Goodbye, Lovers Lane

It doesn't look too bad at first ...

Lovers Lane, that beautiful mess of a road around which Cheesehead Roubaix was created, is gone. I visited Lovers Lane yesterday and found it transformed into a drainage ditch. The road was never really suitable for vehicle traffic, and that was part of its charm. Several years ago, the stop sign at Highland Drive fell over. It was never replaced. It was never needed. There was no Lovers Lane sign at either end of the road. Passing motorists had no reason to assume it was anything more than farm access.

but then the big rocks take over.

In October 2020, the Town of Farmington vacated Lovers Lane and annexed it to the adjoining properties. Due to the COVID pandemic, Cheesehead Roubaix didn’t run in 2021. But when we reconvened last spring, we were on private property. I didn’t know it at the time, and it’s a deal breaker now. There are six different private parcels with a property line on what used to be Lovers Lane. It might be possible to obtain permission from all the owners, but I can’t be bothered. I want to continue to use only public roads and park paths. That makes for much easier administration, and it creates a route that you can ride anytime, not just once a year.

For most people, Lovers Lane connected nothing to nothing. It must have been an easier decision for Farmington to give it up than for the neighboring landowners to take it on.

While I am sorry to see Lovers Lane go, I am enthusiastic about the new Cheesehead Roubaix route. It keeps all of the other gravel sectors, moves the mid-ride rest stop deeper into the ride to make it more valuable for most riders, and begins with a fun loop southwest of Newburg that we have never used before.

Please visit the Route Details page at the Cheesehead Roubaix website to download your own copies of the new cuesheet, map, elevation profile, and GPX/FIT files for GPS-enabled navigation devices. And please register at the Facebook event page to ensure adequate provisioning of rest stop goodies.

See you on April 29!