How three days actually go

Pack like a bikepacker, or don't

If you want to carry everything yourself, this route rewards it. That's the purest version of the trip and plenty of people do exactly that. If you'd rather not, the rig hauls your gear between every stop. We ask for a donation to Adaptive Adventures when you hand it over, and we haul it either way. Both are correct.

Either way: bring a bike you actually like riding, a tent, a bag, a pad, and whatever makes three days on a river pleasant.

Don't own a bike you'd trust for 90 miles? We have rental partners. Don't own a boat? Don't worry about it. That one's on us.

The kick-off

We rent the whole campground for the night, so your Thursday bed is already sorted. A food truck, a DJ, local beer on tap and plenty that is not beer, and a bike mechanic going properly through everyone's questionable drivetrain. We run the welcome briefing, explain the route, hand out tarot cards, and give out a few awards before anyone has earned anything.

Then you sleep badly out of excitement, like everyone else.

Bring your bike to the mechanic before you need to

He's at the start line on Thursday night and at both transition points. Thursday is the cheap night to discover your rear derailleur has opinions. Saturday morning on a sandbar is the expensive one.

"I found out the night before that the dedicated bike mechanic would fix my brake, but had no idea he would overhaul the whole bike."Karen, 2026

Bike 35 miles, then get in a boat

Ride from Token Creek to the Sauk Prairie canoe launch, by whatever route you like. There's no course and no markers. It's rolling Driftless farmland, not a climb-fest, and there's no start gun either: people leave between 7 and 10 and it makes no difference to anybody.

At the launch you hand us your bike, we hand you a kayak or canoe, and you paddle 20 miles down the Wisconsin River until you find a sandbar you like the look of. Then you camp on it.

Off the river, back on the bike, then stop for the night

You come off the water at the Wisconsin Riverside Resort somewhere between 9am and 4pm, which is a genuine resort with its own sandbars, not a boat ramp: bathrooms, showers, changing rooms, a full restaurant and bar, a mechanic, and your bike exactly where we said it would be. Clean up, eat a real meal, and start riding toward Madison.

Nobody makes it all the way to Madison on Saturday, and nobody's trying to. You pick a route, ride as far as you feel like, and stop for the night: a campground, a hotel, an Airbnb, whatever suits. Blue Mounds is the popular pick and has been for years.

This is where the weekend really splits up. Groups take different roads, chase different hills, and stop at different bars, then keep bumping into each other anyway. Half the stories from any given year come out of Saturday afternoon.

This is the most relaxed stretch of the whole weekend, because by now you know everybody and nobody is in a hurry. There are bars. Historically, they get visited.

The finish line is a party

Finish the ride into Madison, usually a short, smug morning after Saturday's effort, and roll into Working Draft Brewery for DriftyFest at 12pm: live music, food and cold beer from the brewery, and awards for the best costume, the worst decision, and the most creative watercraft.

Your gear is already there. So is your bike. All you have to do is arrive.