Eau Claire’s Bike Trail Trio

I’m in my driveway, packing the car for some business in Eau Claire, where, supposedly, there’s spring. Well into April in northern Minnesota, the snowbanks linger, so I toss the bike in the car and leave home a few hours early. Eau Claire is at the center of a network of three connected bike trails: the Chippewa River, Old Abe, and Red Cedar State Trails. Together, they add up to 83 miles of riding potential.

I park in downtown Eau Claire and turn right onto the Old Abe Trail. The Old Abe is a former train line named after a pet bald eagle from the 19th century. The trail runs 37 miles from downtown Eau Claire to Brunet Island State Park, near the small town of Cornell. During the pandemic, when one of my kids was a toddler, and the other was doing remote learning, we’d traveled a lot and biked to the far end of the Old Abe while camping at Brunet Island. So much had changed, and my kids were stuck in school. I decide to buzz up to Jim Falls to complete the trail.

Twenty-four miles from here and on the west end of the tri-trail network, the Red Cedar State Trail follows its namesake river 15 miles from Menomonie to where it T-bones the Chippewa River State Trail. The Chippewa River State Trail runs between Eau Claire and Durand. The Red Cedar Trail is a gem that I have previously done using a canoe shuttle. The trail traipses through rich bottomlands and farm fields. Of the 76 miles of the three trails, however, surely the span on the Old Abe between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls is the least scenic, simply because that land is urban. The warm weather and sun are making me dumb, though, and instead of turning left to explore the Chippewa River, I set out on the Old Abe for Jim Falls without checking the distance to Jim Falls—it doesn’t look too far on the map. I have five hours to kill. With the sun out and the air warm, I think no distance is too great. I’m wearing shorts and haven’t touched my bike since last year.

The trail starts promisingly, hugging the Eau Claire River. The little river is seething with meltwater and swelling against its banks with muddy brown water. Large standing waves corrugate its surface. This is great! I think. Then the trail crosses the river on a narrow pedestrian bridge and climbs out of the valley, first passing a massive brick factory, formerly called Banbury Place. Banbury Place is funkily reclaimed, with industrial sculptures and exterior murals that include a blue frog wearing a pink cowboy hat, standing on red mushrooms and playing a banjo. The two-million-square-foot factory was built as a tire factory and once churned out 30,000 tires a day. The trail climbs out of town and follows a highway that could be anyplace in the country. The sprawl is dotted with car washes and storage facilities. Commercial enterprises that service people’s possessions seem the ultimate manifestation of high times for consumer society. A roadside sign near a strip club says, “Foster parents needed.” Hard times for some, it seems, but possessions are abundant. The trail is cracked and rough.

Trees in adjacent backyards are growing bright with buds—red fringes on maples and yellow on willows. Cardinals sing brightly. At an intersection between two large roads, a work crew is mowing the grass surrounding a bank, and I smell green grass for the first time. Farther still, new industrial buildings of pre-engineered metal and tip-up concrete rise from the surrounding flatlands, serviced by semi-trucks. One giant metal-sided building flies a monumentally sized flag. It is hard to imagine an uglier building style—maybe Soviet block, which these resemble. The warm air smells of exhaust and marijuana from passing cars.

I cross the Chippewa River on the shoulder of a highway bridge. The river is running high and smooth-blue, its color in contrast to the smaller Eau Claire River. I’m getting farther from town, and the buildings are new or still being built. On one side of the highway, a new medical clinic stands surrounded by fallow field. On the other side of the highway is an agricultural field, brushy with last year’s weeds. An eastern meadowlark is singing from a sign that says, “shovel-ready business park.” Too bad the bird can’t read, to be informed that it should migrate farther.

Across one more highway, and finally, the town ends. The trail angles through a belt of trees between active farm fields. A farmer is working a field in a large green tractor. He honks, which I am pleased to interpret as a friendly greeting. It is, I see, a warning. The tractor is pulling a large trailer carrying liquid manure, which is being sprayed onto the field. The wind is blowing across the field into the bike trail. The smell is quite intense.

The trail, though, is getting good. A long pedestrian bridge crosses Lake Wissota, a dam-created reservoir on the Chippewa. The afternoon is hot, and cool air emanates from the lake beneath. Daylilies are three inches high, and elderberry bushes in the shelterbelt are leafed out with buds soon to blossom. It’s taken me 20 miles to get here, though, and I have to turn around to get back in time. In a pond in the burg of Lake Hallie, spring peepers are singing like crazy. A ragged metal Quonset hut has a sign reading “Fun Guy Mushroom Products.” Near that is Grandma’s Recycling, with the tagline: “Who wouldn’t want to go to grandma’s?”

I arrive back in Eau Claire and regain the path along the pretty Eau Claire River and into downtown. Eau Claire has changed dramatically since I hung out with friends who’d gone to college here. Lush green parks surround the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa Rivers. Being the first hot day of the year, the parks are filled with people, mostly college students. They are fishing in the river, indolently lounging in the grass, and swinging from hammocks between trees. A guy is playing guitar and singing among new-looking sculptures. Across the river, the shining Pablo Center at the Confluence has all the curves, metallic surfaces, and irregular windows of a Frank Gehry building.

The trail through town is glorious as I reach the Chippewa River State Trail, which crosses the river on an old train bridge with a floor of thick boards laid diagonally. The bike trail runs downriver, a wide, smooth asphalt path beneath mature shade trees. When was the last time I saw so many young people reveling in the sun? They are walking, running, lounging, and playing tennis. One solitary guy is practicing nunchucks with a threatening look on his face. Ahead, the trail is flooded by the river, and I stop where water overlaps the trail’s edge. There’s a smell I’d forgotten—the scent of cold living water clotted with sodden pine needles and leaves, with a vague odor of slick-skinned frogs. There’s another pedestrian trail overhead to detour onto, and I follow it, passing a group of girls, one of whom lay in the sun too long and is tomato red. “We should go to Target and get some aloe,” her friend says kindly. In front of a rented house, a group of four college boys is playing a drinking game and slamming beer in their front yard. They’re all shirtless and pale. Biking through campus and in sight of the river, the college marching band has broken into instrument groups, and a quartet of saxophonists is buzzing and swaying with their sneakers anchored in green grass.

Soon I’ll have to turn around to get to my obligation, but I can’t stop yet. The trail is dry again and crosses the river on a neat combination bridge with a pipeline on the bottom and a pedestrian bridge on top. Eau Claire’s ski jump is visible on a hill across the river. The trail ducks under the interstate as it heads out of town, and though I want to continue, I pedal just another mile before turning around.