.7mph. A lot of this was because of the more congested sections near Madison, as well as because of the wet / muddy sections due to the recent storms. We were glad we started early – by the time we were finishing the ride in the evening, the trail was pretty buggy.

For reference:

100 miles round-trip
Total Elevation gain: 1200-1400 ft (Dom and I had very different readings for some reason?)
Average speed: 11.7mph
Moving time: 8h 34 mins
Total time: 12h 2 mins
Lunch/coffee in Madison: about 2h
Approx 45 mins each way of stops for snacks, drinks, pics, etc.

Stops Along the Badger State Trail

Compared to urban trails, there aren’t a ton of spots to stop along the Badger State Trail. Be sure to have plenty of water with you, especially on hot days – we didn’t have any problems because it was a cooler day (around 70 and cloudy for most of the ride up to Madison, and around 80 and sunny for most of the ride back), but if it had been in the 90’s, we would have gone through our water a lot faster. I usually like to have my two bike water bottles and another large, insulated water bottle (Yeti or Hydroflask) with ice water in my rear rack pack.

I always like to have stop options along the trail; below were the ones that I found. Be sure to check sites or call to get updated hours.

Stops from South (WI / IL border) to North (Madison) on the Badger State Trail:

Monroe, WI: Plenty of options – gas station, McDonalds, Culver’s, etc. near the trail
Monroe, WI: The Bike Haus
Belleville, WI: Local places like Lingonberry Llama (coffee shop), Dam Bar, Borland’s Tavern, and Belleville Ale House should be easy to get to from the trail.
Belleville, WI: Casey’s Gas Station is right off the trail; just have to ride or walk in the grass for a second. We stopped for a Gatorade, water, and ice

Lodging & Parking

Starting in Orangeville

If you want to do a century ride (100 miles) on the Badger State Trail, you can start in Orangeville, IL and ride north all the way to Madison and back. I think our GPS had us at about 98.8 miles when we got back to Orangeville, so we rode around the town for a few minutes to hit 100 miles.

There aren’t any hotels in Orangeville, IL and from my brief search, I also didn’t see any Airbnbs. We decided to stay in Freeport, IL – about 12 miles south of Orangeville. There were about five hotels in Freeport – we stayed at the Hampton Inn which was fine; it was a little older and our room had a bit of a musty smell, but the bed was comfortable and there was plenty of space in our room to put our bikes, which was nice. The elevator was a tight fit, though.

The parking lot in Orangeville was a good size, and had a path leading from the parking lot to the trail. There were a lot of signs about the Jane Addams trail, so it was a good place to start and end the day.

The Hampton Inn in Freeport had space for our bikes

Other Starting Points / Parking Lots

The best place to find out about other parking lots is on the official maps for the Jane Addams Trail and the Badger State Trail – they have the parking lots marked. Also be sure to check the detour / closure pages to make sure they’re all open.

According to the map, the Jane Addams Trail (Illinois side) has parking lots (in order from south to north) in: Freeport, a little north of Freeport, about halfway between Freeport and Red Oak, in Red Oak, in Bella Vista, and in Orangeville.

According to the map, the Badger State Trail (Wisconsin side) had parking lots (in order from south to north) in: Monroe, Monticello, Belleville, near Oregon, and in a few places closer to Madison.

Staying in Rockford

If you’re staying in Rockford and driving over to the trail, it may be difficult to do the entire trail in one day just because it isn’t super close to the trailheads. You could also bike from Rockford to Madison like I said earlier in this post, but since we didn’t do that I’m not sure what the trail conditions are like; it looks like it would add about 47 miles to the ride, so about 145 miles from Rockford to Madison.

We did stop in Rockford for Mod Pizza on our way home to Central Illinois. It was delicious and was worth the 15-20 minute detour; there weren’t many other options on the way home, so that’s something else to think about while planning – make sure you have a planned post-ride food option, make sure it’s open late in case you bike longer than you expect, and have back-up snacks in the car waiting for when you get back.

Places to Visit in Madison

If you bike into Downtown Madison like we did, below are some of my favorite places to go in Madison. We went to Short Stack Eatery and Wonderstate Coffee on this trip, but Ian’s will probably be our stop next year to change things up.

Be sure to bring a bike lock (and don’t forget the key!) if you plan to leave your bike outside at any of your stops.

Coffee:

Downtown across from the Capitol: Wonderstate Coffee
Downton near the Capitol: Ancora Cafe
Southwest of downtown: Lakeside St. Coffee House

Food:

Brunch (downtown): Short Stack Eatery
Pizza (downtown & other locations): Ian’s Pizza
Tacos (downtown): Canteen (great late night / happy hour deals)
Variety (northwest of downtown; on UW-Madison campus): The Terrace / Memorial Union

Lodging:

East of Downtown: Hotel Indigo
West of Downtown: Holiday Inn Express & Suites: Madison Central

Misc:

The Wisconsin State Capitol building (downtown). Consider taking a tour, if you have time.
Bookstore (downtown): Lake City Books
Bookstore/bar/coffee shop (west of downtown): Leopold’s Books Bar Caffe